Olde Old Town Kensington
By: Kendra Fanconni
March 2001
By the early 1900s, Kensington, when Kensington, Maryland,
was a farming village with a population of 100, the other Kensington
had a population boom and now was home to 200,000. Most of the architecture
of Kensington reflects the Victorian era. The future Queen was raised
very strictly under what was called the "Kensington system."
Royals and celebrities have lived in Kensington. Sir Winston
Churchill made his home there. The poet Ezra Pound lived there for thirteen
years. He wrote this modern haiku about the Kensington Metro station:
The apparition of these faces in the crowds:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
The development and modernization of the city over time
has sometimes been painful for Kensington residents. In the 1930s, John
Braine wrote, "Kensington High Street seemed deserted; I wondered
gloomily where everyone went at night. When I was younger there always
seemed to be a lot of young people about; now there were only cars…"
In World War II, Kensington's prestige attracted Hitler's
bombs. One bomb destroyed a famous department store called Barker's.
Today's modern buildings are clues to where the bombs fell.
Nothing of Kensington's history is submerged by time.
The streets are still dotted with flower shops and nurseries that have
survived five centuries. A department store like Harrods is as sturdy
an institution as Big Ben.
The stories and poems about Kensington Gardens are as
uncountable as the grass stems, and continue to spring up. Bells from
that 12th century church still mark the time in Kensington to this day.
This Kensington history is a cousin of our Kensington
history and reminds us that our movements now create history for Kensington
residents six centuries hence.
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