ornamental terra-cotta mouldings. They stand just about the place where
once was Kensington House, which had something of a history. It was for
a while the residence of the Duchess of Portsmouth (Louise de
Querouaille), and later was the school of Dr. Elphinstone, referred to
in Boswell's "Life of Johnson," and supposed, on the very slightest
grounds, to have been the original of one of Smollett's brutal
schoolmasters in "Roderick Random"; though the driest of pedagogues,
Elphinstone was the reverse of brutal. The house was subsequently a
Roman Catholic seminary, and then a boarding-house, where Mrs. Inchbald
lodged, and in which she died in 1821.
Close by was another old house, made notorious by its owner's
miserliness; this man, Sir Thomas Colby, died intestate, and his fortune
of £200,000 was divided among six or seven day labourers, who were his
next of kin. A new Kensington House was built on the site of these two,
and is said to have cost £250,000, but its owner got into difficulties,
and eventually the costly house was pulled down, and its fittings sold
for a twentieth part of their value. Near at hand are De Vere Gardens,
to which Robert Browning came in June, 1887, from Warwick Crescent.
Further eastward we come to Palace Gate. Some of this property belongs
to the local charities. It is known as Butts Field Estate, and was so
called from the fact that the butts for archery practice were once set
up here.
KENSINGTON GARDENS AND PALACE.
The Gardens are so intimately connected with the Palace that it is
impossible to touch upon the one without the other, and though Leigh
Hunt caustically remarked that a criticism might be made on Kensington
that it has "a Palace which is no palace, Gardens which are no gardens,
and a river called the Serpentine which is neither serpentine nor a
river," yet in spite of this the Palace, the Gardens, and the river
annually give pleasure to thousands, and possess attractions of their
own by no means despicable. The flower-beds in the gardens nearest to
Kensington Road are beautiful enough in themselves to justify the title
of gardens. This is the quarter most patronized by nursemaids and their
charges. There are shady narrow paths, also the Broad Walk, with its
leafy overarching boughs resembling one of Nature's aisles, and the
Round Pond, pleasant in spite of its primness. The Gardens were not
always open to the public, but partly belonged to the palace of
time-soiled bricks to which the public is now also admitted.
The first house on this site of which we have any reliable detail is
that built by Sir Heneage Finch, the second of the name, who was Lord
Chancellor under Charles I. and was created Earl of Nottingham in 1681,
though it is probable that there had been some building on or near the
same place before, possibly the manor-house of the Abbot. The first Earl
of Nottingham had bought the estate from his younger brother, Sir John,
and it was from his successor, the second earl, that William III. bought
Nottingham House, as it was then called.
William suffered much from asthma, and the gravel pits of Kensington
were then considered very healthy, and combined the advantages of not
being very far from town with the pure air of the country. Of course,
the house had to be enlarged in order to be suitable for a royal
residence, but it was not altogether demolished, and there are parts of
the original Nottingham House still standing, probably the south side of
the courtyard, where the brick is of a deeper shade than the rest. King
William's taste in the matter of architecture knew no deviation; his
model was Versailles, and as he had commissioned Wren to transform the
Tudor building of Hampton into a palace resembling Versailles, so he
directed him to repeat the experiment here. The long, low red walls,
with their neat exactitude, speak still of William's orders; a building
of heterogeneous growth, with a tower here and an angle there, would
have disgusted him: his ideal would have found its fulfilment in a
modern barrack. Wren's taste, later aided by the lapse of time, softened
down the hard angularity of the building, but it can in no sense be
considered admirable. Thus Kensington Palace was built, and its walls
and its park like gardens were to be as closely associated with the
Hanoverian Sovereigns as the building and park of St. James's had been
associated with the Stuarts whom William had supplanted.
