Car Hire in Kensington

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The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to give this area of London its full name. To stroll around the Royal Borough is to walk in the footsteps of kings and queens, writers and revolutionaries, politicians and painters, thinkers and thespians. Over the centuries, Kensington and its neighbour, Chelsea, have been host to so many important events and significant figures, that a truly comprehensive history would run to several volumes.

Even a purely local history - the changes in geography, demography and architecture - would take far more space than we have here. Sadly, on these pages, we have to make do with sketching in just a few of the key developments that have forged the unique place that is the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Both, Kensington and Chelsea originated as Saxon settlements. The origins of the name Chelsea are uncertain. One theory is that the name comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word for gravel bank and as Chelsea lies on gravel this does seem plausible. Kensington is generally thought to be derived from ‘Cynesige’s farm'.

Chelsea is the first to appear in historical documents. It is mentioned in an eighth century charter but Kensington and Chelsea both show up in the Domesday Book (1086). Kensington is described as one of the manors granted to an Aubrey de Vere, while Chelsea was owned by one Edward of Salisbury.

In subsequent centuries, the Manor of Chelsea passed through various hands but the de Vere family, remained Lords of the Manor of Kensington until the 16th century. The elevation of the De Veres to the Earldom of Oxford in 1155 led people to begin referring to the Manor’s court house as the Earl’s Court. The court house stood in the heart of the area which now carries its name. Earl’s Court is perhaps best known today for its international exhibition centre and concert venue. The art deco exhibition centre opened in 1937. It stands on the site of the Earl’s Court Exhibition Ground, which from 1887 until the Great War, hosted a string of spectacular events including Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show.

One of Kensington's earliest inhabitants of note was Sir Walter Cope, a favourite of James I. In 1604 Sir Walter began work on his great mansion, Cope’s Castle. Renamed Holland House in 1661, the house became a glittering literary and political salon. The house and gardens today form London’s most beautiful public space, Holland Park.

Royalty took up residence in Kensington in 1689 when William III moved into Kensington Palace. The presence of the royal court was a sharp spur to development. Beautiful Kensington Square, which dates from this time, was a failing venture until the arrival of courtiers looking for homes to rent close to the Palace.

By 1704 a John Bowack was able to write that Kensington was 'inhabited by Gentry and Persons of Note: There is also an abundance of Shopkeepers and all sorts of Artificers in it, which makes it appear rather like part of London, than a Country Village.’

Although no reigning monarch was resident after 1760, Kensington Palace continued to influence the parish. On 24 May, 1819 the future Queen Victoria was born there, residing at the Palace until her accession to the throne in 1837. In 1901, in accordance with the late Queen’s wishes that her place of birth should have a distinction, King Edward VII conferred on Kensington the title ‘Royal Borough’.

Chelsea had its own links with royalty. Henry VIII acquired the manor of Chelsea in 1536 and the future Queen Elizabeth I was a resident there for a time. James I founded a theological college on a site later to be occupied by The Royal Hospital. Founded by Charles II for the care of permanently disabled soldiers, the Hospital is still there today and its uniformed residents have become known world-wide as the Chelsea Pensioners

Chelsea was the busier of the two parishes, its location on the River Thames making it easily accessible from London. Many notables built or rented houses in Chelsea, including the Lord Chancellor and Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More, who built a house there in about 1520. More also once owned Crosby Hall, a magnificent banqueting hall in Bishopsgate which was moved ‘brick by brick’, to Chelsea in 1908.

An account of Chelsea, by Dr John King, Rector of Chelsea, written in 1694 noted that 'the number of houses are mightily increased of late years; for there are 350 houses in the Parish'. Despite this growth, neither Kensington nor Chelsea was particularly large, with probably not more than 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants in each. Both villages were predominantly rural, providing Londoners with days out: Samuel Pepys mentions trips to both Kensington and Chelsea in his diaries.

During the seventeenth century, gardeners from Chelsea, Kensington and Fulham supplied London with much of its fruit and vegetables. This trade with the big city did not die out until the 19th century, when the two parishes were completely absorbed by London during the enormous building boom of the Victorian era.

In 1712, Sir Hans Sloane bought the Manor of Chelsea from William, Lord Cheyne. Sloane’s fantastic collection of botanical, geological, numismatic, antiquarian, medical and literary specimens helped form the nucleus of the British Museum collections. Sloane also assured the future of Chelsea Physic Garden, which is still open to the public today. The garden - dedicated to botany and its application - is on land leased to the Apothecaries' Company in 1673 by the Cheynes. In 1722, Sloane made over the land to the Company in perpetuity, on payment of an annual rent of £5.

At the beginning of the 19th century both Kensington and Chelsea were largely managed by church vestries that dealt with civil and church affairs. There were very few full-time paid officials. Several important municipal functions were handled by ad hoc organisations such as turnpike trusts, sewers commissions and poor law authorities.

In an increasingly urban environment this form of local government was inadequate. In 1855 the Metropolis Local Management Act heralded the first of several major reforms. Under the Act, civil vestries were set up with paid staff and elected vestrymen representing wards. The powers of the vestries, and their successors, the metropolitan boroughs, were steadily increased over the decades.

As a result of the London Government Act 1963, the two boroughs were united in 1965 to form the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.