Creating Kensington: How country allotments were transformed into Albertopolis and des res abodes

Until the early 19th century, South Kensington was a hive of horticultural industry, largely a landscape of fields, market gardens and nurseries, such as those of George London and Henry Wise, gardeners to Queen Anne. And if you’d travelled just a short distance north you would have strayed into pig country. Find out how this largely rural area became the place to live, create and consume culture in the aftermath of the 1851 Great Exhibition. Learn about the new Victorian residents – the brewers, the builders, the artists and writers – who migrated west of Westminster. Meet brewer Edward Charrington and prolific local builder CJ Freake, find out where sculptor Edwin Landseer worked and where William Thackeray lived, and where early women’s suffrage campaigners began their struggle for justice.

Led by Janet Perham