Mentioned in the Domesday Book as Chenisitun, and in other ancient texts as Kenesitune and Kensintune, Kensington was a village on the Great Western Road, about one and a half miles from Hyde Park Corner. In 1829, the parish was bounded by Chelsea; St. Margaret, Westminster; St. George, Hanover Square; Paddington, Wilsden, Acton and Fulham. The Palace stood in the parish of St. Margaret, while the Gardens were situated in Westminster.
Kensington Palace was not always a Royal residence. Indeed, built as a modest mansion for Sir George Coppin about 1605, it was later sold to physician and diplomat Sir John Finch, who left it to his brother, Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards the Earl of Nottingham and the Lord Chancellor. Thus the property became known as Nottingham House. Then, in June 1689, William III and Queen Mary paid Nottingham £18,000 for the mansion, in order to remove from the grime and smells of the river at the palace of Whitehall. The riverside situation worsened the King’s asthma, while the Queen objected to views of naught but ‘...water or wall’.
Sir Christopher Wren, and his clerk of works, Nicholas Hawksmoor, were commissioned to make hurried extensions to the building, whereupon the Court removed to the fresher air of Kensington just before Christmas. Various other additions were made; first the Clock Court, then the Queen’s Gallery, measuring 84 feet by 21, in 1691 and in 1695-96 the King’s Gallery, measuring 94 feet by 21. With its restful outlook over the gardens, the latter became William’s delight and place of relaxation following Mary’s death from smallpox in 1694, when aged but 33. £11,000 was spent on these gardens by the King, the work carried out by nurserymen and garden designers London and Wise from nearby Brompton Park. At his own command, William was brought to Kensington from Hampton Court after falling from his horse in 1702, a fall which was to prove fatal.
Originally twenty-six acres, Queen Anne added thirty more to the gardens when she came to the throne. London and Wise continued the work started in the previous reign, and this was augmented in 1704 by the construction of a ‘Summer Supper House’, otherwise known as The Orangery, designed by Hawksmoor and Sir John Vanbrugh. An elegant building, the interior has been described as ‘tranquil’ and a most pleasant place to sit. Built of red brick, a long row of mullioned windows allowed both glorious views and light for those within.
When George I ascended the throne in 1714, Nottingham House’s role as a country seat was to change forever. Under the guidance of Colin Campbell, the house was turned into a residence fit for a king. The body of the old mansion was remodelled, with the addition of three new State Rooms – the Privy Chamber, the Cupola Room and the Withdrawing Room. By 1829, the State Apartments consisted of a suite of twelve rooms. Most of the Royal Apartments were fitted up with paintings and decoration by William Kent, who also painted the King’s Staircase, reflecting various stories of the Court at that time. He represented the King’s Turkish Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Mustafa – who was jealously regarded for his closeness to the King – Peter, the wild boy, a child and a lapdog, and even included an image of himself! The staircase is particularly grand, rising on two sides to a gallery on the third, edged with a banister of intricate, scrolled ironwork. Arched panels with rich decoration enclose the paintings and stand alongside ornate, pedimented niches containing statuary, while the ceiling is a magnificent blaze of gilding and moulding.
The Cupola Room was where the great and not-so-good went to be seen, to further careers and seek favour with Their Majesties, and was a sumptuous chamber appointed in gold, with gilt figures and side-tables. Suspended from the glorious gold and blue ceiling, on purple ropes, were four tremendous chandeliers. Centuries later, these mysteriously disappeared, but in 2020 new ones were hand carved and gilded, to the closest representation as possible, to replace them.
Queen Caroline’s Withdrawing Room was a light, airy apartment where she would sit to read, converse with her ladies or sew. The walls were lined with paintings in gilt frames, below which were set blue-covered stools, and the ceiling had a great, gilded oval surround to a painting featuring Mars and Minerva.
The Princesses’ Courtyard (named for the King’s granddaughters) was built and new kitchens were added. With all these alterations, the building became a large, irregular construction. Once George II became monarch in 1727, little more in the way of structural improvements were made, for He and Queen Caroline concentrated on the gardens, restricting themselves, within the house, to the reorganization of furnishings and paintings. The Queen discovered, forgotten in a bureau, a parcel of drawings by Holbein. Wise and Charles Bridgeman were brought in to create a new design for the gardens, poaching 300 acres from Hyde Park for the purpose, and so the Round Pond became a feature, as did the Broad Walk, which extended from the palace along the south side of the gardens. In the spring this was a particularly fashionable promenade, especially on Sunday mornings. At the time of these innovations the Serpentine was also formed, from several small ponds of the River Westbourne.
Due to George III choosing to live at Buckingham House, following Queen Caroline’s death Kensington Palace was put under Holland covers and closed for four decades, much falling into disrepair, although in the 1830s the Duchess of Kent made use of the State Rooms to extend her apartments. She also divided the King’s Gallery into three rooms for Princess Victoria’s accommodation. The State Rooms were used to store furnishings and paintings during the nineteenth century and were rather neglected.
Although no monarch since George II has lived at Kensington Palace, apartments were made ready for Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV, in the early 1800s, and then her daughter, the Princess Charlotte. Frederick Augustus, Duke of Sussex, also made his residence here. Princess (later Queen) Victoria was born at Kensington in May 1819, and grew up beset by ‘The Kensington System’ of rules and regulations devised by her widowed mother’s secretary and adviser, Sir John Conroy, who seems to have had an eye to his own advancement and power. The young Victoria was supervised in everything she did, even to moving about within the palace, yet she did enjoy riding her donkey or driving her goat-coat around the grounds. She also drove a phaeton drawn by four ponies. However, Conroy’s attempted control over the young Princess backfired. When the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury arrived in the middle of the night to inform her that she had become Queen, she swiftly assumed her authority and insisted upon receiving them alone – and she was dressed only in her nightclothes and a dressing gown! She then proceeded to hold her first council at Kensington on the very next day, 20 June 1837. After that, she packed her bags and moved to Buckingham Palace (so lavishly extended and redesigned by George IV), leaving her mother behind at Kensington. When the Duchess of Kent died in 1861, the Duke and Duchess of Teck moved into her apartments. Queen Mary was born there in 1867.
In 1897 Parliament was persuaded to release funds to the tune of £36,000 for the refurbishment of the palace, after which the State Apartments were opened to the public on Queen Victoria’s 80th birthday in 1899. The gardens had been open to view since George II’s reign. In 1923, the Palace was reopened after housing the London Museum. Princess Margaret, sister of the late Queen, lived at Kensington for almost 42 years, and Diana, Princess of Wales, lived at the palace following her wedding to the then Prince Charles, on 29 July 1981, until her death in Paris on 31 August 1997. One of her favourite places was the Sunken Garden, commissioned by Edward VII in 1908; it sits in a part of the garden once the domain of hot-houses and potting sheds.
Today the Palace is the official London residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.
© Heather King
All images are in the Public Domain.
