Kensington Square
Kensington Square is a garden square in Kensington, London, W8. It was built from 1692 on land acquired for the purpose in 1685 and is the oldest such square in Kensington. The houses facing, Nos. 1–45, are listed Grade II for their architectural/historic merit.
History
In 1685, Thomas Young, a woodcarver, acquired land in Kensington which he sought to develop, and as he later described it in 1701, "did sett out and appoint a considerable part thereof to be built into a large Square of large and substantial Houses fit for the Habitacion of persons of good Worth and Quality, with Courts and Yards before and Gardens lying backwards".In London, St. James's Square, Soho Square and Golden Square are a few years older, but in contrast with these Kensington Square still retains its residential character.
Garden
The communal gardens were laid out in 1698 and are in size. The garden is private and not open to the public, though it has taken part in the annual Open Garden Squares Weekend.Heythrop College
No. 23 was Heythrop College, University of London until 2018, "the Specialist Philosophy and Theology College of the University of London," which included a library originally established in 1614 in Louvain by the Society of Jesus for those studies.Former residents
;Blue plaque holdersThe square includes the former homes of:
- composer Hubert Parry at No. 17
- liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill at No. 18
- sanitary reformer and pathologist John Simon at No. 40;
- Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones at No. 41 —
- Lawyer and positivist Vernon Lushington at No. 36. He introduced one of the foremost Pre-Raphaelites, Edward Burne-Jones, to another, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, at the Working Men's College. The Lushingtons and Parrys frequently visited each other.
- Scholar and philanthropist Richard Buckley Litchfield at No. 31 with his wife
- Henrietta Litchfield, who was Charles Darwin's daughter.
- Their niece, artist Gwen Raverat, describes visits there in her memoir Period Piece.