A chic paradise for shoppers and royal watchers, Kensington is home to a wealth of stores from high street clothes outlets to the fascinating antiques shops of Kensington Church Street.
Turn right out of High Street Kensington tube station and a walk of just a few hundred yards will bring you to the gates of Kensington Palace. This was home to the late Diana Princess of Wales.
Beyond the palace lie the delightful Kensington Gardens - the perfect setting for a picnic! Alternatively, stroll along the many beautiful mews or grand residential streets - find the very house where Agatha Christie penned some of her finest mysteries!
South Kensington is best visited from the tube station of the same name. Here you will find a collection of the world's finest museums - all virtually next to each other! You'll need more than a day to see them all, so choose carefully. The Victoria and Albert Museum has around 7 miles of corridors and houses a fascinating mix of collections from dresses to church pulpits! A little further down Cromwell Road, the Natural History Museum is one of the grandest buildings in London and will occupy anyone with even the vaguest interest in the natural world. Adjacent to this stands the Science Museum: a Pandora's Box of levers, switches, buttons and wizardry. It also has a superb collection of cars, trains, planes, boats, and even working steam engines!
Famous residents of Kensington have included William Makepeace Thackeray (author of Vanity Fair), Robert Baden-Powell (founder of the Scout Movement), Bela Bartok, Sir Winston Churchill, T.S. Eliot, Sir W.S. Gilbert, Henry James, Mohammed Ali Jinnah (the founder of Pakistan) Jawarharlal Nehru (the first Prime Minister of India) and the Earl and Countess of Bradford.
Nearest Underground stops: Kensington High Street, South Kensington, Gloucester Road