Kensington is an area 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 ...

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 ...

, around west of

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning the City of London and several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local gove ...

. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by

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 ...

, containing the Albert Memorial, the

Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Westminster, Greater London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Galler ...

and Speke's monument.

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 are home to

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 ...

, the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

, the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

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 ...

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 ...

, and

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 ...

. The area is also home to many embassies and consulates.

Name

The manor of ''Chenesitone'' is listed in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086, which in the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

language means "Chenesi's

ton Ton is any of several units of measure of mass, volume or force. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. As a unit of mass, ''ton'' can mean: * the '' long ton'', which is * the ''tonne'', also called the ''metric ...

" (homestead/settlement). One early spelling is ''Kesyngton'', as written in 1396.

History

The manor of Kensington, 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 ...

, was one of several hundred granted by King

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

(1066–1089) to

Geoffrey de Montbray Geoffrey de Montbray (died 1093), also known as Montbrai, Mowbray or Geoffrey of Coutances, was a Normans, Norman nobleman, :wikt:secular, secular prelate, warrior and administrator who was Bishop of Coutances from 1049 to 1093. He was an adviser ...

(or Mowbray), Bishop of Coutances in Normandy, one of his inner circle of advisors and one of the wealthiest men in post- Conquest England. He granted the tenancy of Kensington to his follower Aubrey de Vere I, who was holding the manor from him as

overlord An overlord in the English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or ...

in 1086, according to the

. The bishop's heir, Robert de Mowbray, rebelled against King William II and his vast

feudal barony A feudal baron is a vassal holding a heritable fief called a ''barony'', comprising a specific portion of land, granted by an overlord in return for allegiance and service. Following the end of European feudalism, feudal baronies have largely bee ...

was forfeited to the Crown. Aubrey de Vere I thus became a

tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, a tenant-in-chief (or vassal-in-chief) was a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them ...

, holding directly from the king after 1095, which increased his status in feudal England. He granted the church and an estate within the manor to

Abingdon Abbey Abingdon Abbey (formally Abbey of Saint Mary) was a Order of St. Benedict, Benedictine monastery in Abingdon-on-Thames in the modern county of Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. Situated near to the River Thames, it was founded in 675 AD and was ...

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

, at the deathbed request of his eldest son Geoffrey. As the de Veres became Earls of Oxford, their principal manor at Kensington came to be known as Earl's Court, as they were not resident in the manor, and their manorial business was not conducted in the

great hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages. It continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great cha ...

of a

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

but in a courthouse. In order to differentiate it, the new sub-manor granted to Abingdon Abbey became known as ''Abbot's Kensington'' and the church '' St Mary Abbots''. The original Kensington Barracks, built at Kensington Gate in the late 18th century, were demolished in 1858 and new barracks were built in Kensington Church Street.

Geography

The focus of the area is Kensington High Street, a busy commercial centre with many shops, typically upmarket. The street was declared London's second best shopping street in February 2005 due to its wide range and number of shops. However, since October 2008 the street has faced competition from the Westfield shopping centre in nearby White City. Kensington's second group of commercial buildings is at

, where several streets of small to medium-sized shops and service businesses are situated close to South Kensington tube station. This is also the southern end of

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 ...

, the thoroughfare which serves the area's museums and educational institutions. The boundaries of Kensington are not well-defined; in particular, the southern part of Kensington has conflicting and complex borders with Chelsea (another ancient manor) whether electoral or postal definitions are used, and has similar architecture. To the west, a border is clearly defined by the line of the Counter Creek marked by the West London railway line. To the north, the only obvious border line is Holland Park Avenue, to the north of which is the district of Notting Hill (another ancient manor), usually classed as within "North Kensington". In the north east is situated the large public Royal Park of

(contiguous with its eastern neighbour, Hyde Park). The other main green area in Kensington is

Holland Park Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that lies within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and largely surrounds its namesake park, Holland Park. Colloquially referred to as 'Millionaire's Row', ...

