Brompton, sometimes called Old Brompton, survives in name as a ward in the

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (often known by its initialism as RBKC) is an Inner London, Inner London borough with Royal borough, royal status. It is the List of English districts by area, smallest borough in London and the secon ...

in London. Until the latter half of the 19th century it was a scattered village made up mostly of

market garden A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to s ...

s in the county of

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

. It lay southeast of the village of

Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around 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 Kensingt ...

, abutting the parish of

St Margaret's, Westminster The Church of St Margaret, Westminster Abbey is in the grounds of Westminster Abbey on Parliament Square, London, England. It is dedicated to Margaret the Virgin, Margaret of Antioch, and forms part of a single World Heritage Site with the Pal ...

at the hamlet of

Knightsbridge Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End of London, West End. ...

to the northeast, with Little Chelsea to the south. It was bisected by the Fulham Turnpike, the main road westward out of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

to the ancient parish of

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, London, Chelsea ...

and on to

Putney Putney () is an affluent district in southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ...

and

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. It saw its first parish church, Holy Trinity Brompton, only in 1829. Today the village has been comprehensively eclipsed by segmentation due principally to railway development culminating in

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

lines, and its imposition of station names, including

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

and Gloucester Road as the names of stops during accelerated urbanisation, but lacking any cogent reference to local history and usage or distinctions from neighbouring settlements. Brompton has been home to many writers, actors and intellectuals. The Survey of London gives a long list. Its name survives formally to this day, only just, in the shared reference to two of the council's electoral wards called, "Brompton" and "Hans Town".

Definition

Where the old turnpike highway (

Fulham Road Fulham Road is a street in London, England, which comprises the A304 and part of the A308. Overview Fulham Road ( the A219) runs from Putney Bridge as "Fulham High Street" and then eastward to Fulham Broadway, in the London Borough of Hamm ...

) meets today's Thurloe Place and becomes

Brompton Road Brompton Road is a street located in the southern part from Knightsbridge and in the eastern part from Brompton, London, Brompton in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and partly the City of Westminster in London. It starts from ...

is sometimes called ''Brompton Cross''. The old village of Brompton carried on straddling the secondary Brompton Lane, later

Old Brompton Road Old Brompton Road is a major street in the South Kensington district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. It starts from South Kensington tube station, South Kensington Underground station and runs south-west, through a ma ...

, for the whole of its length. In modern terms Old Brompton centred on today's South Kensington tube station, Gloucester Road tube station and their contiguous streets, and continued all the way to West Brompton station, between Earl's Court and

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

-side Chelsea. The historian F.H.W. Sheppard has summarised it thus:

"there was always much traffic on the old turnpike road, which linked London not only with Little Chelsea and Fulham but also (via Putney Bridge) with parts of Surrey as well, and which from 1726 to 1826 was maintained by the Kensington Turnpike Trustees. Anciently, the eastern end of this highway was known indiscriminately as the road to Fulham or the road to Brompton. The name 'Brompton', now used loosely, then applied most precisely to the settlement which lay westwards of what is now South Kensington Station, just off the turnpike road along the lane to Earl's Court. This lane, generally called Brompton Lane or Bell and Horns Lane, diverged from the main road at the Bell and Horns, an inn sited opposite the rompton Oratory where Empire House now stands. After the frontages of Brompton Road nearer London had been built up, the original nucleus of Brompton became known as Old Brompton and Brompton Lane as Old Brompton Road—which name survives today except in the short stretch east of South Kensington Station, where its line is represented by Thurloe Place. Before 1863 therefore, 'Brompton Road' was in general an unofficial term, usually to be construed as meaning the part of the Fulham turnpike road connecting Knightsbridge with Brompton Lane and thus with Old Brompton."

Extent

Brompton's northern neighbours were the hamlets of Kensington Gore, dated but not dead in use, and Knight's bridge, a crossing over the

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe (fluid conveyance), pipe, reinforced concrete or other materia ...

river Westbourne The Westbourne or Kilburn, also known as the Ranelagh Sewer, is a culverted small Tributaries of the River Thames#Tributaries, River Thames tributary in London, rising in Hampstead and Brondesbury Park and which as a drain unites and flows so ...

. As to its old eastern half its administration remains in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a London borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in Greater London, England. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It contains a large par ...

, again due to the tube network it is commonly marked on maps as part of "Knightsbridge" district. Brompton (or very rarely New Brompton) had a jagged north-eastern limit owing to the medieval permanent assignation of Kensington Gore to

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

. According to the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

this has been simplified so that a three-church parish ''Holy Trinity Brompton – St Paul's, Onslow Square and St Augustine's, Queen's Gate'' takes up a SW to WSW radial sector focused on what was for many centuries a geographical point, a bridge, " Knights Bridge (Knightsbridge)", from which Brompton was always narrowly omitted. That point later became a Crossroads for arterial roads, known as " Scotch Corner". Boundaries can be traced in the street network with a few small gaps, clockwise from the north: *Imperial College Road, Ennismore Street, Montpellier Mews (southern straight), Knightsbridge (street), Basil Street, Walton Street,

, Drayton Gardens, and Ashburn, Grenville, Launceston, Kynance and Elvaston Places. West Brompton became overshadowed by Earls Court which overtook its land, but it extended more broadly than is suggested by the above sectors, to have a long border along the hidden

Counter's Creek Counter's Creek, ending in Chelsea Creek, the lowest part of which still exists, was a stream that flowed from Kensal Green, by North Kensington and flowed south into the River Thames on the Tideway at Sands End, Fulham. Its remaining open w ...

