Thursday, April 07, 2011

history of our flat


We googled our flat address and found a cool website for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea which contains an old photo of our street.  Our flat is on the second floor but way down at the end of the block, just to the right of the last street light along the right side of the street. 

Photograph of garden square erected on site of Hunter's house























The website says the photo was taken around 1905 (click to read the whole description). The site also has a more modern photo (2006) of our neighbourhood from a similar vantage point.  

Photograph of Barkston Gardens today looking east from Earls Court Road

We haven't seen any horses on our street since we got here! Averie would really have loved to live back in those days; her love for horses has surfaced since getting to London.   The street looks so much more wide open without cars parked on either side.  And the trees in the park are a lot bigger now!

The website also provides the following drawing of the old estate home that was in this location and torn down in 1886 (click to read the whole description).

Watercolour of mansion on Earl's Court Road showing gates and front garden

The site states that an english actress lived on our block from 1889 so our building must have been built between 1886 and 1889. Pretty cool.  Our house in Toronto was built in 1918 so our London flat is officially the oldest building we've ever lived in! 


Mike




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