, on the north side of the eastern end of Kensington High Street. Many residential roads have small communal garden squares, for the exclusive use of the residents. The sub districts of Kensington:

and Earl's Court also consist largely of private housing. North Kensington and West Kensington are largely devoid of features to attract the visitor. Location map Kensington

Kensington is, in general, an extremely affluent area, a trait that it shares with Chelsea, its neighbour to the south. The area has some of London's most expensive streets and garden squares, and at about the turn of the 21st century the Holland Park neighbourhood became particularly high-status. In early 2007 houses sold in Upper Phillimore Gardens, immediately east of

, for over £20 million. Brompton is another definable area of Kensington. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea forms part of the most densely populated local government district in the United Kingdom. This high density has come about through the subdivision of large mid-rise Georgian and Victorian terraced houses (generally of four to six floors) into flats. The less-affluent northern extremity of Kensington has high-rise residential buildings, while this type of building in the southern part is only represented by the

Holiday Inn Holiday Inn by IHG is a chain of hotels based in Atlanta, Georgia and a brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts. The chain was founded in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson (1913–2003), who opened the first location in Memphis, Tennessee. The chain was a division ...

's London Kensington Forum Hotel in

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 ...

, a 27-storey building. Notable attractions and institutions in Kensington include Kensington Palace in Kensington Gardens, the

opposite the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, the

, the

Heythrop College Heythrop College, University of London, was a constituent college of the University of London between 1971 and 2018, last located in Kensington Square, London. It comprised the university's specialist faculties of philosophy and theology with soc ...

, Imperial College, the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

, and Kensington and Chelsea College. The Olympia Exhibition Hall is just over the western border in West Kensington.

Administration

Kensington is administered within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and lies within the

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 ...

parliamentary constituency.

Media sector

The head office of newspaper group

DMGT Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is a British multinational media conglomerate, the owner of the ''Daily Mail'' and several other titles. The 4th Viscount Rothermere is the chair and controlling shareholder of the company. The head office i ...

is located in Northcliffe House off Kensington High Street in part of the large Barkers department store building. In addition to housing the offices for the DMGT newspapers ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

'', '' Mail on Sunday'' and '' Metro'', Northcliffe House also accommodates the offices of the newspapers owned by Evgeny Lebedev: ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', ''

The Independent on Sunday ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'', and the ''

Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...

''.Ponsford, Dominic.
Sharing with Mail 'will safeguard future of Independent'
" ''

Press Gazette ''Press Gazette'', formerly known as ''UK Press Gazette'' (UKPG), is a British trade magazine dedicated to journalism and the press. First published in 1965, it had a circulation of about 2,500 before becoming online-only in 2013. Published wit ...

''. 28 November 2008. Retrieved 6 September 2011. "Under a deal signed today, the Independent titles will share back office functions with the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro and Evening Standard at Northcliffe House in Kensington." The ''i'' newspaper, sold to Johnston Press in 2016, is still produced from offices in Northcliffe House. Most of these titles were for many decades produced and printed in

Fleet Street Fleet Street is a street in Central London, England. It runs west to east from Temple Bar, London, Temple Bar at the boundary of the City of London, Cities of London and City of Westminster, Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the Lo ...

in the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

. The building also houses Lebedev's TV channel London Live, with its news studio situated in part of the former department store, using St Mary Abbots church and Kensington Church Street as live backdrop.

Transport

Kensington is crossed east–west by three main roads, the most important of which is the A4 ''Cromwell Road'' which connects it to

on the east and to

Hounslow Hounslow ( ) is a large suburban district of West London, England, west-southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hounslow, and is identified in the London Plan as one of the 14 metropolitan cen ...

and

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...

on the west. Parallel to the north is Kensington Road (of which Kensington High Street forms the eastern part), linking central London and Hammersmith and

to the area. To the south is Fulham Road, which connects South Kensington with

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 ...

to the south-west. North-south connections are not as well-developed and there is no obvious single north–south route through the area. Kensington is well served by

public transport Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whic ...

. Most of Kensington is served by three stations in the Travelcard Zone 1: High Street Kensington, Gloucester Road and

. All three are served by the Circle line which connects them to London's railway terminals. The

District line The District line is a London Underground line running from in the east and Edgware Road tube station (Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines), Edgware Road in the west to in west London, where it splits into multiple branches. One br ...

also serves all three stations, albeit on different branches; it links the latter two 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, ...

and the

City A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

. The Piccadilly line also links South Kensington and Gloucester Road to the West End in about 10 minutes, and in the other direction to

Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district in West London, split between the London Borough of Hounslow, London Boroughs of Hounslow and London Borough of Ealing, Ealing. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist Wi ...