The Palace was not finished when Queen Mary was seized with small-pox
and died within its walls, leaving a husband who, though narrow and
austere, had really loved her. He himself died at Kensington eight years
later. Good-hearted Queen Anne, whose last surviving child had died two
years before, took up her residence at the Palace, of which she was
always extremely fond. The death of her husband in 1708 left her to a
lonely reign, and she seems to have solaced herself with her garden,
superintending the laying out of the grounds. She had no taste, and
everything she ordered was dull and formal; yet she could not spoil the
natural beauty of the situation, and she still had Wren to direct her
in architectural matters. The great orangery which goes by her name, and
now stands empty and forlorn, is seen on nearing the public entrance to
the state apartments of the Palace, and is in itself a wonderful example
of Wren's genius for proportion. The private gardens of the Palace must
not be confounded with the larger grounds, which stretched up to Hyde
Park. The whole place had a very different aspect at that time: there
were King William's gardens, with formal flower-beds and walks in the
Dutch style, and northward lay Queen Anne's additional gardens, very
much in the same style. The rest was comparatively uncared-for and
waste. Queen Anne died at Kensington from apoplexy, brought on by
over-eating, and was succeeded by the first George, who spent so much of
his time in visiting his Hanoverian dominions that he had not much left
for performing the merely necessary Court duties at St. James's, and
none to spare for any lengthy visits to Kensington. However, he admired
the place, and caused alterations to be made. It was in his reign that
the ugly annexe on the east side, bearing unmistakably a Georgian
origin, was added, under the superintendence of William Kent, who had
supplanted Wren. George's daughter-in-law, "Caroline the Illustrious,"
loved Kensington, and has left her impress on it more than any other
occupant. When her husband came to the throne, she spent much of her
time, during his long absences abroad, at the Palace. She employed Kent
to do away with William's formal flower-beds, and she added much ground
to the Gardens, taking for the purpose 100 acres from Hyde Park, and
dividing the two parks by the Serpentine River, formed from the pools in
the bed of the Westbourne. There were eleven pools altogether, but in
later days, when the Westbourne stream had become a mere sewer, in which
form it still flows underground and empties itself into the Thames near
Chelsea Bridge, the Chelsea waterworks supplied the running water. The
elaborate terrace, with its fountains at the north end, is a favourite
place with children. The statue of Sir William Jenner stands near; it
was brought from Trafalgar Square. In winter, when frozen over, the
Serpentine affords skating-room for hundreds of persons, and at other
times bathing is permitted in the early morning.
In her gardens the fair Queen walked with her bevy of maids of honour,
that bevy which has always been renowned for its beauty, herself the
fairest of all. These fascinating, light-hearted girls grew up in an age
of coarseness and vice, and were surrounded by temptation, which all,
alas! did not resist, in spite of their royal mistress's example and
courage. It was an age of meaningless gallantry and real brutality; the
high-flown compliment and pretended adoration covered cynical intention
and unabashed effrontery. Caroline herself preserved an untainted name,
and her influence must have been a rock of salvation to the giddy,
laughing girls. Leigh Hunt, quoting from the "Suffolk Correspondence,"
thus summarizes these maids: "There is Miss Hobart, the sweet tempered
and sincere (now become Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk); Miss
Howe, the giddiest of the giddy (which she lived to lament); Margaret
Bellenden, who vied in height with her royal mistress; the beautiful
Mary Bellenden, her sister, who became Duchess of Argyll; Mary Lepel,
the lovely, who became Lady Hervey; and Anne Pitt, sister of the future
Lord Chatham, and as 'like him as two drops of fire.'"
Caroline's devotion to her insignificant little lord and master, and the
eagerness with which she hastened on foot to meet him, running across
the Gardens, on his return from the Continent, have been made the
subject of satire. She was generally accompanied by her five daughters,
a pathetic little band, cramped in the fetters of royalty, so stringent
toward their sex. Portraits of two of them may be seen in the Palace.
