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ISSN 2058-2226 September 2017 KENSINGTON SQUARE: PAST AND PRESENT Award-winning Investment Advice On the 30th January 1989, in what was challenges of saving for the future, an old Pharmacy in West London, we managing your investments and opened the doors of our first branch building financial plans. with a simple enduring belief: to make Working in partnership with you, we the benefits of investing available to all. ensure you have all of the tools at your Having been voted Wealth Manager disposal to achieve your financial of the Year on more than one occasion, ambitions. We welcome you to visit us our highly qualified advisers at our at 281 Kensington High Street or call us Kensington branch offer the highest on 020 7337 0001, to see what you can standards of impartial advice, on expect as a client of Killik & Co. hand to help guide you through the Savings | Planning | Investments OUR RECENT AWARDS As is the very nature of investing, there are inherent risks and the value of your investments will both rise and fall over time. Please do not assume that past performance will repeat itself and you must be comfortable in the knowledge that you may receive less than you originally invested. Killik & Co is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. 2 Kensington ad 1603.indd 1 17/03/2017 12:42 Draycott_MoS_VsnFinalAW_140915.indd 1 15/09/2014 09:20:37 3 THE MAGAZINE We have had an interesting month learning more about the social history of Kensington Square; the architecture and its eclectic range of residents, from the Georgians, the Victorians to the present day. Being one of the oldest squares in the Borough it is steeped in history. For those interested in learning more we would recommend the Local Studies Department at the RBKC Library, which has extensive material. Please see our Kensington Hub pages to learn about events going on in the area and support as many of them as possible. We are also pleased to include an update on the funds received by the Kensington & Chelsea Foundation Appeal, set up in response to the tragic Grenfell Tower Fire (page 15). Through this edition we hope you continue to learn more about this wonderful area, Lucy Front Cover: Watercolour of Kensington Square, by Elizabeth Gladstone 1894 (With thanks to the Local Studies Department, RBKC Library) CONTENTS A brief history of Kensington Square 6 Homes of Kensington Square 8 Science Bites: Sewage, Sanitation & Simon 10 Kensington News 12,13,14 The Antics of Mrs Patrick Campbell 18 Get Well Spoon: Courgette Burgers 19 Kensington Crossword 20 Problems with Box 22 Worthy Wines: Sicily 26 Lucy Elliott, Editor Kensington Hub/What’s On 28,29 (Hair by Toby from Hairspace at Annie Russell) Small Box Advertisements 30 Read by 34,500 residents and businesses CONTRIBUTORS each month. The magazine is also available at WholeFoods, Sainsbury’s Local, RBKC Aletta Richie, Victoria O Neil, Maria Perry, Charles Yorke, Library, Waterstones, Virgin, Marks & Spencers, Dave Saunders, Trevor Langley, Sarah Goldsmith and St Mary Abbots, St George’s Church, The Benedict Bull. Royal Garden Hotel, The Milestone Hotel, Peter Jones in Sloane Square and many other GET IN TOUCH smaller outlets in W8. Editor & PhotographY: Lucy M Elliott 0203 667 8762 07921 558520 [email protected] Whilst every care has been taken to ensure that the data PUBLISHER: The Kensington Magazine Ltd in this publication is accurate, neither the publisher nor the editor, not its editorial contributors can accept, and WEBSITE: www.thekensingtonmagazine.com hereby disclaim, any liability to any party for omissions www.lucyelliottphotography.com resulting from negligence, accident or any other cause. All artwork is accepted on the strict condition that permission has been given for us in this publication. The /TheKensingtonMagazine Kensington Magazine Ltd does not officially endorse any advertising material included within this publication. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be #KensingtonMag reproduced, without prior permission of The Kensington Magazine Ltd. 4 The Hansom Cab is your Local Beer House in Kensington, W8. Serving some of the finest craft beer in West London with a fresh and seasonal food menu, including our highly rated Sunday roast dinner, all in a relaxed pub environment. ‘MEET YOUR NEIGHBOUR’ with The Kensington Magazine WINE VS BEER TASTING 7pm Wednesday 13th September Free to attend. Limited spaces - call to reserve craft beer seasonal food saturday brunch sunday roasts beer snacks private event hire High Street Kensington W R I 84-86 Earls Court Road, G H Kensington TS Kensington, London W8 6EG L (Olympia) N tel: 020 7938 3700 M A E R A L R O L e: [email protected] KENSINGTON HIGH ST E S S C R O D @HansomCab