During 1794 and 1831 members of the Vallotton family bought bits of open land in Kensington west of Love Lane (now Victoria Road). This area was generally known as Kensington New Town. The first member of the family known to have owned land in the area was John James Vallotton. He was a merchant working in Jermyn Street during the Napoleonic War period. Amongst other ventures, he imported fancy dress costumes from Paris. His son, Howell Leny Vallotton was also big in the fancy dress business. He bought more land in the area and he was the main developer of the family lands. He died in 1858, leaving a daughter, Eliza, and two sons, Charles and Theodore. Charles died young, but Theodore lived into his 80’s. When his widow died, she left their part of the estate to Eliza’s sons, Samuel and Frank Goodge.
Between 1824 and 1827 H.L. Vallotton bought nearly 20 acres of land in the area of St Albans Grove. His first step towards development of the estate was to lay out Victoria Road in about 1829. The top part of Victoria Road was a development of the ancient track called Love Lane, but its extension south was new construction in about 1829. For some reason, the whole development was put on hold in the 1830’s and it was 1841 before Vallotton applied to build sewers in Victoria Road and the new streets off it.
Eliza Vallotton began selling off the freehold of individual properties in the 1880’s. The estate gradually dissolved.
This article first appeared on the now defunct Kensington Living website. All rights and copyright to the original material is retained by that website which appeared at: http://www.kensingtonliving.co.uk