Albertopolis

Coordinates: 51°29′53″N 0°10′36″W / 51.49806°N 0.17667°W / 51.49806; -0.17667
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

51°29′53″N 0°10′36″W / 51.49806°N 0.17667°W / 51.49806; -0.17667

Imperial College, the Royal College of Music, and Science Museum
lying in between.

Albertopolis is the nickname given to the area centred on Exhibition Road in London, named after Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria. It contains many educational and cultural sites. It lies in the former village of Brompton in Middlesex, renamed as South Kensington, split between the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster (the border running along Imperial College Road), and the area bordered by Cromwell Road to the south and Kensington Road to the north.

Institutions

The Albert Memorial.
The Royal Albert Hall.
The Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Natural History Museum

Institutions in and around Albertopolis include:

The following were originally institutions in their own right:

Institutions formerly in Albertopolis include:

More recent additions to Albertopolis include:

History

Following the advice of

Prince Albert[1] the area was purchased by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 with the profits made from the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was held in a site in Hyde Park nearby to the north-east. This is commemorated in the name of the principal north–south street laid out on their estate, Exhibition Road.[2]

Prince Albert was a driving force behind the Great Exhibition and President of the Royal Commission, and the name "Albertopolis" seems to have been coined in the 1850s

T. E. Collcutt
.

Overview

There is a central axis between the

Queen's Tower
of Imperial College London) and the 1950s rear extension to the Science Museum are all aligned on this axis, which cannot be seen on the ground. This regular geometric alignment of Albertopolis can be observed readily only from the balconies of the Queen's Tower (very rarely open to visitors), although the northern part can be glimpsed from the top floor of the Science Museum.

The closest tube station is South Kensington, linked to the museums by the South Kensington Subway.

On 4 May 1885, the District Railway opened

South Kensington Subway, a pedestrian subway (a tiled tunnel), running from the station beneath the length of Exhibition Road, giving sheltered access to the newly built museums for a toll of 1 penny. The subway was originally intended to go as far as the Royal Albert Hall, but the construction of the Imperial Institute meant the tunnel emerged at the Science Museum where it exits onto Exhibition Road. Although it had cost £42,614 to construct (approximately £5.81 million today),[4] it was closed on 10 November 1886 and afterwards was opened only occasionally for special museum events.[citation needed] Originally only opened during exhibitions in South Kensington, it was opened to the public free of charge in 1908.[citation needed] The subway is Grade II listed.[5]

There are also three research libraries in the area, the

Abdus Salam Library, located on Queen's Lawn
.

See also

References

  1. ^ "South Kensington From Above: 1856 – 1862". Archived from the original on 18 January 2012. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
  2. ^ a b Smith, Lydia (7 July 2016). "Prince Albert's cultural vision and the history of South Kensington: What is Albertopolis?". Royal Albert Hall.
  3. ^ "Demolition of the institute and expansion of Imperial College". Archived from the original on 19 August 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
  4. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  5. ^ Historic England. "South Kensington Subway (1392462)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 6 October 2021.

External links

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