Henry James - 34 De Vere Gardens Kensington and Chelsea W8

De Vere Gardens is a street in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensington Garden ...

, London, that in 2015 was considered the fifth most expensive street in England.

Location

The street runs roughly north to south, from

Kensington Road Kensington Road is a section of road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster, London, forming part of the A315 road. It runs along the south edge of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. To the west it becomes ...

to Canning Place, and parallel to

Victoria Road, Kensington Victoria Road is a street in Kensington, London, that in 2015 was considered the most expensive street in the United Kingdom. The street runs north to south from Kensington Road, Kensington High Street in close proximity to Kensington Palace a ...

, which is the most expensive street in England. De Vere Mews lies to the rear of the southern end of the east side of the street, and is entered via Canning Place.

History

Batty's Hippodrome was quickly built in 1851 to coincide with the Great Exhibition just to the east, and occupied most of the land between Victoria Road to the west and

Palace Gate Palace Gate is a street south of Kensington Gardens in London, England. It was previously part of Gloucester Road, and was initially developed in the 1860s. 1a Palace Gate and 10 Palace Gate are both Grade II* listed buildings. The street is ...

to the east, bounded by Kensington Road to the north and Canning Place to the south, apart from a row of houses in Craven Place on Kensington Road, and Canning Cottage, Melville Cottage and Canning Place Mews on Canning Place. After a second season in 1852, the area was largely disused except for a riding school and "hunting ground" run by W. H. Blackman from 1853 to 1874, using Batty's former stables. The freeholder, J. D. Grimwood's had emigrated to Chile, and died in Valparaiso in 1843, and the land passed to his Chilean sons-in-law in trust equally for his seven children. From 1870 the Grimwood children sought to sell the land, but it eventually took an Order of Court to sell the five acres in 1875. The supervising architect was George Barlow Hart, and the main builder was Charles Adams Daw, with other builders, A. F. Taylor and S. A. Cumming. The origin of the name is from the De Vere family, the Earls of Oxford, who owned a substantial part of the ancient manor of Kensington. In December 2015, it was considered to be the fifth most expensive street in England, with an average property price of £7,359,000, according to research from

Lloyds Bank Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the " Big Four" clearing banks. Lloyds Bank is the largest retail bank in Britain, and has an exte ...

, based on

Land Registry Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded (usually with a government agency or department) to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, ...

data.

Notable residents

Henry James 1843 - 1916 writer lived here 1886 - 1902

* Robert Browning, poet, lived there, at least in 1887-89 *

H. Kempton Dyson Herbert William Charles Kempton Dyson, M.I.Struct.E. (1880–1944), known professionally as H. Kempton Dyson, was an English structural engineer, civil engineer, architect, editor and author who specialised in reinforced concrete structures. He ...

(1880–1944), English structural engineer, civil engineer, architect, editor and author, lived and died at no 3. *

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

, novelist (1843-1916), lived at no 34, from 1886 to 1902

References

{{coord, 51.5008, N, 0.1849, W, source:wikidata, display=title Kensington Streets in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea