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Elsie in the movies
This week’s post is based on another recent donation, relating to a former resident of the Borough. We were given a small collection of film stills and publicity photos together with this page from an...
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Elegant shopping at Derry and Toms
Victoria Station, at a quiet time of the day. Sometime…in the 1920s, I think. A display unit, and some posters reminding you to head for Kensington for high-class fashion and household goods. Four of...
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From the Penta Hotel: 1974
In this week’s post our roving surveyor Bernard Selwyn leaves his perch on the West London Air Terminal / Point West and crosses the Cromwell Road to take up a vantage point on one of the upper floors...
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Earls Court days – Selwyn at home
Hogarth Road is opposite Earls Court Station. Walk up it away from the station and veer left. You’ll come to an alley called Hogarth Place. Take that and you’ll be in Kenway Road. Carry on walking and...
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Biba – the final chapter
I have often been asked when I’ve written about some of the other famous shops on Kensington High Street (Barker’s, Derry and Toms, Pontings etc) when was I going to do something about Biba, and I’ve...
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Biba supplement
As I said in last week’s postscript I wasn’t sure whether I would have time to write a post this week, especially as the only one I had in draft and nearly finished was one of my quirky ones which I...
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What is the Commonwealth Institute?
Now that the new version of the Design Museum has now opened in the former Commonwealth Institute building it seemed like a good time to look again at the old place. I’ve written about it as an empty...
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The Commonwealth Institute – the fallow years
I seem to have fallen into a pattern of one post on a subject followed by a supplement. I had originally intended to use some pictures of the dormant days of the Commonwealth Institute building and a...
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Christmas Days: a bunch of busts
I scanned today’s pictures in response to an enquiry about busts inside the former Holland House. We have an album from the 1880s with some views of the interior taken before a bout of redecoration. On...
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Christmas Days : afternoon tea
Some of the ideas I had for short posts didn’t quite work out in practice so for this last one I asked myself the question: can I make a post out of a single picture? To start with, here’s a nice...
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Holland Park 1980: a day out
Although we’ve seen some images of Holland Park on the blog on most occasions I’ve concentrated on some detail, like the murals, or more recently on interiors of Holland House. This week I want to show...
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Lancaster Road: mostly 1969
This is one of those posts about North Kensington which come with an explanatory map. Lancaster Road is one of those east to west streets which originally stretched from St Luke’s Road in the east,...
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Holland Park 1987: after the storm
This set of photographs is kept in our main picture collection with the prints, paintings and other picture,s filed under the relevant class number, so the large envelope they’re kept in isn’t...
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Goodbye Ball Street: behind Barker’s
At its height the John Barker Company owned all three of Kensington High Street’s great department stores: Barkers itself, Derry and Toms and Pontings and a few other buildings in the area. Two of the...
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The secret life of postcards 6
As this is the sixth outing for this series of posts let’s start with something different. This is another aspect of the secret life of postcards – the writing on the back. JH (?) is sending the 1906...
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On the border 4: roads, railways and the ghost of a canal, 1983
After a bit of a hiatus we’re returning to the photographs of itinerant surveyor Bernard Selwyn and this time we’re following him on a walk around the rail tracks which partly follow the course of the...
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Forgotten buildings: the lock house
We’re back to the same place we started last week, near the junction of West Cromwell Road and Warwick Road in the company of Bernard Selwyn, urban explorer. This picture shows the east side of...
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Hidden water – subterranean reservoirs
This post is a kind of addendum to one I did a few years ago about the old water works in Campden Hill Road and the demolition of its water tower. I was taken with the way our photographer John Rogers...
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The Elfin Oak of Kensington Gardens
My friend, colleague and occasional co-blogger Isabel Hernandez has been promising me a post for weeks but has been suffering from creative difficulties. To solve the problem she turned to a different...
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Mr Railton returns
After a lengthy gap, we’re back with the artist and book illustrator Herbert Railton. I recently bought a copy of a book which combines three interesting characters: Railton, and blog favourite Hugh...
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