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Thistle-grove is said to indicate the site of what once was Brompton-heath. The Hogmore, or Hogmire-lane,
of the old maps, corresponds fairly well in position with the existing Gloucester-road.
The Brompton cemetery at the south-western extremity of Kensington is of comparatively
recent date, it was consecrated in 1840, and the museums of the south-eastern portion of the parish
are of still more modern origin. This last-named part of Kensington is now called not Brompton but
"South Kensington," and contains what Loftie calls the "new quarter of fashionable houses," with it may
be added the accompanying mews. Towards the northern boundary of the southern division of
Kensington, Faulkner's map marks a number of places whose history is minutely detailed by him,
and which are also referred to by Leigh Hunt in "The Old Court Suburb." Such are Gore-lane,
adjoining the old Gore House, once inhabited by Wilberforce, and later the scene of the celebrated
gatherings of Lady Blessington, in which Landor and Thomas Moore were the "leaders among the
poets, and Prince Louis Napoleon at the head of the exiles." Hard by stood the house in which
Wilkes lived and in which "Junius" was received by him; Kensington House, visited by Dr. Johnson;
the house which Cobbett occupied; Kensington-square, in which lived Talleyrand and James Mill,
and which is associated with Thackeray's Esmond; and Edward's-square*, in which Mrs. Inchbald it
is said, may have often been seen, and in which it is presumed that Coleridge once lodged.
Kensington, in the time of Leigh Hunt, was, as he supposed, free "from everything repulsive
to the consideration (unless it be one hidden spot, which the new improvements will remove)." This
spot appears to have been the famous Jennings'-buildings, for we read elsewhere ('in The Old Court
Suburb) of "poor Irish people hanging about at the corner of the first turning on the left hand" on
first entering High-street, and it is stated that these persons look like "people from the old broken up
establishment of St. Giles' and probably are so, a considerable influx from the llookery in that quarter
having augmented the Rookery in this," and so on. Leigh Hunt anticipated that Kensington would not
long allow this "ugly blemish on its beauty" to remain. Curiously enough he says nothing of what
it will be seen must already in his time have been another "ugly blemish," the potteries district in
north-west Kensington.
Turning now to the central of the three divisions already mentioned, Faulkner's map here
shows of course Holland House, also Phillimore-place where Sir David Wilkie lived, Campden House,
the seat of Lord Campden, once inhabited by the Princess of Denmark (afterwards Queen Anne) and
her son the Duke of Gloucester, the grounds of which are now being covered with blocks of "Hats";
further, there is the old church, not the modern one which only dates from 1869, and there are the
houses about Church-lane, including no doubt that once occupied by Sir Isaac Newton. As Leigh
Hunt remarks, there is probably "not an old house in Kensington in which some distinguished person
has not resided, during the reigns in which the court was held there."
Of the three divisions the northern is of most modern development. Rocque and Faulkner
both depict Kensington gravel pits,-f the district bordering upon the Uxbridge-road where it enters at
the eastern boundary of Kensington, noted as a health resort and said to be a "favourite residence of
artists "early in the present century. Faulkner shows, too, Portobello Farm with the lane leading to
it, a few houses at Kensal-green, Notting Barns Farm and Green's-lane near the site of the Princesroad
of to-day. In this locality stood Norland House in which was the famous over-flowing well
discussed by Faulkner, indeed the merits of the water of this neighbourhood are said to have determined
its becoming famous for the laundries which persist to the present day. Hard by in 1837 was
established the Hippodrome, a racecourse some two miles and a half in circuit, the fame of which is
still commemorated by Hippodrome-place. All this portion of the northern division in the time of
Faulkner was grass land, and he says "the whole of this district appears to have undergone but little
alteration in respect to culture and division of the land for several ages; although the distance from
London is scarcely three miles, yet the traveller may imagine himself to be embosomed in the most
sequestered part of the country, and nothing is heard to interrupt the course of his meditations but
the notes of the lark, the linnet, or the nightingale." It is interesting to compare with this passage
the following from the Registrar-General's cholera report of 1849, (p. 60), i.e., 29 years later,—
"On July 28th, at the Potteries, Kensington, the son of a tile maker died of cholera in 42 hours;
this death was attributed by the medical attendant to the malaria arising from a pond of stagnant water
called 'the Ocean,' a receptacle of dead animals and filth of all descriptions, and into which the adjacent
piggeries and privies have been drained for the last 20 years."‡
Again the Potteries are referred to (loc. ext.) —
"The most unhealthy place in this district; it may be almost considered a village of pig feeders,
without drains, and surrounded on all sides with stagnant pools of water."
In the following year the locality was thus referred to in "Household Words," 10th August,
1850—
"It comprises some seven or eight acres with about 260 houses (if the term can be applied to such
hovels), and a population of 900 or 1,000. The occupation of the inhabitants is principally pig fattening;
many hundreds of pigs, ducks and fowls are kept in an incredible state of filth. Dogs abound for the
purpose of guarding the swine. The atmosphere is still further polluted by the presence of fat boiling.
In these hovels, discontent, dirt, filth and misery are unsurpassed by anything known, even in Ireland.
Water is supplied to only a small portion of the houses. There are foul ditches, open sewers, and
defective drains, smelling most offensively and generating large quantities of poisonous gases; stagnant
water is found at every turn. Not a drop of clean water can be obtained. The medical officers have
*So named in "Diagrams of the parish of St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington," published in 1847. This is
of course the present Edwardes-square.
†Leigh Hunt nays the gravel pits "comprehended all the north and north-western side of Kensington
lying between Notting-hill, Bayswater, Holland House, the Church and the Palace."
‡From the annual report for 1857 of Mr. Godrich, then medical officer of health.it appears that "more
than half the mortality from this disease (cholera) in Kensington district in 1849 occurred in the Potteries and
Jennings'-buildings."