West Kensington, formerly North End, is an area in the ancient parish of Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) west of Charing Cross. It covers most of the London postal area of W14, including the area around Barons Court tube station, and is defined as the area between Lillie Road to the south, Fulham Palace Road to the west, Hammersmith Road to the north, and West Brompton and Earl's Court to the east. The area is bisected by the major London artery the A4, locally known as the Talgarth Road. Its main local thoroughfare is the North End Road.
It is predominantly a dense residential area with the Queen's Club in its midst and is bordered by the Lillie Bridge railway depot, the now defunct Earls Court Exhibition Centre site, Olympia Exhibition Centre and the commercial centres at Fulham and Hammersmith Broadway.
Name "West Kensington" is an early marketing construct, a ploy by two Victorian developers who found they had trouble selling their rapidly erected estate of terraced housing in the hamlet of North End on the outskirts of the village of Walham Green. In 1876 William Henry Gibbs and John P. Flew, builders from Dorset, decided to capitalise on their modest success in Kensington, by speculatively building 1,200 houses on the market gardens west of the West London Railway in Fulham. However, the housing slump of the 1880s left them with many unsold properties. They succeeded in persuading the Metropolitan Borough of Fulham to have North End renamed 'West Kensington' to attract new investors to their empty houses.'The Edwardes estate: Warwick Road (north) and West Cromwell Road', in Survey of London: Volume 42, Kensington Square To Earl's Court, ed. Hermione Hobhouse (London, 1986), pp. 282-288. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol42/pp282-288 [accessed 20 October 2016].
History
From the High Middle Ages, the hamlet of North End in the County of Middlesex was mainly farmland and market gardens, with a few scattered houses along North End Lane which wound its way from Walham Green to the trunk road linking the parishes of Hammersmith and Kensington. The main topographical feature was Counter's Creek, a tributary of the Thames River, rising in Kensal Green, which marked the parish boundary. Among the notable residents who had settled in this quiet rural retreat were Samuel Richardson, Samuel Foote, Francesco Bartolozzi, Sir John Lillie and then in the late 19th century, the artists Edward and Georgiana Burne-Jones.
The quiet of North End was sorely disturbed from 1824 onwards when local landowner William Edwardes, 2nd Baron Kensington, along with several others, decided to cash in on the already waning canal boom by converting a section of Counter's Creek into the Kensington Canal.British History Online, The Kensington Canal, railways and related developments, The Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, online at Deposited plans, House of Lords Records Office, quoted in British History Online It was not a success. Eventually the canal was filled in, and in mid 19th century it became a railway and the creek was turned into a sewer. With it came gradual urbanisation, which drew in various developers including Gibbs and Flew. Apart from their unsold houses, there was the problem of accessibility. A bridge was needed over the railways, but despite Gibbs and Flew trying to finance it, it led to their bankruptcy and the dissolution of the partnership in 1885. Gibbs and Flew thereafter carried on separate businesses with a measure of success in Fulham.
Barons Court
Margravine Cemetery and some of the streets near Barons Court station, recall the brief sojourn in the County of Middlesex of the last Margrave of Brandenburg, Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1736-1806) and his second wife, the English Lady Elizabeth Craven, who in 1792 bought the handsome mansion on the Thames at Fulham, originally built by Sir Nicholas Crisp in the 17th century and renamed it "Brandenburg House". After the Margrave died, his wife, the Margravine, occupied it till her retirement to Naples in 1819. Between 1820 and 1822 it was lent by the Margravine to Caroline of Brunswick, the estranged consort of King George IV who lived and died there. After Queen Caroline's death, the Margravine first sold off the contents of the house, then had the property demolished and sold the grounds for industrial development. Part went to the Haig distillery, the rest was bought for a sugar refinery.
Another local landowner and developer in the 19th century was the Irish-born politician Sir William Palliser. It is possible that the station built on Palliser's land and opened in 1874, was named after the Irish estate of the Earls of Abercorn, Baronscourt in County Tyrone where Palliser may have had connections.Museum of London caption to Barons Court station image As well as Palliser Road itself, a group of roads in West Kensington are named after members of his family. They include: Perham, Charleville, Gledstanes, Barton, Fairholme, Comeragh, Castletown and Vereker Roads and Challoner Street. He also owned the which would become the Queen's Club. However, as he was heavily in debt when he died suddenly in 1882, his family did not benefit from his deals.
