It was during the late 17th century when Kensington began rising to prominence, with William III and Mary II transforming the modest Nottingham House, into Kensington Palace. This was also where Queen Victoria was born, the last sovereign who lived here before the royal court moved to Buckingham Palace. Thanks to the location of Kensington Palace, the neighborhood saw sporadic suburban style development spring up housing the British nobility during the Georgian Era mostly in the 18th century. This consisted of the standard housing of the time for the nobility (Georgian terraced houses built around squares and gardens). Kensington Square and Campden Hill Square are good examples of this. Most of Kensington was built up during the Victorian period with the neighborhood filling in pretty quickly during the 1860s & 1870s. This rapid development was permitted of course by London’s rapidly expanding rail system populated by the City’s growing upper middle class hoping to exit London’s crowded central city. In addition to typical terrace housing from 1860s-1870s, Kensington also saw a good amount of late 19th Century Edwardian housing built characterized by more duplexes, mansion homes, and smaller scale rowhouses. This is most common along the western edges of Kensington.
Kensington really has never lost its luster and remains an extremely affluent area. The area has some of London’s most expensive streets and garden squares. The district’s commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. Several other impressive commercial districts crisscross their way across Kensington including (Gloucester, Old Brompton, Fulham, Kensington Church, and Notting Hill Gate) leaving few Kensington residents further than a 5 minutes walk from a solid biz district. The area around the South Kensington Station is a wonderful commercial node with a small pedestrian block on Thurloe. Just north of here is one of London’s best museum/university districts housing Imperial College London, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Albert Hall, Natural History Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, and Science Museum. The area is also home to many embassies and consulates. From an urban perspective Kensington is a better district thanks to better access to subway lines and stations, better access to large park spaces (Hyde Park and Holland Park) incredible concentration of museums clustered around South Kensington Station and Kensington Garden. But Kensington does have some areas where it should improve. I’d like to see the neighborhood double its density from 20K to 40K residents given how in demand the neighborhood is and how expensive housing in general is in London. Kensington also deserves better bike infrastructure and access to more of the smaller squares and gardens that are reserved for the wealthy.
Click here to view my Kensington Album on Flickr
URBAN STRENGTHS:
* Several solid urban biz districts (i.e. Gloucester, Old Brompton, Fulham, Kensington High, Kensington Church, and Notting Hill Gate).
* South Kensington is a great TOD nod with a plaza space at Exhibition Rd and a pedestrian block on Thurloe.
* Major landmarks include: Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Palace, Royal College of Music, and Nat. History Museum,
* Several great park spaces including Kensington Gardens & Hyde Park, Hollard Gardens, the expansive Brompton Cemetery,
* Solid mid-19th West London architecture. Nice mix of earlier brick Georgian styles, more ornate terraced housing, and cute mew style housing. Also some nice late 19th century Victorian style brick apartments and a good amount of smaller scaled rowhouses and attached townhomes.
* Pretty good tree canopy. Much better than neighboring Chelsea and older West London Districts.
* Decent density at around 22K residents per square mile but lower than older West London and Central London neighborhoods.
* Good metro coverage with 9 stations and 7/8 subway lines but there are still parts of Kensington (around Holland and Fulham rd. that are a pretty long walk from a station).
* Solid recent amenities with the best concentration of clothing, department stores & boutiques along Kensington Rd & Kensington Church St. Also a couple of shopping malls.
* Cultural amenities include numerous museums (including several world renowned ones), several performing arts & live music venues and plenty of food and beverage locals.
* Even with his high concentration of high-end housing about 20% of Kensington’s units are reserved as Social Housing.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* A couple of pretty wide arterials that are borderline stroads (Notting Hill Gate, Kensington High, Holland Rd, and Cromwell Road).
* Not that much mixed-use development outside of the commercial corridors.
* Plenty of intimate gardens and squares but sadly almost all of them are private reserved for the terraced housing that surrounds them.
* Dedicated bike lanes are pretty fragmented.
* Given how in demand this neighborhood is, it should be a lot denser.
Evaluating our Urban Communities [with a focus on America] 