Caroline did not die at Kensington, though her husband did, after having
survived her more than twenty years, and having in the meantime
discovered her inestimable worth. At this time the Gardens were open to
the public on Saturdays by Queen Caroline's orders, and were a favourite
parade, though, as everyone was requested to appear in "full dress," the
numbers must have been limited. The principal promenade was the Broad
Walk, which Caroline herself had caused to be made. We can picture these
ghosts of the past, with their gay silks and satins, the silver-buckled
shoes with coloured heels, the men in their long waistcoats, heavily
skirted coats, and three-cornered hats--very fine beaux, indeed; and the
women stiffly encased in the most uncomfortable garments that ever the
wit of mortal devised, holding their heads erect, lest the marvellous
pyramids, built up with such expenditure of time and money, should
topple over, and, in spite of all disadvantages, looking pretty and
piquant. It was a crowd not so far removed from us by time, so that we
can attribute to the men and women who composed it the same feelings and
sensibilities as our own. And yet they were very far removed from us in
their surroundings, for many of the things that are to us commonplace
would have been to them miraculous, so that they seem more different
from us of a hundred years later than from those who preceded them by
many hundreds of years. It is this mingling of a life we can
understand, with circumstances so different, that gives the eighteenth
century its predominant and never-dying charm.
In 1798 we hear of a man being accidentally shot while the keepers were
hunting (presumably shooting) foxes in Kensington Gardens.
In the Palace itself the state apartments are now open to the public
every day of the week except Wednesdays. This admittance was granted by
Queen Victoria in commemoration of her eightieth year. Previously to
this time the Palace had been allowed to fall into decay, and it needed
a large grant from Parliament to put it into repair again. The state
rooms, which are on the second floor, are well worth a visit, and the
names of each, such as "Queen Mary's Gallery," "Queen Caroline's
Drawing-room," and "King's Privy Chamber," are above the doors, as at
Hampton Court. These rooms are nearly all liberally supplied with
pictures, many of which were restored from Hampton Court after having
been previously taken there. We see here the winsome face of the poor
little Duke of Gloucester (p. 72), handsome Queen Caroline, sardonic
William, and the family group of the children of Frederick, Prince of
Wales. The selection has been made with judgment, and every picture
speaks to us of the reigns most closely connected with the Palace. It is
well to note the view eastward from the King's Drawing-room, which
comes as a surprise. The outlook is over the Round Pond and down a vista
of trees to the Serpentine, and gives a surprising effect of distance.
The rooms that will always attract most attention, however, are those
which were occupied by Queen Victoria as a child.
When the Duke and Duchess of Kent came to Kensington Palace seven months
after their marriage, the fact that a child of theirs might occupy the
English throne was a possibility, but a remote one. George III. was then
on the throne; the daughter and only child of his eldest son, Princess
Charlotte, had died a year previously, and it was natural that after
this event the succession should be considered in a new light. The next
son, William, Duke of Clarence, had carried on a lifelong connection
with Mrs. Jordan, by whom he had ten children, and when the death of his
elder brother's only child made him heir to the throne, it was necessary
for him to contract a more suitable alliance, so with great reluctance
he married Adelaide, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen, in
1818. Frederick, Duke of York, the next in age, had been married for
many years, but his union had proved childless. He is the Duke
commemorated in the column in Waterloo Place, and also in the
soldier-boys' school at Chelsea.
Therefore the birth of a daughter to the Duke of Kent, the fourth son,
at Kensington Palace on May 24, 1819, was an event of no small
importance. The room in which the Princess was born was one on the first
floor, just below the King's Privy Chamber, and it is marked by a brass
plate. This is not among the state apartments shown to the public, but
the little room called the Nursery, in which the young Princess played,
and her small bedroom adjoining, lie in the regular circuit made by
visitors through the rooms.
The Duke died less than a year after his daughter's birth, so there were
no small brothers or sisters to share the Princess's childhood; but her
stepsister, Princess Feodore, her mother's child, was much attached to
her, and might often be seen walking or driving with her in the Gardens.
The Nursery has a secondary association, for the Duke and Duchess of
Teck lived for some time at Kensington Palace, and it was in this room
that their daughter, the present Princess of Wales, was born.