A contemporary of Palliser was Sir Robert Gunter whose family also left its mark on a number of streets that were built on his North End estate. They are Gunterstone Road, Edith Road and Edith Villas in memory of his daughter who died of scarlet fever, aged eight. After the severe bomb and landmine damage to the area during World War II, the Gunter estate donated Gwendwr Gardens, formerly the Cedars Lawn Tennis Club, to the public as a memorial to those who had perished.
Other developments
The railway developments at North End included the Lillie Bridge Depot, an important historic engineering workshop with secondary access from Beaumont Avenue since 1872. The Earls Court Exhibition pleasure gardens, an international venue, was begun by John Robinson Whitley, visited by Queen Victoria in her Jubilee year, and subsequently frequented by the Royal Household. The royal connection continued through the decades and Diana, Princess of Wales opened the barrel-shaped Earls Court II hall, which in 1991 straddled the boundary between Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea; but after a confidential decision taken by the two boroughs in 2008, demolition began in 2015. The entire venue was closed down in 2014. Other notable structures on the site were the giant Ferris wheel (1895-1907) and the 6,000 seat Empress Hall (1894), built for impresario Imre Kiralfy, both long gone.
The campaign for a bridge into West Kensington from nearby Earl's Court was taken up by local residents and the West Cromwell Road bridge was eventually commenced in 1938 and, interrupted by World War II, was opened in 1942.
Terrorism incident On 26 February 1975, Stephen Tibble, a 22 year old police officer of the Metropolitan Police, was fatally shot by Liam Quinn, a member of the Provisional IRA, after a chase near Barons Court tube station. It was later discovered that a flat on Fairholme Road was used by the IRA and Quinn himself as a 'bomb factory'.
Housing stock
West Kensington is primarily a residential area consisting mainly of Victorian terraced houses, many of which are subdivided into flats. There are some interesting examples of Victorian architecture, with several houses and some entire streets listed – including the imposing mansion blocks of Fitzgeorge Avenue (off North End Road) and the mansion blocks around Avonmore Road including, Glyn Mansions (Built 1897), Avonmore Mansions and Avonmore Gardens (Built 1893) which is located next to the new Kensington Village development. Ada Lewis House on Palliser Road was built in the 1920s to help women that needed support and despite local campaigns it was acquired by Southern Housing and demolished which a removal of historic trees. In 2025 the new development was reopened by Southern Housing who commissioned London-based artist Jenny Kay to create new stained glass to reflect the history of Ada Lewis House.
West Kensington Court was purpose built and completed in 1938 with a view of providing what were considered at the time luxury flats for young professionals and families wishing to move from older-style properties. There are also a number of ex-local authority and local authority buildings around the North End Road, including the recently renovated Lytton Estate. Many of buildings have been sold off. A more recent private development, St Paul's Court, was built in 1980 on part of the vast former site of St Paul's School.
Since much of the housing is in the rented sector, West Kensington has become a cosmopolitan enclave. There are significant populations of Arabs, Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Irish, Italians, Spaniards, and French, encouraged by nearby private schools teaching in their native language can be found around Brook Green. The area also has a large student population, serving Imperial College London, Charing Cross Hospital, South Kensington, Hammersmith and other Central London Universities.
Avonmore Road, built in the 1880s, has been dubbed "Kensington Village". Whiteleys Furniture Repositories, laundry and stables, built along the West London line, belonged to London's first department store in Westbourne Grove. The high-ceilinged Warwick Building was used as a depository for Whiteleys-sourced furnishings (grand pianos, chaise longues, oriental room dividers, mahogany wardrobes) for the use of customers who were resident in the colonies. Kensington Village now consists of a blend of modernised Victorian buildings, such as the Warwick Building, and modern additions such as the Pembroke Building, built in a similar style with London stock brick and red lintels and full-height glazing.
Commerce, education and religion
Local business consists of small shops, offices and restaurants, with the Olympia Exhibition Centre nearby. West Kensington is within easy reach of Earl's Court, and the Broadways of Fulham and Hammersmith. There are several pubs and hotels, including The Albion public house, which is reputedly haunted. The Baron's Court Theatre is located in the basement of The Curtains Up bar and restaurant. One of the oldest extant Polish Patisserie-delicatessens in London, Prima, was opened in North End Road in 1946. For several decades after World War II, the editorial offices of the Polish Daily, the UK's oldest Polish language paper, were located in Charleville Road.
In February 2009, the W14 postcode became the first London postal area without a post office, until a sub-post office agreement was reached with the retail outlet, North End News.Campaigners put post office back on the map in Olympia
Education