Transcribed from the 1882(?) Griffiths & Co. edition byDavid Price, . Many thanks to theRoyal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Libraries for allowingtheir copy to be used for this transcription.
WITH
Remembrances of theLocality
38 Years Ago.
BY AN OLD INHABITANT.
PROFITS OFTHIS EDITION GIVEN TO THE BAZAAR FUND FOR THE
NEW ORGAN AT WESTBOURNE GROVECHAPEL.
LONDON:
Printed by Griffiths & Co.,“Paddington Mercury” Office,
58, Porchester Road, W.
I have thought it would be interesting to you to knowsomething about the locality in which you live, as it was intimes gone by.
The changes have been marvellous, but not more than manyothers within my recollection.
I knew the time when gas was not used, but when streets andshops were lighted with oil lamps. When no police guardedour streets, but watchmen paid their half-hourly visits cryingout “past 11 o’clock, &c., and a starlight night,&c.”
I remember when no omnibuses ran, and cabmen sat by the sideof their fares.
When 4-horse coaches ran to Greenwich, Kensington, and othersuburban places.
When the only way to obtain a light was to strike a flint on apiece of steel, and catch the sparks on tinder, and to puff atthe tinder till it lighted a brimstone match.
p. 4When theGreat Reform Bill was passing, and I used to be let out of schoolat 2 o’clock, because the men of Birmingham and Manchester,&c., threatened to march to London—The Tower wasfortified—Temple Bar guarded.
I remember George the Fourth’s burial, and the peoplemaking a grand holiday.
I saw the procession at William the Fourth’s Coronation,and also at that of Queen Victoria.
“Long may shelive.”
Before entering upon my own remembrances of Kensington andPaddington, it will be interesting to notice some thingsconnected with the history of these places.
Kensington is mentioned in the Domesday Book asChenesiton. Chenesi was a proper name, and“Lyson” says that in the time of Edward the Confessora person of that name held a manor in Somersetshire. It maybe that Kensington was once a town belonging to a“Chenesi.” At the time of the Romans thisdistrict comprised the northern boundary of the marshes formed bythe overflowing of the Thames, Chelsea and Fulham being liable toinundation, but the higher elevation of a great portion of thisparish rendered it fit for cultivation.
In 1218, in the reign of Henry III., it wasdisafforested. Before this time it, with Paddington, hadformed a portion of the Forest of Middlesex.
In Henry the Eighth’s time a great portion of NottingHill and Paddington was still forest as appears from recordsdated 1543.
In 1610 Sir Walter Cope became possessed of the manor of St.Mary Abbot’s by a grant from the Queen. p. 6It is recordedthat he died possessed of the manor called Earl’s Court,Kensyngton, with its appur