Why is kentish town so called

Kentish Town's hay fields were quickly replaced with houses between and , although the arrival of the railway in the s saw many of the large dwellings carved up into flats and lodgings. Today's buyers are still reversing that legacy, restoring split properties into single-family homes. Families are quick to snap up the houses and flats for sale in Kentish town as the area boasts a clutch of 'Outstanding' Ofsted rated schools, and the presence of two bilingual French schools adds a continental air in NW5.

Look hard enough or wait long enough and you may secure a Georgian terrace or house for sale in Kentish Town, although most of the property stock is early to mid Victorian - usually terrace in style. The area's piano making history has left a legacy of Victorian warehouses too, and these are being turned into some stunning properties. The Dartmouth Park Conservation Area continues to find favour, with large four- and five-storey residences catching the eye of the growing family.

Malden Road, NW5. Holmes Road, NW5. Free Valuation. Properties for sale in Kentish Town. Properties to Let in Kentish Town. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Kentish Town Area Guide. Property for Sale Property to Rent Residents in NW5 tend to be young professionals or couples commuting to work in the West End or the City, who favour the area for its quiet streets, great transport connections and its proximity to the vast open spaces of Hampstead Heath.

Kentish Town History The most widely accepted explanation of the name of Kentish Town is that it derived from 'Ken-ditch' meaning the 'bed of a waterway'. Read more. Contact Steven Govier Email direct. In the first, which was signed "C. Holl, the celebrated engraver, the father of Mr. Frank Holl, and of the late William Holl, engravers, and of Mr. Henry Holl, the actor and novelist.

Charles Rolls, another artist of note, in addition to Mr. Engelhart, and to Mr. Henry Selous, the painter, and Mr. Angelo Selous, the dramatic author, resided in Bayham Street. The private theatricals at the late Mr.

Holl's residence will not be forgotten, as all the gentlemen just named took parts therein, as also another actor, who is no more, Mr. Benjamin Holl. The houses in Bayham Street were small, but the locality half a century since was regarded as a suburb of London.

Fields had to be crossed to reach it, on which the best houses of Camden Town have been since erected. The description of Bayham Street by the late Charles Dickens must have been prompted by personal privations. What a romance he could have created out of the house occupied by Mr. Holl, where was concealed for months young Watson, who was implicated in the treasonable attempt for which his father and Thistlewood were tried and acquitted—the latter not taking warning by his escape on that occasion, for he afterwards concocted the Cato Street conspiracy, for which he was executed at Newgate.

Young Watson shot a gunmaker in Snow Hill, for which his comrade Cashman, the sailor, was hanged. Holl was a Reformer in days when it was looked upon as treason to differ from the Government.

He gave shelter to young Watson, having been on intimate terms with his father, Dr. Holl contrived the escape to America of Watson, junior, disguising him as a Quaker. Bayham Street was occupied by men of advanced political opinions, some of whom lived to see their notions realised. In the other letter referred to, which appeared with the initials of "E.

The writer remarks:—"I have a perfect recollection of Bayham Street thirty years ago, and took a stroll up it this morning to see if I could trace the house to which Mr. Forster refers. On entering the street from Crowndale Road I literally rubbed my eyes with astonishment. There is a public-house at the corner, the sign of which is the 'Hope and Anchor.

The block of houses to which he refers was at one end; then came fields; and, lower down towards the Old St. Pancras Road, a lot of small houses or cottages with gardens in front, in one of which I presume the parents of Charles Dickens to have resided. There are still two houses remaining, near Pratt Street, which I remember as being old houses twenty-five years ago.

Camden Road is a broad thoroughfare, running north-east from the top of High Street to Holloway. The building, which was erected in , is Italian in style, and was built from the designs of Mr.

Not far from the Chalk Farm station, at the foot of the slope of Haverstock Hill, near the entrance to Maitland Park, are the Tailors' Almshouses, consisting of six residences and a small chapel, built in red brick and stone in the Gothic style, and standing in the middle of a garden of about an acre and a half.

They were founded and built in —42, by the late Mr. Stulz, of Clifford Street, Hanover Square, for the support of aged tailors of every nation in the world, irrespective of creed. A few steps further northwards brings us to the almshouses for the parish of St.

They were founded in , by Mr. Donald Fraser, M. The buildings consist of a row of ornamental cottages, with pointed roofs, and red-brick facings; they are separated from the roadway by a light stone wall and a spacious and well-kept lawn. The grounds of the above institutions abut upon Maitland Park, where there is another edifice devoted to charitable purposes—viz.

