Introduction
The South Kensington area is filled with great restaurants and wonderful museums that are well worth the time to peruse thoroughly. I suggest taking your time to enjoy each of the unique museums with a break to enjoy some fine food, especially that of French flavor (I recommend Aux Merveilleux de Fred for wonderful pastries).
#1 South Kensington Tube Station
This walk begins at the South Kensington underground—Circle Line from Notting Hill Gate or Bayswater. Upon emerging from the turnstiles, look to your right for signs pointing out the tunnel leading to the museums, and walk to the Science Museum through the tunnel, or if it is a nice day, you might want to exit the station. If so, at the top of the stairs turn right to exit the station itself, then turn left and walk towards Cromwell Place. Stay to your right as Cromwell merges into Thurloe Place. Continue to Exhibition Road, then turn left. Walk on the right side of that road to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Hyde Park Chapel.Note also to your left, as you exited the station, the Institut Française, a French cultural and educational center founded in 1910. You will see the French influence in cafes, etc. throughout the South Kensington area—especially around the tube station. You ought to become conversant with the area around the South Kensington station, which is filled with excellent restaurants. Whether you reach the area by tunnel or surface, the walk is relatively long, so if you continue and take the tunnel route, don’t stop until you get to the exit at the end of the tunnel. When you emerge from that exit, you will be near the entrance to the Science Museum, one of the major museums of London. Seven floors of absolute delight for the science afficionado, it is well worth an extended visit. Beginning with Britains’s crucial role in the eighteenth-century industrial revolution, including such treasured pieces as Isaac Watt’s original steam engine and George III’s collection of scientific instruments, interactive displays on each level span the spectrum from clothing and food to transportation—sea, air, and space, medicine, and meteorology. Exhibits straddle time from the eighteenth century to the future, from ancient counting machines to the latest in computers, but save the museum for another time. Look across the road for the Hyde Park Chapel.The chapel, built on a site bombed out during World War II, is historically significant. Because of zoning laws in this area, the traditional terms “gym,” “recreation hall,” and “social hall” could not be used to designate the overflow area of the chapel proper. Consequently, it was here in the blueprints for the Hyde Park Chapel in the 1950s that the term “cultural hall” was first used, and subsequently adopted by the church.
#2 Princes Gate Mews
To the left, as you face the chapel, is a little lane. This is the Princes Gate Mews. Cross the road and follow that lane through the mews, staying to your left at the first intersection.The term mews formerly designated an area that was used for stabling horses and carriages. Today they are among the most sought after real estate in London. I have often thought these little neighborhoods would be a fun place to live, especially for someone without a family of young children.
#3 Thurloe Place
Continue along Prince’s Gate Mews to the sign indicating the Holy Trinity Brompton Church (Church of England). Go left around the sign into the pathway leading you past the small park and cemetery behind the church on your right. Follow the lane to the end of the park and turn right on the road that goes down the side of the church. This road is Cottage Place, although you will not see a sign indicating that until you reach the end of the road. Follow Cottage Place until it intersects with a major road, Thurloe Place, which is a section of Cromwell Road. Turn right and walk along Thurloe Place.Ultimately, this portion of the walk will take you past the Victoria and Albert Museum, across Exhibition Road, past the Natural History museum to Queen’s Gate Road (about two blocks).The large church to your right (as you begin this walk) is the Oratory of St. Philip Neri (Brompton Oratory), a Roman Catholic church that I strongly recommend you visit. Inside, make your way down the right aisle to the front of the church. Look at the representation of the four evangelists on the ceiling (a man for Matthew, a lion for Mark, an ox for Luke, and an eagle for John). Look also at the small chapel to your right with the broken pediment and the statues that appear ready to slide off. This church is an impressive example of baroque styling. Although no photography is allowed inside the Oratory, it is still worth a visit.As you leave the church, turn right, and continue along Thurloe Place, which at this point becomes Cromwell Gardens Road, you will come to a statue of Cardinal Newman on the right. Newman was a famous convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism during the Oxford Movement in the mid-nineteenth century. Newman is the author of the hymn “Lead Kindly Light.” Adjacent to many universities—including the University of Utah—the Catholic church operates “Newman Clubs” that serve the same purpose for Catholics as Institutes of Religion do for Latter-day Saints. (You will pass one on the Bloomsbury walk adjacent to the University College of London.) These clubs were named after Newman largely because he was also an important voice in British education and is still read by educators throughout the western world.
