Before the 1860s, this area was entirely rural with most of the land occupied by market gardens, grassland and paddocks and with villages at Earl’s Court and Little Chelsea. A gravel pit was recorded in the area in 1753.

A legacy of the area’s market garden past can be seen in Brompton Cemetery. As it has remained an enclosed piece of land, asparagus and other food crops can occasionally be seen growing.

As George Godwin, architect of much of the 1860s development, recalled in 1875, “We remember an old friend who used to say the adjacent field (now Thistle Grove) was never without a hare and that he had out of the window counted six brace of partridge rise from the Bolton’s”.