Queen's Gate

For other uses, see Queensgate.
Buildings in the street.
Queen's Gate, a major southern gate of Kensington Gardens at the northern end of the street.
St Augustine's, Queen's Gate, London.

Queen's Gate is a street in South Kensington, London, England. It runs south from the Kensington Gardens Queen's Gate in Kensington Road, intersects with Cromwell Road, and then on to Old Brompton Road.

The street is mostly in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, but part of the east side is in the City of Westminster. The municipal boundary follows Queen's Gate between Kensington Road and Imperial College Road.

Queen's Gate is also a ward of the Royal London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The population at the 2011 Census was 9,847.[1]

History

The street was built on land purchased by the Royal Commissioners for the Great Exhibition under an agreement dated August 1855 with Henry Browne Alexander, whose family owned the land through which the road was to pass, and William Jackson, a building speculator. The road was originally known as Albert's Road, but was officially changed to Queen's Gate in 1859.[2]

Places of interest

At the northern end of the road, near the actual gate to Kensington Gardens, is an equestrian statue of Lord Napier. From north to south, places of interest visible from Queen's Gate include the Royal Albert Hall, Imperial College London, Baden-Powell House, Dana Centre and the Natural History Museum. The road also lends its name to an independent girls' school, Queen's Gate School, which is situated on the road. The road is a like a boulevard in style. It is approximately 1 km in length with architectural styles varying along its length. The northern section, by the gate to Kensington Gardens), features grand terraced homes on the west side and independent designed attached buildings on the east side. The Huxley Building, built in honour of biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, is the largest of many academic buildings on the road itself, and others are also visible from the road.

On the eastern side of the middle section of Queen's Gate, construction work on new research centres has been in progress at least since 1998, the main one being the Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre, home to several dozen million animal specimens. The Darwin Centre phase II is currently under construction. The public can visit the currently open Darwin Centre by appointment.

The only church is St Augustine's of Canterbury (Church of England). Although there are bars, restaurants and several hotels on the road, the entire area is essentially residential with the nearest shops at least 100 metres away (e.g., on Gloucester Road).

The entire length of Queen's Gate is divided by a central parking reservation.

The buildings become architecturally simpler further down the street to the south.

The nearest tube stations are South Kensington and Gloucester Road.

Five countries have embassies or high commissions in Queen's Gate: the Embassy of Iraq is at no. 21, the Bangladeshi High Commission at No. 28, the Royal Embassy of Thailand is at Nos. 29-30, the Embassy of Oman is at No. 167, and the Bulgarian Embassy is at Nos. 186-188.[3]

Notable residents

References

  1. "Kensington and Chelsea Ward population 2011". Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  2. Weinreb, Ben and Hibbert, Christopher (1992). The London Encyclopaedia (reprint ed.). Macmillan. p. 650.
  3. "The London Diplomatic List" (PDF). 14 December 2013.
  4. 'Ledward, Gilbert', in Who Was Who 1951–1960 (London: A. & C. Black, 1984 reprint, ISBN 0-7136-2598-8)
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Coordinates: 51°29′54″N 0°10′47″W / 51.49834°N 0.17961°W / 51.49834; -0.17961

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