SUBURB***


Transcribed from the 1883 Hodder and Stoughton edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org.  Many thanks to the Royal Borough of Kensington
and Chelsea Libraries for allowing their copy to be consulted for this
transcription.





                            CONGREGATIONALISM
                                  IN THE
                              COURT SUBURB.


                                * * * * *

                                    BY

                           JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.

                _Formerly Minister of Kensington Chapel_.

                                * * * * *

                                 London:
                          HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

                           27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

                              MDCCCLXXXIII.

                                * * * * *

                             Butler & Tanner,

                       The Selwood Printing Works,

                            Frome, and London.

                                * * * * *




DEDICATION.


                              THE FOLLOWING

                            HISTORICAL SKETCH,

                        PREPARED AT THEIR REQUEST,

                         Is Gratefully Inscribed

                                  TO THE

                       PRESENT MINISTER AND DEACONS

                                    OF
                            KENSINGTON CHAPEL.




INTRODUCTION.


AT the commencement of my History, I wish to convey some idea of what
Kensington was at the close of the last century, when the original
Nonconformist Church in that place was formed and established.

Kensington as a parish must be distinguished from Kensington as a village
or suburb.  The boundaries of the parish are still unaltered, yet what it
contained ninety years ago was different, indeed, from what it contains
now.  It is startling to read in Lyson’s “Environs,” published in 1795,
the following sentence:—“The parish of Kensington contains about 1,910
acres of land, about half of which is pasture meadow, about 360 acres are
arable land for corn only, about 230 in market gardens, about 260
cultivated sometimes for corn and sometimes for garden crops, and 100
acres of nursery ground.”

I often think, as I am reading history, what a contrast exists between
its background of natural scenery, and the prospect now before our eyes
on the spot to which the history refers.  We should not know Kensington
if we could see it as it was when Hornton Street Chapel was being built.
Then all around was rural.  Notting Hill and the whole way to
Paddington—where was the parish boundary to the north—exhibited fields
bordered by hedgerows.  Holland Park, to the west, was a lordly demesne
such as you see now “down in the shires,” and the boundary of the parish
in that direction, at what used to be called Compton Bridge, was marked
by a turnpike gate not long ago removed; beyond it lay a bit of country
landscape before you reached the junction of roads at Hammersmith
Broadway.  No great change had then taken place since Addison—who lived
in Kensington—wrote to the Earl of Warwick, saying, “The business of this
is to invite you to a concert of music, which I have found out in a
neighbouring wood.  It begins precisely at six in the evening, and
consists of a blackbird, a thrush, a robin redbreast, and a bullfinch.
There is a lark that, by way of overture, sings famously till she is
almost out of hearing.”  “The whole is concluded by a nightingale.”  Such
were the warblers that broke the silence of Kensington woods when no
screech of the railway whistled in the wind, and no lumbering omnibuses
thundered along the highway.  Indeed, I well remember the nightingales in
Holland Park, after the commencement of my ministry at Hornton Street.
Earl’s Court, even then, was separated from Holland Park gates by a
country lane which began at Pembroke Square.  But fifty years before, now
ninety years ago, it was thereabouts all pleasant open country, dotted
with homesteads, paddocks, gardens; whilst at eventide broad green
meadows saw “the lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea.”  Brompton,
included within the parish, extended to the borders of Chelsea, famous
for cosy retreats occupied by merchants and literary men.  Turning from
south to east, there opened, under the shadow of the palace, those
gardens which had become famous and much admired in Queen Anne’s time;
and after Hornton Street chapel was built, a minute of the Board of Green
Cloth recorded that an annual pension of £18 was to be paid to a widow,
named Gray, “in consideration of the loss of her husband, who was
accidentally shot while the keepers were hunting foxes in Kensington
Gardens.” {9a}

Lyson tells us that in 