Kensington
Launceston Place
Launceston Place is a delightful street of two-storey (plus basement) semi-detached houses with small but attractive front gardens.
Some of the houses on the west side have a rather unique black cast-iron surround on the ground floor window. The houses on the east are built to a slightly different design, with a protruding frontage on ground and first floor, in alignment with the front doors. The houses on the west side have a flat frontage, although the house at the south west end on the west side has a very attractive circular tower. No. 22a is particularly attractive with a flat roof with unusual protruding columns resembling small chimneys.
There are small trees in the street, which in the Spring come out in bright cherry blossom colours. The houses have raised front doors at the top of ten steps and each house has an attractive side entrance leading to the rear gardens.
The street even has a very good local restaurant called (rather unimaginatively) Launceston Place Restaurant, at the northern end of the street.
Launceston Place was part of the Inderwick Estate.
The houses were built in the early 1840’s. It was known as Sussex Place until 1883. The houses were mainly semi-detached villas. Nos. 1-4 are later Victorian brick buildings of the 1880’s.
