Kensington Palace Gardens
Former name(s) | The Queen's Road |
---|---|
Location | Kensington, London, England |
Coordinates | 51°30′24″N 0°11′27″W / 51.50667°N 0.19083°W |
From | Notting Hill Gate |
To | Kensington High Street |
Kensington Palace Gardens is an exclusive street in
A tree-lined avenue half a mile long studded with embassies, Kensington Palace Gardens is one of the most expensive residential streets in the world, and has long been known as "Billionaires Row", due to the huge wealth of its private residents, although in fact the majority of its current occupants are either national embassies or ambassadorial residences. As of late-2018, market prices for a property in the street average over £35 million.[1]
It connects Notting Hill Gate with Kensington High Street. The southern section of Kensington Palace Gardens is called Palace Green.
Background
The road was originally called The Queen's Road and was renamed Kensington Palace Gardens around 1870 when
The mansion at 18 Kensington Palace Gardens, historically belonging to the Rothschild family, was sold in 2001.[4]
No. 8 was used as an interrogation centre for German
Diplomatic buildings on the street are: the Russian Embassy at Nos. 6–7; the Embassy of Nepal at No. 12A; the Embassy of Lebanon at No. 21; and the Embassy of Slovakia at No. 25. In Palace Green are the Embassy of Israel at No. 2 and the Embassy of Romania at No. 4. Egypt, Laos and the Philippines formerly had their embassies here. No. 11 has been the official residence of the French Ambassador since 1944; it was rebuilt after a fire in December 1990.[9]
Due to the presence of likely terrorist targets—embassies etc., including those of Russia and Israel—both ends of the street have armed police checkpoints (
The street is lit by Victorian gaslight streetlights.[10]
Notable residents
No. 10 was designed by Philip Hardwick for Sutherland Hall Sutherland, and the first tenant was the civil engineer James Meadows Rendel, who probably became resident in early 1852, and died there in 1856.[11] In 1862, Edmund Ernst Leopold Schlesinger Benzon, a German-born steel magnate, moved in and lived there until his death in 1873.[11] In 1896, the financier Leopold Hirsch had "substantial alterations" made, designed by Leonard Stokes, and he was resident until at least 1904.[11] No. 10 was home to the USSR Embassy from 1960 to 1986.[12]
In 2015 Ukrainian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik bought a property on the street.[18]
No. 16 is owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, a 15-bedroom mansion that he bought for £90 million in 2009.[19] The house was built in 1846, and designed by T. H. Wyatt and D. Brandon for John Sperling of Norbury Park.[11] In 1972, it was home to the Soviet Embassy.[11]
See also
References
- ^ "Average house price in Kensington palace gardens" telegraph.co.uk 27 September 2018.
- ^ "$128M Spend for London House". NBC News. 12 April 2004.
- ^ Meek, James (17 April 2006). "Super rich". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
- ^ "If you have to ask the price" The Daily Telegraph, Ross Clark, 1 August 2001
- ^ "McInerney Architects » Kensington".
- ^ Where £10m is 'a snip', The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2006
- ^ The modernist ideal Archived 10 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine, The Spectator, 22 July 2006
- ^ "House prices in Kensington Palace Gardens, London W8 4QP stand at £35,458,669 on average". Zoopla.
- ^ Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (1992). The London Encyclopaedia (reprint ed.). Macmillan. pp. 439, 592.
- ^ "Light brigade: carrying the torch for London's last gas street lamps". the Guardian. 25 December 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
- ^ a b c d e "The Crown estate in Kensington Palace Gardens: Individual buildings". British History Online. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
- ^ "10 Kensington Palace Gardens (Embassy of the USSR)". The National Archives.
- ^ "The Bequests of Sir Frederick Wills". ghgraham.org.
- ^ Correspondent, Mira Bar-Hillel, Property (13 April 2012). "Steel tycoon buys third property on Billionaire's Row". www.standard.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Hipwell, Deirdre (29 May 2017). "The £85m London home fit for a princess". The Times. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
- ^ "Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein: The Dubai royal 'hiding in London'". BBC News. 30 July 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
- ^ Siddique, Haroon (5 March 2020). "Dubai ruler's wife who shattered perception of a perfect couple". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
- ^ Clementine, Katherine. " Rich List 2015: Kensington property owner Len Blavatnik top with £13.17 BILLION fortune ", Get West London, May 1, 2015. Accessed May 28, 2015
- ^ Stewart, Heather (1 March 2022). "Roman Abramovich hastily selling UK properties, MP claims". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
External links
- Kensington Palace Gardens at the Survey of London online:
- Planning decisions for Kensington Palace Gardens and Palace Green, 2000–2008
- Even £200m can't buy a house here, The Sunday Times, 14 May 2008
- Mira Bar-Hillel, The secrets of London's £2.5 billion street, Evening Standard, 10 June 2010
- Stuart Blakely, The Renovation Game: Kensington Palace Gardens, 15 January 2010