Kensington
Victoria Road
Victoria Road, which is only a few minutes walk from Kensington Gardens, is particularly outstanding. This is ‘prime Kensington’ with large family houses.
The east side has mainly four-storey houses (plus basements) with significant front gardens. The west side of the street has some substantial family houses, some of which are brightly painted in light blue and terracotta. A number of the gardens on the west side are particularly large. Some houses have off-street parking and even garages.
The street is well stocked with trees, many of which are cherry trees which blossom in the Spring and make the street look particularly colourful.
The south end of Victoria Road is perhaps the nicest part of the street, and at the very end stands the very attractive Christ Church with its well-maintained surrounding gardens - ideal for quiet reflection - where one would think one was in the middle of the countryside. The south end of the street is a cul-de-sac but there is a small hidden pathway going down some steps leading into Kynance Mews.
Victoria Road was built mainly on land which formed part of the Vallotton Estate. Nos. 6-14 were built by William Hoof, a successful builder, as part of a small development which also included building the houses in Albert Place. Construction was partly on Vallotton land and partly on his own back garden. He built the houses between 1841 and 1845.
All these houses are semi-detached and stucco fronted. One stylistic difference was that the Victoria Road houses have Ionic columns to their porches while the Albert Place houses have porches supported by square piers.
The houses on the west side of Victoria Road, from Albert Place to St Albans Grove (Nos. 16-30 even) were constructed between 1841 and 1844. Most were built by William Harrison a builder from St Martin’s Lane. They have long since been demolished.
South of St Albans Grove building continued southwards on the east side. John Inderwick (the owner of the small Inderwick Estate nearby) owned the adjoining Launceston Place, so it made commercial sense for him to lease the land for Nos. 43-45 Victoria Road so that he could build houses here and in Launceston Place back-to-back.
The most significant builder on the east side was James Jordan, a builder from Paddington, who built Nos. 51-81 between 1845 and 1847. These houses were a mixture of semi-detached pairs and small terraces, with stucco facades and pilasters.
On the west side, building was much more piecemeal, with individual houses being built by a variety of builders. There are two semi-detached villas on either side of Cottesmore Gardens. The architect of the southern pair was David Moore, who also designed houses in Cottesmore Gardens, and he was responsible for the next three houses southwards.