Here orphans and other necessitous children are clothed, educated, and wholly maintained, from seven years of age until they are about fourteen or fifteen; and the number of children usually in the school is about At the age of fourteen the boys are apprenticed, and the girls, who are all trained for domestic service, remain for a year or two longer. The education imparted is unsectarian, and of a thoroughly practical character, fitting the children for useful positions in life.

Many of the former pupils, it may be added, are governors and liberal supporters of the charity. The Dominican Monastery, close by, stands at the foot of the hill which ascends to Hampstead. Its first stone was laid by Cardinal Wiseman, in the presence of nearly all his clergy, in August, , and the building was opened two years later.

It is a large edifice in the Early-English style of architecture, with a lofty bell and clock tower. The buildings surround a quadrangle, and have altogether an imposing appearance. At present, the church, as originally designed, is incomplete, and the future library of the convent has been made to do duty in its place for celebrating religious services.

Attached to the monastery is a plot of ground, which the monks themselves are employed in cultivating. This monastery is a branch of the Order of St. Dominic, whose headquarters in this country are at Woodchester, near Stroud, in Gloucestershire. Dominic, the founder of this Order, is known to history as the author of the devotion called the Rosary.

His feast day is kept on the 4th day of August. He was of the noble family of Guzman, and was born in Old Castile in He conducted the preaching crusade against the Albigenses in the south of France, and dying in , was canonised about twelve years later by Pope Gregory IX. His monks, called the "Black Friars" from the colour of their dress, were numerous in almost all the west of Europe, and in England and Scotland, and especially at Paris and Oxford, where they held the chairs of theology.

It is to the honour of this Order that it produced the great doctor of theology, St. Thomas Aquinas; and Chambers tells us that, in spite of its losses at the time of the Reformation, the Order in the eighteenth century could boast of possessing a thousand monasteries and convents, divided into forty-five provinces, who all revered St.

Dominic as their founder. From the neighbourhood of the Dominican monastery and Gospel Oak a thoroughfare named Fleet Road leads away north-west to Hampstead. It is named after the Fleet rivulet, which till lately ran behind the houses, through green fields, in its way townwards, but it is now nearly dry, and what water passes down it in winter finds its way into a sewer.

We shall have occasion to mention the Fleet River again, when we come to St. The Gospel Oak Fields, a little to the east of the monastery, are now built over with numerous streets, crescents, and circuses. The Midland Railway emerges from the Haverstock Hill tunnel in the middle of these streets, about half a mile to the west of the Kentish Town station.

In these fields a rural fair, called "Gospel Oak Fair," was held as lately as There are many "Gospel Oaks" in various parts of this country. John Timbs, in his "Things not Generally Known," tells us that these Gospel oaks are traditionally said to have been so called in consequence of its having been the practice in ancient times to read aloud, under a tree which grew on the parish boundary line, a portion of the Gospel, on the annual "beating of the bounds" on Ascension Day.

These trees may have been, in some instances, even Druidical, and under such "leafy tabernacles" the first Christian missionaries of St. Augustine may have preached. The popular, though mistaken, idea is, that these trees were so called because the parishioners were in the habit of assembling there at the era of the Reformation in order to read the Bible aloud.

Herrick thus alludes to the real derivation of the term in the nd of his "Hesperides:"— "Dearest, bury me Under that holy oak, or gospel-tree, Where, though thou see'st not, thou mayst think upon Me when thou yearly go'st in procession.

Beneath one of the trees in the Gospel Oak Fields, of which we are now speaking, Whitefield, the Methodist, and companion of Wesley, is said to have preached to crowded audiences of the working classes. Pancras, is the Church of St. Martin, a Gothic structure in the Decorated style, with a lofty tower, and a fine peal of bells. It was erected and endowed about the year , by Mr.

John Derby Allcroft, who also built a handsome parsonage and schools adjoining it. Larwood, in his "History of Sign-boards," "the noisiest and most objectionable public-house in the district bears the significant sign of the 'Gospel Oak. Pancras parishes—a relic of the once usual custom of reading a portion of the Gospel under certain trees in the parish perambulations equivalent to 'beating the bounds.

Pancras, in the Holborn division of the hundred of Ossulston. Paul's; and it gives title to the Prebendary of Cantelows or Kentish Town , who is Lord of the Manor, and holds a court-leet and court-baron.

Moll, in his "History of Middlesex," on noticing this hamlet, states: "You may, from Hampstead, see in the vale between it and London a village, vulgarly called Kentish Town, which we mention chiefly by reason of the corruption of the name, the true one being Cantilupe Town, of which that ancient family were originally the owners.

