History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

In 1847, Thomas Hickman, his wife Harriet and their six children, aged from 16 months to 12 years old, were living in Penton Villas, a two-room cottage in Middle Row Kensal New Town.  The open countryside around Kensal Green began to change at the turn of the nineteenth century, with the building of the Grand Junction Canal to Paddington (1801) and two years later, the first burials at Kensal Green Cemetery. A large gas works opened south of the canal in 1845 while the Great Western Railway line started running trains from Paddington in 1848. Subsequent street and house building had to adapt itself to these early developments.   1870 OS Map An area of land sandwiched between the railway and canal was developed from the late 1830s onwards, with narrow streets lined with small houses. Named Kensal New Town, the properties soon became overcrowded and insanitary. The area was called ‘Chelsea in the Wilderness’ because it was distant from, but nonetheless under the local government...