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 1795 there had been new buildings erected, principally in and near the hamlet of Brompton. “The present number of houses,” he says, “is about 1,240, of which about 1,150 are inhabited, the remainder are for the most part unfinished.” [9b]

So much for the parish. Now look at the Court suburb; so small in comparison with the parish, that it may be compared to a shrivelled kernel in a nutshell. There, in the centre, stood the old Parish Church, pronounced by Bishop Blomfield the ugliest in the country; and in Church Street, higher up, the Vicarage was encompassed by a goodly garden and small park, now covered by rows of houses. Quaint-looking tenements bordered Church Street a little way. Campden House and grounds retained a palatial appearance. A row of brick dwellings, taking us back to the days of the first Georges, still line Holland Street, and were then in their prime. Hornton Street looked out, in spring, upon blooming orchards. The road between Kensington Palace Gate and Holland House was, as it still is, the main thoroughfare; and I conclude that Phillimore Place, called by the Prince Regent “Dish-clout Row,” from its tasteless slabs in front, was then in pristine pride. Kensington Square, though shorn of the glories it possessed under the first two Georges—when it boasted of forty coaches, and of lords and ladies occupying the buildings round it—still presented much quiet respectability; and old inhabitants, as they passed by the palace gates, could tell of having heard from their fathers and mothers how one morning there issued thence “Horse Guards with their trumpets, and a company of heralds with their tabards, to proclaim, after Queen Anne’s death, George, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith.”

All round, the Court suburb was separated from neighbouring hamlets by a belt of orchards, gardens, and nursery grounds; and the road between Kensington Gardens and Knightsbridge remained notorious for its loneliness and perils. Opposite Hyde Park were a few aristocratic mansions, with spacious lawns, shrubberies, and gardens bounded by lofty walls; but the road was often in very bad repair. In the middle of the century, Lord Hervey told his mother it was impassable, and that in Kensington he lived “in the same solitude as he should do if cast on a rock in the middle of the ocean.” [11] Matters might have mended somewhat at the time the chapel was built, but a good old pew-opener, Mr. Mundy, told me how he remembered that people at Knightsbridge, bound for Kensington after dark, would wait till they made a number large enough to defend themselves against the footpads who infested the thoroughfare. The old half-way house and the turnpike gate, symbolical of ancient days, lingered so late as the middle of my own ministry.

Along that road, and through Kensington suburbs, George III. used to drive down to Windsor in a lumbering coach with outriders and an escort. There sat on the box, in grand livery, “a body coachman,” as he was called. His name was Saunders. To speak of that good man may seem to be travelling out of my record, but it will be seen that he played an important part in Kensington Church history. He was a favourite with His Majesty, and used to put tracts in the pocket of the coach for his master to read on the way to the Royal Borough. The latter liked them so well, that he encouraged the servant to keep the pocket furnished with such publications; and we can fancy the Queen’s grandfather, in his cocked hat and neat wig, poring over the pages provided for his entertainment and benefit. The coachman was a Nonconformist, and when he was staying at Windsor gathered a few people together in a house which bore the unattractive name of “Hole in the Wall,” where they held a religious service, and formed the nucleus of the Independent Church of which I was pastor for eleven years, part of it as colleague with the venerable Alexander Redford. It is a curious coincidence that this worthy coachman may be accounted founder of the two Churches in which I have laboured the whole of my pastoral life.

He lived part of his time at Kensington, and wished to see a Nonconformist congregation there. He met with a few people in “a very humble dwelling,” [12] for religious worship, and out of that grew the Dissenting Church in Hornton Street.

Kensington Parish Church, between 1762 and 1770, was favoured with the ministry of the celebrated Dr. Jortin, an author and preacher of extraordinary reputation; and he was succeeded by Dr. Waller, of whom I know nothing except that he was killed by the fall of a chimney during a great hurricane in November, 1795. Then came the Rev. Richard Omerod. “There was no man, perhaps, who more eminently possessed the faculty of conciliating all ranks and orders in a large and populous parish than Mr. Omerod. Nor was this effected by courtly demeanour or by flattering profession, but by that honest and amiable simplicity of life and heart, which both dignify and recommend the Christian minister. To a native purity of mind and unaffected sanctity of life, he added a calm, gentle, and unobtrusive manner, which never failed at once to disarm hostility and to command respect. In his discharge of the complicated duties of a parish priest he was eminent and exemplary. By the higher orders he was respected and admired, and by the lower orders he was venerated and loved; and possessing alike the confidence of both, he was the channel of communicating the bounty of the one to relieve the necessities of the other.” [13a] He was vicar from 1795 to 1816.

Dr. Waller was incumbent when the body coachman held his meetings at Kensington, and Mr. Omerod succeeded Dr. Waller soon after Hornton Street Chapel was built.

I wish we knew more of that coachman, who deserves to be held in honour by the congregation of the present day; since it appears that he not only brought together a nucleus for the Church, but contributed out of his limited means ten pounds for the erection of a chapel. [13b]

The earliest document preserved relative to the building I may here insert, as it indicates the different elements of Nonconformity blended in the enterprise. Some of the originators, most it would seem, were Presbyterians, but united with them were Independents and others.

To the friends of Religious Liberty, Sincere Christianity, and of Benevolent dispositions, etc.:

We, the undersigned,—of whom some have been educated in the principles of the Established Church of Scotland, and others in that class of Dissenters in England whose principles, opinions, and faith is the most generally consonant to, and founded on, the Word of God as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and on the essential doctrines of Christianity as professed by both the National Churches of England and Scotland;—being, therefore, Dissenters from the established mode of worship in this country, and being situated at a great distance from any place of worship agreeable to the dictates of our consciences, we, from pure motives of religion and piety alone, for conveniency to ourselves and families, and to others who may be like-minded with us in matters of religion, do propose, under the favour and blessing of a Divine Providence, to erect and build a (temple) for the worship of Almighty God in the parish of Kensington and county of Middlesex.

We profess our religious opinions to be, according to the rites, form of worship, as well as of the doctrines and discipline agreed upon in the Confession of Faith, by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster (so far as the circumstances of our situation will admit of); we wish to follow their soundness of faith, purity, and simplicity of worship, as far as we judge them founded on the Word of God, agreeable to the standard of faith contained in the Holy Scriptures, the alone unerring guide of faith and manners.

We therefore invite the serious Christian, the friends and lovers of Gospel truth, to join with us in this good undertaking to promote the glory of God, the interests of true religion, and the eternal happiness of ourselves and fellow-Christians; having nothing in view but to forward the attainment of these great objects, we leave the briers, and thorny fields of disputation, and false philosophy, of factions, politics, and jarring interests of ambitious men, “that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty,” as commanded. 1 Timothy ii. 1, 2.

Connected with this document is another, shorter and more general, stating “that a suitable piece of ground, on a long lease,” had been secured, on which was to be erected a building, “estimated at upwards of £900,” which had been already begun, and was then “carrying on.” The object of this paper was to secure contributions. The builders’ estimate amounted to £927 15s. 6d. The structure was at once duly registered, “pursuant to the Act of Toleration in that case made and provided.” A recommendation of the case is preserved, signed by several ministers, chiefly Presbyterians, stating that friends at Kensington, for themselves and neighbours—as there “was no proper regular place of worship for those who could not conform with the Established Church—had determined to unite their efforts towards supplying this defect.”

The dimensions of the edifice were sixty feet by forty inside; but the ground in length extended to one hundred and nine feet.