The chief objects in the room are the dolls' house and other toys, all
of the plainest description, with which Princess Victoria played as a
child. There was no extravagance in her bringing up. Her mother was the
wisest of women, and made no attempt to force the young intellect to
tasks beyond its powers, nor did she spoil the child by undue
indulgence. Early rising, morning walks, simple dinner, and games,
constituted the days that passed rapidly in the seclusion of Kensington.
When the young Princess had turned the age of five, her lessons began
under the superintendence of Fräulein Lehzen, the governess of Princess
Feodore, who was afterwards raised to the peerage as Baroness Lehzen.
Though the second of the children of the Duke of Clarence had died
before Victoria was three years old, and thus her chance of the throne
was greatly increased, she was not made aware of her prospects until
much later. The Princess Sophia, daughter of George III., lived in
Church Street close by, at York House, and the Duke of Sussex, a younger
son of George III., lived with his morganatic wife, called the Duchess
of Inverness, in a set of apartments in the Palace. The rooms they
occupied are those now tenanted by the Duke and Duchess of Argyll; thus
aunts and an uncle were constantly sharing the simple pleasures of the
little family circle.
The singularly plain little bedroom near to the Nursery in the Palace is
that which Princess Victoria occupied during all her happy childhood,
and it was here that she was awakened to meet the Archbishop and
Minister who brought her the news that her great inheritance had come
upon her. The death of the Duke of York had already cleared the way to
the throne, and as the years went by and the Duke of Clarence had no
more children, it was seen that the little girl who played at Kensington
must, if she lived, be Queen of England. When George IV. died, when she
was eleven years old, her prospects were assured, and since that time
she had been prepared for her future position. William IV.'s short reign
of only seven years seated her on the throne when she had just passed
her eighteenth year. The account of her being awakened in the early
morning by messengers bearing a message of such tremendous import, her
hasty rising, and stepping through into the Long Gallery with her hair
falling over her shoulders, and only a shawl thrown around her, is well
known to everyone.
The room in which her first Council took place is below the Cube Room.
No wonder that Queen Victoria had always a tender memory of Kensington
Palace.
Her favourite daughter, Princess Beatrice of Battenberg, occupies a
suite of rooms at the Palace, besides Princess Louise, Duchess of
Argyll; and there are several other occupants--widows, retired army men,
and those who have some claim on the private generosity of the
Crown--who live here in sets of apartments, in the same way as others
live at Hampton Court.
The somewhat untidy forcing-beds which now stand in the immediate
proximity to the Palace, and which supply the royal parks, are shortly
to be cleared away--a decided improvement.
Queen Victoria's connection with Kensington did not cease at her
accession. At Prince Albert's suggestion a great Exhibition was held in
1851, and the huge palace of glass and iron, which was to house it,
sprang up in the Gardens at the spot where the Albert Memorial now
stands. Foreigners from all parts of the world visited the Exhibition,
and the buildings were crowded. Very different was that crowd from that
which had promenaded in the Gardens in the reigns of the Georges. Women
wore coalscuttle bonnets and three-cornered shawls, with the points
hanging down in the centre of their backs, and crinolines that gave them
the appearance of inverted tops. Their beauty must have been very potent
to shine through such a disguise! The profits of the Exhibition amounted
to £150,000, which was invested in land in South Kensington. The Crystal
Palace exactly suited the taste of the age, and when it had fulfilled
the function for which it was primarily intended, the difficulty was to
know what to do with it; it was not possible to leave it in the Gardens,
so it was finally transported to Sydenham, where it still annually
delights thousands.
The Albert Memorial took twenty years to complete, and cost more than
£130,000. The four groups representing the continents of the world are
fine both in execution and idea, also the bas-reliefs, in which every
figure depicts some real person, and the smaller groups of Commerce,
Manufactures, Agriculture, and Engineering. As much, unfortunately,
cannot be said for the tawdry statue in its canopy.
