Queen's Gate Living
St Mary's Abbots
In 1851 the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park - not the Hyde Park of today with all the hotels of Park Lane conveniently nearby for visitors. London had not expanded much further west than Westminster and Piccadilly. If you had gazed south from Hyde Park in 1851, then instead of Harrods or the South Ken Museums you would have seen open farmland, a few country houses and some rows of cottages strung along country lanes. The farming was however quite intensive, with market gardens and nurseries for exotic fruits and plants taking up most of the land.
The land on which Queen’s Gate and surrounding streets now stand was part of the ancient parish of St Mary Abbots, Kensington. By Victorian times it was part of two or three large estates.
