Kensington
Stratford Road
Stratford Road runs west of Marloes Road and is one of the ‘villages’ of Kensington.
The eastern end of the street has some very good local shops, including a well known organic butcher and a high quality delicatessen.
On the northern side, is a very attractive private courtyard, called Stratford Studios, and another attractive courtyard, named Scarsdale Studios (the name is engraved in stone over the arched entrance). This leads to a very unusual cluster of small houses, including an old, artists studio surrounding another small courtyard.
On the south side of Stratford Road is a small communal garden, called Sunningdale Gardens, which is surrounded on either side by a row of terraced houses. In the middle of this are some mature trees, an old street lamp, and some very attractive flowering gardens. The entrances to the houses abut onto the gardens and there is a rear entrance into the mews behind. The gardens are all very hidden and quite unique.
(See Nokes Estate for a short history of the Abingdon Villas and Scarsdale Villas area.)
Richard Anderson, a builder, who had a brickfield elsewhere in the area, took two plots on which he built Nos. 7 and 9 Stratford Road in 1852. They were initially called Devonshire Cottages, presumably related to the Devonshire Arms public house which Anderson also built in Marloes Road. Nos. 54-60 (even) were built by W.B & N.F Daw, builders from Torquay, in 1862. Nos. 48-52 were built by William Green in 1863.
On the other side, Nos. 25-27 were built by William Powsey in 1862-3, No. 23 was built by R & A.M. Gregg to designs by James Moore McCulloch, architect, in 1862.