It has been necessary to linger long over the Gardens and the Palace,
but we must now turn northward up Church Street to complete our
perambulation of the district. In Church Street is the Carmelite Church,
designed by Pugin, and though very simple in style, not pleasing. It was
built in 1865. The organ is an especially fine one, and the singing is
famous. There is a relic of St. Simon Stock beneath the altar, which is
very highly prized. The monastery extends along the side of Duke's Lane
at the back of the church. It is rather an ornamental building, with
stone pinnacles and carved stonework over the doorway. It opens upon the
corner where Duke's Lane meets Pitt Street, and close by stood
Bullingham House, where Sir Isaac Newton lived. It has now disappeared,
and red-brick mansions have risen upon the site.
Mr. Loftie, writing in 1888, says: "When we enter the garden from Pitt
Street we see there are two distinct houses. One of them to the north
appears slightly the older of the two, and has an eastward wing,
slightly projecting from which a passage opened on Church Street. The
adjoining, or southern, house has greater architectural pretensions, and
within is of more solid construction. Both have been much pulled about
and altered at various times, and are now thrown together by passages
through the walls. A chamber is traditionally pointed out as that in
which Sir Isaac Newton died."
Sir Isaac at the time he came to Kensington was at the height of his
fame and reputation, and held the office of Master at the Mint, after
having been previously Deputy-Master. He had come to London from
Cambridge, and settled in Leicester Square (see _The Strand_, same
series), but finding his health suffer in consequence of the dirt and
smoke, he moved "out of London" to Kensington. He remained here two
years consecutively, and returned shortly before his death.
He may have been attracted to Kensington by its vicinity to the Palace.
Queen Caroline, even as Princess of Wales, had always shown an
inclination for the society of learned men, and in particular had showed
favour to Sir Isaac. His portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller hangs in one of
the state apartments at the Palace.
Bullingham House was probably called after John Bullingham, Bishop of
Gloucester and Bristol, who died at Kensington in 1598. Later,
Bullingham House was known at one time as Orbell's buildings, for
Stephen Pitt, after whom the street is named, had married the daughter
of Orbell. The house was subsequently used as a boarding-school.
On the eastern side of Church Street are the barracks and one or two
large houses. In Maitland House lived James Mill, author of the "History
of India," and father of the better known J. S. Mill. There is a tablet
to his memory on one of the pillars in the church. York House was, as
has been said, the home of Princess Sophia, who died here in 1848. This
house is now to be demolished.
Church Street sweeps to the west a little further on, and at the corner
stands a Roman Catholic orphanage, where fifty or sixty girls are
provided for. There is a chapel within the walls, and night-schools are
held, which are attended by children from outside. The continuation of
the road northward, which becomes Brunswick Gardens, was made in 1877,
and as the old vicarage stood right in the way it had to be pulled down.
Bowack says that the vicarage was "valued yearly in the Queen's [Queen
Anne's] Book at £18 18s. 4d., but is supposed to be worth near £400 per
annum." In Vicarage Gate northward is a small church (St. Paul's) served
by the clergy of St. Mary Abbots. The origin of the name Mall in this
part of Kensington is not definitely ascertained. It of course refers to
the game so popular in the reign of the Stuarts, and there may have been
a ground here, but there is no reference to it in contemporary records.
In the Mall there is New Jerusalem Church, with an imposing portico. It
was formerly a Baptist Church, and was bought by the Swedenborgians in
1872. A bright red-brick church of the Unitarians is a little further
on. Behind the Mall is Kensington Palace Gardens--really a slice of the
Gardens--a wide road with immense houses, correctly designated mansions,
standing back in their own grounds. This road is only open to ordinary
traffic on sufferance, and is liable to be closed at any time.
The part of Kensington lying to the west of Church Street and extending
to Notting Hill Gate was that formerly known as the Gravel Pits, and
considered particularly healthy on account of its dry soil and bracing
air. Bowack says that here there are "several handsome new-built houses,
and of late years has been discovered a chalybeate spring." Swift had
lodgings at the Gravel Pits between 1712 and 1713, and Anne Pitt, sister
of Lord Chatham, one of the bright bevy of Queen Caroline's maids of
honour, is reported to have died at her house at the Gravel Pits in
1780.