Ealing Ealing () is a district in west London (sub-region), west London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. It is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Pl ...

and

in around 20–40 minutes, depending on the area of choice. In addition Kensington (Olympia) in Travelcard Zone 2 serves the western part of Kensington, with District line trains to Earl's Court and High Street Kensington. Nearby West Kensington station takes its name from the former boundaries with Hammersmith and is not in the Borough. A number of local bus services link Kensington into the surrounding districts, and key hubs are Kensington High Street and South Kensington station. These bus services were improved in frequency and spread from 2007 until 2010 when the western extension of the

London congestion charge The London congestion charge is a fee charged on most cars and motor vehicles being driven within the Congestion Charge Zone (CCZ) in Central London between 7:00am and 6:00pm Monday to Friday, and between 12:00noon and 6:00pm Saturday and Su ...

area existed (which required drivers of cars and vans during the charging hours Monday-Friday to pay a daily fee of £8). In 2020 a temporary cycle lane on Kensington High Street caused a nationwide media stir. The temporary cycle lane was installed by the local council in September 2020 with £700,000 in funding from central government grants, but it was removed in December 2020.

Sports

Kensington has one football team, Kensington Borough F.C., which currently plays in the

Combined Counties Football League The Combined Counties Football League is a regional men's Association football, football league in south-eastern England with members in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and the wester ...

Notable people

* Renée Asherson (1915–2014), actress * Shaun Bailey, Baron Bailey of Paddington (born 1971), politician and former journalist * Jeremy Bamber (born 1961), convicted mass murderer * Ivan Berlyn (1867–1934), film and stage actor * Antonia Bird (1951–2013), film director * Howard Blake (born 1938), composer, conductor and pianist *

Betty Boo Alison Moira Clarkson (born 6 March 1970), better known as Betty Boo, is a British Singing, singer, songwriter and Rapping, rapper. She first came to mainstream prominence in the late 1980s following a collaboration with the Beatmasters on th ...

(born 1970), singer and songwriter * Frank Boys (1918–2003), first-class cricketer * Les Champelovier (1933–2023), amateur footballer * Lady Sarah Chatto (born 1964), member of the British royal family * George Cohen (1939–2022), professional footballer * Frank Cadogan Cowper (1877–1958), artist * Daniel Day-Lewis (born 1957),

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

-winning actor * Dido (born 1971), singer and songwriter * Carmen Ejogo (born 1973), actress and singer *

Evangeline Florence Evangeline Florence (12 December 1867 – 1 November 1928) was an American-born soprano who built a successful concert career in Great Britain. Early life Born as Florence Angeline Houghton in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the daughter of Julia Mari ...

(1867–1928), soprano * Justine Frischmann (born 1969), musician * Percival Gale (1865–1940), cricketer *

Michael Gove Michael Andrew Gove, Baron Gove (; born Graeme Andrew Logan, 26 August 1967) is a British politician and journalist who served in various Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet positions under David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rish ...

(born 1967), Scottish journalist and politician * Carey Harrison (born 1944), novelist and dramatist * Natasha Hausdorff (born 1989), barrister, international law commentator, and Israel advocate * Mary Headlam (1873–1959), artist * Tom Holland (born 1996), actor * William Leach (1883–1969), first-class cricketer * Rotha Lintorn-Orman (1895–1935), fascist activist * Montague MacLean (1870–1951), cricketer *

Freddie Mercury Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter who achieved global fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen (band), Queen. Regarded as one of the gre ...

(1946–1991), frontman of the British rock band

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

Jimmy Page James Patrick Page (born 9 January 1944) is an English musician and producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the Rock music, rock band Led Zeppelin. Page began his career as a studio session musician in Lo ...

(born 1944), guitarist of the British rock band

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1968. The band comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones (musician), John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham. With a he ...

* Una-Mary Parker (1930–2019), journalist and novelist * Frank de Pass (1887–1914), officer in the British Indian Army, recipient of the Victoria Cross * Reginald Popham (1892–1975), cricketer and footballer * Sir John Richard Robinson, journalist and editor * Christopher Stanger-Leathes (1881–1966), rugby union international * Jason Vale (born 1969), lifestyle coach and author * Frank Ward (1888–1952), first-class cricketer * Frank Westerton (1866–1923), stage and silent-film actor * Dennis Wise (born 1966), footballer and manager

References

Notes

External links

* * {{Authority control Areas of London Districts of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Places formerly in Middlesex

Name

History

Geography

Administration

Media sector

Transport

Sports

Notable people

See also

References

Notes

Further reading

External links