#4 Victoria and Albert Museum
Continue along Thurloe Place/Cromwell Gardens Road to the Victoria and Albert Museum (commonly called the V&A), one of the major showplaces in the city.As you pass along the walk, note the green structure in the road in front of the V&A. This is a “cabman’s shelter” for taxi drivers that goes back to the days of horse-drawn vehicles. Turn your imagination back to what it must have been like in the 1800s when literally hundreds of tons of horse manure had to be removed daily from London’s roads (and we think we invented pollution!). In this structure a driver could warm himself (or herself—but if you haven’t noticed, there are still few women taxi drivers) and have a cup of hot tea or other refreshments. Many of these structures have recently been renovated and are still in use. You may still see some of the taxi drivers queued up by them. Incidentally, London has some of the finest cabbies in the world. When you make use of a taxi, which you ought to do sometime during your stay, you can rest assured that the driver literally knows the city like his own neighborhood.Across the street, there used to be a long trough-like structure that commemorated a former horse trough. This was one of a few such monuments you may still notice along your walks. They were constructed by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountains and Cattle Trough Association—only in Britain might one find this combination—to provide "free drinking water for man and beast," according to an 1879 advertisement found in Burke's Peerage (a British publishing firm). Sadly, the name has now been changed merely to the Drinking Fountain Association, which doesn't quite have the same feel about it.When you reach the Victoria and Albert Museum, take time to look at the elaborate exterior of the building on the front. If you examine the side around the corner on Exhibition Road, you will notice pock marks made by shrapnel during the blitz of World War II. I strongly recommend you visit the museum on another excursion. Its holdings are truly overwhelming. I have two personal favorites in the museum: 1) the Cole Collection, which contains one of the finest London collections of Victorian painting, and 2) the galleries called “Fakes and Forgeries” (the Italian Cast Court), which contains life-sized statues, monuments, etc. that are replications of such famous pieces as Michelangelo’s David and the Florentine Gates of Paradise. These two galleries alone are powerful and well worth your visit.When you reach Exhibition Road, look across the road to your left. Note the grey concrete structure across Cromwell Road. This is the Ismaili Centre, a cultural, political, and religious centre for Ismaili Muslims. It is one of the few in the world and only accessible through guided tours. If you were to turn left on Exhibition Road, you would soon arrive back at the tube station from which you began this walk.
#5 Natural History Museum
Continue along Cromwell Road and walk past the Natural History Museum to the next intersection.Be sure you get a good look at the front of the Natural History Museum. It is one of the truly magnificent facades to be found on any of the older London buildings. The museum stands on the ground that was used in 1862 for the great International Exhibition(a type of second Great Exhibition,discussed on the Hyde Park walk). British natural scientists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were among the world’s greatest pioneers in the fields of botany, zoology, and geology. The Natural History Museum represents their contributions and contains many of their private papers and collections in the museum library.
#6 Queen's Gate
When you get to Queen’s Gate, turn right, with the museum complex on your right side.Look across Queen’s Gate when you get to the intersection, but do not cross over unless you want a quick look at the Baden-Powell House—that structure across the road with a statue of Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement, in front. The statue of Baden-Powell lays claim to being the only granite statue in London.
#7 Continue along Queen's Gate Road
Continue north, along Queen’s Gate on the Natural History Museum side of the road.The buildings coming up on your right are part of one of the major educational centers in London. When the Great Exhibition of 1851 was finished, the financial profit of nearly £200,000 was spent to form the nucleus of this center, comprised of museums that have now become world famous, and colleges dedicated to several fields. More than a century was required to complete this complex, culminating in the construction of the Royal College of Art beside the Royal Albert Hall in 1964. You will notice that some of the colleges have the designation Royal colleges and some Imperial colleges. Apparently some of the Royal colleges existed first, and then came under the larger administration of the Imperial College (some did not). And to further complicate matters, these colleges consider themselves an extension of the College of London (Don’t try to figure the system out; it is far too complicated for those of us from the colonies—and of the five people I asked, who all worked at the colleges, none could sort through it themselves.).