Thomas was canonised for a saint in the thirty-fourth year of Edward's reign; the inheritance at length devolving upon the sisters, the very name became extinct.

In this, doubtless, we must seek the origin of Ken fn. We may, however, add that the thoroughfare now known as Gray's Inn Road is stated to have led northwards to a "pleasant rural suburb, variously named Ken-edge Town and Kauntelows," in which we can discern the origin of its present name.

The situation of Kentish Town is pleasant and healthy; and it is described by Thornton, in his "Survey of London," , as "a village on the road to Highgate, where people take furnished lodgings in the summer, especially those afflicted with consumption and other disorders. That old gossip, Horace Walpole, who probably never went so far afield from the metropolis as the place of which he writes, tells his friend, Sir Horace Mann, in "Lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses; nor do I wonder, nor do I wonder.

There will soon be one street from London. It can now boast of having two railway stations, in addition to two or three others on its borders, besides a line of tramway, and a service of omnibuses connecting it with Fleet Street, the West End, Charing Cross, and other parts of the metropolis.

It is not certain that there was a chapel here earlier than the reign of Elizabeth; and little or nothing is known in detail concerning it. Norden refers to a chapel of ease as existing in his time in this village, as he says, speaking of the old parish church, "Folks from the hamlet of Kennistonne now and then visit it, but not often, having a chapele of their owne.

It has two lofty steeples, and a large painted window at the eastern end; the altar recess has some elaborate carved work. In this church is buried Grignion, the engraver. In , at which time the population of Kentish Town numbered upwards of 10,, there was only one place of worship belonging to the Established Church; the erection of a new church was proposed and erected upon the estate of Brookfield, the greater part of which is in the hamlet of Kentish Town, and the remainder in the adjoining chapelry of Highgate.

The building is erected in the Early English style, and has a fine tall spire; some of the windows are enriched with painted glass. The site of the church was given by the proprietor of the ground whereon it stands, Lady Burdett-Coutts gave the peal of bells, and other grants were made towards the fabric. In a large Congregational chapel was built here, in the ecclesiastical style of architecture of the fifteenth century. It has several richly-traceried windows filled with stained glass, including a splendid wheel-window fifteen feet in diameter.

Hodge and Butler were the architects. A mission chapel was built in the Highgate Road in , and a schoolroom attached to it. In the chapel was, however, closed by order of the diocesan, and from that time for several months the Passionist Fathers from The Hyde served the place. In a piece of freehold ground was purchased funds being provided by Cardinal Wiseman , and three cottages which stood upon the land were converted into a temporary chapel, capable of accommodating about persons.

The new church, which is in the Gothic style, has since been erected in its place. The historical memorabilia of Kentish Town, we need scarcely remark, are comparatively very scanty. This is literally all the figure that it acts in history down to quite recent times, when we incidentally learn that the Prince Regent was nearly meeting with a serious accident here, in December, , through a dense fog, which would not yield even to royalty.

On his way to pay a visit to the Marquis of Salisbury, at Hatfield House, Herts, the Prince was obliged to return to Carlton House, after one of his outriders had fallen into a ditch at the entrance of Kentish Town, which at that time was not lit with gas, and probably not even with oil. The road through this district, however, even when no fog prevailed, does not seem to have been very safe for wayfarers after dark, in former times, if we may judge from the numerous notices of outrages which appear in the papers of the times, of which the following may be taken as a sample:—.

Rainsforth and his daughter, of Clare Street, Clare Market, were returning home through Kentish Town, about eight o'clock, they were attacked by three footpads, and after being brutally ill-used, Mr. A few years later, the following paragraph appeared in the Morning Chronicle January 9, :—"On Thursday night some villains robbed the Kentish Town stage, and stripped the passengers of their money, watches, and buckles. The tree would have been included in a customary ceremony in which readings from the Gospels took place underneath it.

By , the tree was no longer there. The area remained rural well into the 18 th century. A Swiss artist named Samual Hieronymus Grimm made sketches of the area in show the Fleet River flowing through fields dotted with cattle.

The air was considered to be wholesome and healthy. However, it also had some of the character of a village. Starting in the early 19 th century, transport links increased the connection to London and the rest of England.

As the land became more valuable and large estates were sold off and split up. The s were a boom time for Kentish Town. With transport came commerce and growth in population. Development continued from south to north. Houses were generally built on small plots leading to a dense street pattern. The founders of the Sainsburys Supermarkets opened three shops Queens Crescent and a wholesale business in butter, cheese eggs and bacon in a nearby mews.

Manufacturing and business thrived in the area.