U R P D T E R M E R Facebook.com/HansomCab BROK D localbeerhouse thehansomcab.com Earls Court 5 A (Brief) History of Kensington Square By Sarah Goldsmith ensington Square, located on the south side develop. More than 20 different builders took Kbehind High Street Kensington, is the oldest sites, most having worked under Wren or in Soho garden square in Kensington. Bordered by Square. Young, Derry and Thackeray Streets, the Square’s development dates to 1682 when Thomas Additionally, £1000 of the purchase price paid Young purchased 14 enclosed acres with a was mortgaged, and the property was further large house already erected. Originally called encumbered by mortgages that Thorowgood King’s Square in honour of James II, Kensington had taken. Other parties took up these Square was the first development in Kensington, debts and thereby also had an interest in the following a familiar cycle of boom and bust that development of the Square. Young maintained characterizes London’s property development an interest in the development, however, which history. would prove to be his undoing. Young, originally a woodcarver and joiner by By the late 1680s, most of the buildings on the profession, had had a successful career as a Square had been completed, but it was proving tradesman. A member of the Joiners Guild, he difficult to find tenants, until the establishment worked on Wren’s rebuilding of St. Mary-at-Hill, as of the Court at Kensington Palace in 1689 by well as another Wren church, St. Mary Magdalene King William III and Queen Mary II. All the on Old Fish Street. He also worked on the Duke business that followed the Court soon flowed of Monmouth’s house and Sir Samuel Grimston’s to Kensington, saving the Square from failure. house in Soho Square. Outside London, he Unfortunately though for Thomas Young, it was worked as a carver at Burghley, Chatsworth, not enough to save his finances, and he ended Sudbury Hill, and Kiveton. At Chatsworth, he led up imprisoned later for debt. a team of four carvers. In 1698 the “communal” private gardens were In 1682, he bought the Kensington plot for laid out (less than 1 acre in size), and though the £1550 from Robert Thorowgood, who had development was surrounded by fields until the inherited it from his brother, Sir John, who had 1840s, as long as the Court was in residence, the bought the property in 1655 for £800 from the address proved to be fashionable. After George Muschamp family, though he had leased the II’s death in 1760 at Kensington Palace, for several house and grounds since 1635. Young may reasons George III’s Court moved to Kew and never have intended to develop the Square Buckingham Palaces. Genteel existence followed himself: soon after his purchase, he divided the the Court’s exodus, and the Square waited plot and sold and leased sites for others to almost a century to be renewed by Victorian expansion. ‘South Side of Kensington Square, in the Autumn’ Watercolour by Gordon French of Gallery 19 in Thackeray St. Prints of this and other perspectives/seasons of the Square for sale @ £28.00 6 A (Brief) History of Kensington Square By Sarah Goldsmith St. Barnabas Church St. Peter’s Church 23 Addison Road 119 Eaton Square W14 8LH SW1W 9AL & 24 Kensington Square W8 5HN 020 7371 4848 020 7371 2306 [email protected] [email protected] For children aged 2 to 5 years Join us for great value set lunches, new sharing menus, cocktails on the terrace and live jazz every Tuesday. DINE 100FT ABOVE LONDON t 0207 368 3993 e [email protected] www.roofgardens.virgin.com @Babylon_London 7th Floor, 99 Kensington High Street (Entrance on Derry Street) London, W8 5SA 7 Homes of Kensington Square By Lucy Elliott ensington Square is the oldest in the Borough, Kbeing developed a century before Hornton Street and Phillimore Place. Leases were granted by Thomas Young for a period of 51 years from Midsummer 1685. Sadly, once the Court left Kensington in 1760 the Square “waned” and by the mid 19C it was considered “melancholy and unfashionable”. However by the Victorian period it was, and as illustrated in the “Aristrocracy of London, Titled, Untitled, Professional and Commercial” published by O’Byrne Brothers in 1863, home to wealthy individuals, mostly “… ambassadors, men of letters, lords temporal and spiritual”, no doubt augmented by the build of the Convent of Assumption in 1861. The home of Sir Charles Hubert Parry at No. 17 had a particularly impressive Queen Anne Staircase (apparently the largest in the Square), The beautiful Queen Anne Staircase at with finely carved moulded handrail and No. 17 Kensington Square bannisters. Parry was Professor of Composition (Image: Kind courtesy of RBKC Local Studies Dept) and Musical History at the Royal College of Music, and then later Director of the RCM.