, (today's West London line), with the Hammersmith and Fulham borough boundary, then back along the

Cromwell Road Cromwell Road is a major London road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, designated as part of the A4 road (Great Britain), A4. It was created in the 19th century and is said to be named after Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwel ...

/ Queen's Gate through Gloucester Road. The rest of "South Kensington" and Kensington proper, including the first manor, centred on what became a royal palace ( Kensington Palace), instead of simply a manor house, and lay to the north. Chelsea was to the south. Its fragmented existence is commemorated chiefly through four of the places listed below.

History

The first recorded mention of Brompton dates back to 1292. It was a rural area which subsequently attracted attention as the story of developments centred along a turnpike road that ran south westward from London through

Green and horticultural Brompton to Little Chelsea and the ancient parish of

on the banks of the

and thence over Putney Bridge onto the County of Surrey. Brompton Park Nurseries were founded in 1681 by four leading gardeners, led by George London. In the late 18th century, Carey's map of 1787 shows Brompton as a collection of market gardens. A hundred years later, Charles Dickens Jr. (eldest child of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

) wrote in his 1879 book '' Dickens's Dictionary of London'' that "Brompton was at one time almost exclusively the artists' quarter and is still largely frequented by the votaries of the brush and chisel, though of late years

Belgravia Belgravia () is a district in Central London, covering parts of the areas of the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Belgravia was known as the 'Five Fields' during the Tudor Period, and became a dangerous pla ...

has been encroaching upon its boundaries, and Belgravian rents are stealing westward." The village gained its first church in 1829, Holy Trinity Brompton, rapidly incepted a parish. The gradual fragmentation and overshadowing of Brompton was probably due to two factors: the

Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition that took ...

of 1851 and the rapid institutional developments in the area, such as museums and colleges; and the arrival of railway transport. The station built in 1868 on the Metropolitan and

District Railway The Metropolitan District Railway, also known as the District Railway, was a passenger railway that served London, England, from 1868 to 1933. Established in 1864 to complete an " inner circle" of lines connecting railway termini in London, the ...

s to serve the attendant crowds was named

, not "Brompton". A " Brompton Road station" opened in 1906 for the new Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway; lack of passengers forced it to close in 1934. Gloucester Road tube station on the other hand, which had opened 1868, was originally called "Gloucester Road, Brompton", but for simplicity dropped the Brompton from its name. Thus, Brompton ceased to be a place or destination. A nod to Brompton resurfaced in 1866 with Sir John Fowler's "station in the middle of fields", West Brompton station. In 1965 when the historic boroughs of

and Chelsea merged to form one authority, the

College of Arms The College of Arms, or Heralds' College, is a royal corporation consisting of professional Officer of Arms, officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the ...

created for it a new

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

which included its Brompton roots. The crest contains a

broom A broom (also known as a broomstick) is a cleaning tool, consisting of usually stiff fibers (often made of materials such as plastic, hair, or corn husks) attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a ...

bush which represents the link between the two former boroughs' connection with the 'Brompton' ward. The area is now part of the Chelsea constituency. In medieval times Brompton was famous for its gorse fields. The name was a corruption of 'broom tun', meaning a gorse farm. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has confined its "Brompton Conservation Area" to but the small northern part of the historical village of Brompton. the rest of it is partitioned among several other neighbouring conservation areas.

Landmarks "in Brompton"

* Bolton's Theatre Club *

Brompton Cemetery Brompton Cemetery (originally the West of London and Westminster Cemetery) is since 1852 the first (and only) London cemetery to be Crown Estate, Crown property, managed by The Royal Parks, in West Brompton in the Royal Borough of Kensington a ...

* Brompton Fire Station, 1868–1964 at South Parade, (Chelsea) * Brompton Oratory * Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, formerly St. Stephen's Hospital, founded as "St George's Union Infirmary" in 1878. * Church of St Yeghiche, Armenian cathedral, formerly, St Peter's Cranley Gardens, 1866-7 * Deutsche Evangelische Christuskirche in 1904-5 * Fulham Road Jewish Cemetery formerly known as the "Jewish Cemetery, Brompton", opened 1815 * Gloucester Road tube station formerly known as "Gloucester Road, Brompton" *

Goethe-Institut The Goethe-Institut (; GI, ''Goethe Institute'') is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit German culture, cultural organization operational worldwide with more than 150 cultural centres, promoting the study of the German language abroad and en ...

