A Visit to mid-Victorian London – Kensington New Town

It’s an often-quoted maxim that the past is a foreign country – therefore, I’d like to take you with me on a journey to mid-Victorian London. Specifically, to Kensington New Town around 1866.

You see, that’s where Lucy Agnes Blois Turner, 19 years old at the beginning of my forthcoming mystery novel, lives with her widowed mother, Herbertina Compton Turner. Lucy is my intrepid sleuth, and I’ll tell you more about her later.

So what was Kensington like during the mid-Victorian era?

According to the Survey of London from British History Online, the residents of Kensington New Town included a mix of people, including architects, artists, and families. Toward the end of the century, from 1889 to 1898, the poet Sir Henry Newbolt lived at No. 14 Victoria Road. He described his house as ‘small, but not dark or cramped.’

In general, London was a rapidly-growing metropolis. Already the largest city in the world by 1815, by 1860 it had grown to a total of 3,188,485 souls. 

Compare the Victoria Road area on this map from 1859

To the same area on  this map from 1868

To understand what’s happened, I went to British History Online to find out more. This is a wonderful site, which includes a survey of London that describes Kensington New Town in wonderful detail. Here is what I learned:

In the first map, below the church at the southern end of Victoria Road, there is an area marked as “Market Garden.” It turns out that the land was owned by the Broadwood family, a celebrated dynasty of keyboard instrument-makers. The heir, Thomas Broadwood, did not live in Kensington, and until his death in 1861 the property was used as a market garden. The land was eventually developed as Cornwall Gardens.

Also, in the first map one can see a place on the east side of Victoria Road, close to the entrance to Hyde Park, which is marked as a riding stable. Later on, the stables disappear and are replaced by housing.

Note the appearance of the Metropolitan and District railway line in the second map – the line was built between 1864-9, leading to the purchase and demolition of the recently-built houses on Stanford Road, quite close to Victoria Road. I wonder how Lucy and her mother felt about the trains running so close to their house!

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