Derry Street, W8
Kensington High Street
Credit: User unknown/public domain
Derry Street formerly known as King Street and laid out in the mid-1730s.

Until the 1690s Kensington High Street was a small collection of buildings on the main road to London, which quickly gave away to fields and market gardens to the south.

The second half of the eighteenth century saw the completion of continuous building along the High Street frontage between Colby House and King Street (Derry Street) and the growth of dense, grubby residential courts behind.

Hall’s Court was built around 1707 on the future site of the Barkers Building and in the 1770s this became Market Court and Gardeners Buildings and was joined by Duckmanton’s Yard.

Other notable buildings in the history of this part of Kensington were the Kensington Candle Manufactory, which was established on the site of Derry and Toms around 1766; Cobett’s Nursery on the site of the current High Street Kensington Station during the 1820s.

King (King’s) Street connected Kensington Square with the High Street as it does to this day. Being short it has become dominated by the two department store on each Kensington High Street corner (Barkers; Derry and Tom’s)

A fire station once stood on the corner of the former Ball Street and Derry Street.

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