#8 Imperial College Road to Prince Consort Road
If you have time, take a look around at this campus when you get to Imperial College Road (the first intersection going into the complex). You will recognize it by its wrought-iron gates. If you don't want to take the time, keep walking to Prince Consort Road and turn right. Holy Trinity with All Saints Church will be on your left.Holy Trinity with All Saints Church is the chapel assigned to these colleges. It is on the location that was once occupied by the chapel of a leper’s hospital found in the area during the medieval era. Leprosy seems to have been rather wide spread in London during the medieval period, and with imagination you might even conjure up an imagined vision of the initial hospital surrounded by the afflicted.
#9 Royal Albert Hall
Continue along Prince Consort Road. When you reach the stairs (to your left) opposite the Royal College of Music (to your right), go up the stairs which lead to the back of Royal Albert Hall.At the back of the hall you will find another Albert Memorial (a Commemorative Exhibition statue, created ten years after the Great Exhibition—the first of the great World’s Fairs). You will also have a good view of the back of Royal Albert Hall, which is perhaps even more magnificent from this side—away from the noise and confusion of traffic. This building (nearly a quarter of a mile in circumference) is currently used for a multitude of events. It is especially noted for musical events, most of which are noted on advertising boards along the road-side front of the building. Everything can be heard here from jazz to symphony. Especially popular are the Promenade Concerts during an eight-week summer series. The best night to attend—for action—is the last night of the Proms, when many young people come to stand in the galleries or the central area, and participate with rhythmic applause (geared to quicken the pace of the music) and other time-honored antics when traditional pieces are performed. So popular has this event become that it is also simultaneously shown on giant screens in Hyde Park. Other events, as varied as boxing and political events (or is this a distinction without a difference?) are also held here. You ought to experience a concert during your stay. It can be an exciting experience, filled with pomp and ceremony, especially if a member of the Royal Family is present in their special box.
#10 Royal College of Organists
Move right past the Royal Albert Hall, exit the complex at Kensington Road, and then turn left.The Royal College of Organists is just past the Royal Albert Hall. This multicolored building has one of the most interesting facades in the complex.
#11 Hyde Park Gate
Continue down Kensington Road, noting the several embassies along the way. Look for Hyde Park Gate on your left (there are two of these, so make certain you choose the one that says Cul-de-sac #9–35A on the sign; it is the second turn-in on your left past the statue of Lord Robert Napier on Queen’s Gate). Detour momentarily into this famous cul-de-sac.Several interesting British figures once lived on the street known as Hyde Park Gate. There are blue plaques marking some of their residences. Lord Baden-Powell (mentioned earlier as the founder of the International Scouting program) lived at #9, Charles Dickens at #16, Sir Jacob Epstein (a famous twentieth-century English sculptor) at #18, and Sir Leslie Stephen, whose name will probably not be as familiar to you as that of his more famous daughters, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell—both of whom were influential in the formation of the famous “Bloomsbury Group,” a group of intellectuals who met together in the Bloomsbury section of London during the early 1900s. You may also have seen The Hours, a 2002 film that narrates a part of Virginia Woolf’s life.Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II, lived down near the end of the road, at #27–28. He bought the home after his party’s defeat in 1945, leased it later to the Spanish Ambassador for five years, and eventually moved back into the house until his death. In 1965, it was sold for the cost of the property. Yet, in the midst of all these famous neighbors, Enis Bagley, Lady Jones, kept a Jersey milk cow in the back garden of #29 as late as 1948.
#12 The End: Return to the BYU Centre
Exit Hyde Park Gate where you entered, cross over to the park side of Kensington Road, turn left at the outer wall of the park and move along Kensington Road with Kensington Gardens on your right (note another of the taxi shelters in this area). Turn into Kensington Gardens at the next entrance and cross the park to Bayswater—and home.
