Transcribed from the 1883 Hodder and Stoughton edition byDavid Price, . Many thanks to theRoyal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Libraries for allowingtheir copy to be consulted for this transcription.
BY
JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.
Formerly Minister of KensingtonChapel.
London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCLXXXIII.
The Selwood Printing Works,
Frome, and London.
THEFOLLOWING
HISTORICAL SKETCH,
PREPARED ATTHEIR REQUEST,
Is Gratefully Inscribed
TO THE
PRESENT MINISTER AND DEACONS
OF
KENSINGTON CHAPEL.
At the commencement of my History,I wish to convey some idea of what Kensington was at the close ofthe last century, when the original Nonconformist Church in thatplace was formed and established.
Kensington as a parish must be distinguished from Kensingtonas a village or suburb. The boundaries of the parish arestill unaltered, yet what it contained ninety years ago wasdifferent, indeed, from what it contains now. It isstartling to read in Lyson’s “Environs,”published in 1795, the following sentence:—“Theparish of Kensington contains about 1,910 acres of land, abouthalf of which is pasture meadow, about 360 acres are arable landfor corn only, about 230 in market gardens, about 260 cultivatedsometimes for corn and sometimes for garden crops, and 100 acresof nursery ground.”
I often think, as I am reading history, what a contrast existsbetween its background of natural scenery, and the prospect nowbefore our eyes on the spot to which the history refers. Weshould not know Kensington if we could see it as it was whenHornton Street Chapel was being built. Then all around wasrural. Notting p.8Hill and the whole way to Paddington—where was theparish boundary to the north—exhibited fields bordered byhedgerows. Holland Park, to the west, was a lordly demesnesuch as you see now “down in the shires,” and theboundary of the parish in that direction, at what used to becalled Compton Bridge, was marked by a turnpike gate not long agoremoved; beyond it lay a bit of country landscape before youreached the junction of roads at Hammersmith Broadway. Nogreat change had then taken place since Addison—who livedin Kensington—wrote to the Earl of Warwick, saying,“The business of this is to invite you to a concert ofmusic, which I have found out in a neighbouring wood. Itbegins precisely at six in the evening, and consists of ablackbird, a thrush, a robin redbreast, and a bullfinch. There is a lark that, by way of overture, sings famously till sheis almost out of hearing.” “The whole isconcluded by a nightingale.” Such were the warblersthat broke the silence of Kensington woods when no screech of therailway whistled in the wi