* Grabowski Gallery (1959–1975), former

Avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

art gallery at 84 Sloane Avenue SW3 * Holy Trinity Brompton * Holy Trinity Prince Consort Road in 1899 *

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

* French Institute * Ishmaili Centre * Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle * Michelin House *

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

* Paris Pullman Cinema * Royal Brompton Hospital, formerly known as "Brompton Consumption Hospital" * Royal Marsden Hospital, formerly known as the "New Cancer Hospital" * Royal Society of Sculptors *

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, Industry (manufacturing), industry and Outline of industrial ...

* South Kensington tube station * St Augustine's, Queen's Gate * St Paul's, Onslow Square *

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

* West Brompton station

Notable streets of Brompton

Beauchamp Place Beauchamp Place (pronounced "Beecham Place") is a fashionable shopping street in the Knightsbridge district of London. Previously known as Grove Place until 1885, it has since evolved into a well-known shopping street. It was once better kno ...

* The Boltons * Brompton Place * Brompton Road * Brompton Square * Cranley Gardens *

* Drayton Gardens * Egerton Gardens *

Exhibition Road Exhibition Road is a street in South Kensington, London which is home to several major museums and academic establishments, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum, London, Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, Lon ...

* Fulham Road * Gloucester Road * Hereford Square * Lennox Gardens *

* Onslow Square * Ovington Square * Pont Street * Prince Consort Road * Queen's Gate * Thurloe Square * Walton Street

Nearest places

Brompton and Old Brompton are deemed ''de facto'' obsolete names by the

Tube Tube or tubes may refer to: * ''Tube'' (2003 film), a 2003 Korean film * "Tubes" (Peter Dale), performer on the Soccer AM television show * Tube (band), a Japanese rock band * Tube & Berger, the alias of dance/electronica producers Arndt Rör ...

and

postal system The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sy ...

s: *the eastern part: Brompton Road (and adjuncts) currently subsumed under ''Knightsbridge''. *the central part: subsumed under ''South Kensington'' *the southern part: subsumed under ''Gloucester Road'' whose tube stop dropped "Brompton" from its title, and is either obfuscated as ''South Kensington'' or as ''Chelsea'', depending on usage in Anglican parish boundaries or postal convenience-drawn limits. Gate of Brompton Cemetery on the Old Brompton Road

Gate of Brompton Cemetery on the Old Brompton Road

Chelsea Physic Garden The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries' Garden in London, England, in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines. This four acre physic garden, the term here referring to the scie ...

Royal Hospital Chelsea The Royal Hospital Chelsea is an Old soldiers' home, Old Soldiers' retirement home and nursing home for some 300 veterans of the British Army. Founded as an almshouse — the ancient sense of the word "hospital" — by King Charles II of Eng ...

* Earl's Court * Fulham Broadway * Hyde Park *

Kensington Gardens Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyde Pa ...

* Little Chelsea *

Sloane Square Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the central London districts of Belgravia and Chelsea, London, Chelsea, located southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The area forms a ...

* West Brompton Developers of the

Earls Court Exhibition Centre Earls Court Exhibition Centre was a major international exhibition and events venue in London, England. At its peak it is said to have generated a £2 billion turnover for the economy. It replaced exhibition and entertainment grounds, original ...

, Lillie Bridge Depot and extant Victorian residential streets at West Brompton have given birth to an entity called, "West Brompton Crossing" to refer to the '' pop-up retail'' currently occupying the John Young condemned buildings, in the vicinity of Lillie Bridge (Fulham) and West Brompton station.

Notable people

* Muzio Clementi (1752–1832), Italian-born composer, pianist and influential pedagogue lived in Brompton Grove *

William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780 ...

(1759–1833), English politician, philanthropist and

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was Kingdom of France, France in 1315, but it was later used ...

* George Canning (1770–1827), British Tory politician, lived in the area in at least 1809 * Caroline Clive (1801–1873), English writer * Henry Cole (1808–1882), civil servant, activist, inventor, started the idea of the Christmas card * Jenny Lind (1820–1887), Swedish opera singer lived in Bolton Place * W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911), dramatist and

librettist A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major ...

lived in Harrington Gardens * Nicky Gumbel vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton *

Edmund Halswell Edmund Storr Halswell (28 February 1790 – 1 January 1874), born Edmund Storr Haswell, was an English barrister. He came to New Zealand on behalf of the New Zealand Company and lived there from March 1841 to April 1845, and held some official p ...

QC (1790–1874), barrister of Gore Lodge, Old Brompton * Nicky Lee (priest) associate vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton *

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...

(1842–1898), French poet * Sandy Millar Vicar, Holy Trinity Brompton (1985–2005) * Amy Louisa Rye (1851–unknown), English writer and social reformer *

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials ...

(1869–1944), Anglo-Irish architect * Norman Whitten (1885–1969), English early film actor, director and producer *

Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving ...

(1890–1976), English crime writer lived at Cresswell Place * Mervyn Peake (1911–1968), English writer, poet and illustrator lived in Drayton Gardens *

Rosalind Franklin Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer. Her work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal ...

(1920–1958), British chemist and X-ray crystallographer who made a ground-breaking contribution to the understanding of the molecular structures of

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...