Kensington Central Library is a Grade II* listed building on Hornton Street and Phillimore Walk, Kensington, London. It was built in 1958–60 by the architect E. Vincent Harris on the site of The Abbey, a Gothic house which had been constructed for a Mr Abbot in 1880 and destroyed by bombing in 1944. It was opened by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother on 13 July 1960. The building was designed in a traditional, English, renaissance-style. There were demonstrations against the project by those who advocated for the building to be in a modern style. The public library is within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and is managed as part of a tri-borough integrated library and archive service, alongside those of

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

and

Hammersmith and Fulham The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham () is a London borough in West London and which also forms part of Inner London. The borough was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham. The bor ...

. On the south side of the library, facing Phillimore Walk, are two statues of a lion and a unicorn, both holding the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom. They were sculpted by William McMillan in order to reflect the "Royal" status of the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

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Grade II* listed buildings in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Libraries in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Buildings by Vincent Harris Buildings and structures completed in 1960 Grade II* listed library buildings {{London-struct-stub