| Brompton | |
|---|---|
 Brompton Oratory (Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) | |
  Brompton Location withinGreater London | |
| Population | 8,839 (2011 Census.Ward)[1] |
| OS grid reference | TQ274790 |
| London borough | |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | SW3, SW5, SW7, SW10 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| UK Parliament | |
| London Assembly | |
| 51°29′42″N0°09′50″W / 51.495°N 0.164°W /51.495; -0.164 | |
Brompton, sometimes calledOld Brompton, is an area in theRoyal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. Until the latter half of the 19th century it was ascattered village made up mostly ofmarket gardens in the county ofMiddlesex. It lay southeast of the village ofKensington, abutting the parish ofSt Margaret's, Westminster at the hamlet ofKnightsbridge to the northeast, withLittle Chelsea to the south. It was bisected by the FulhamTurnpike, the main road westward out ofLondon to the ancient parish ofFulham and on toPutney andSurrey. It saw its first parish church,Holy Trinity Brompton, only in 1829. Today the village has been comprehensively eclipsed by segmentation due principally to railway development culminating inLondon Underground lines,[3] and its imposition of station names, includingKnightsbridge,South Kensington andGloucester Road as the names of stops during accelerated urbanisation, but lacking any cogent reference to local history and usage or distinctions from neighbouring settlements.[4]
Brompton has been home to many writers, actors and intellectuals.[5] TheSurvey of London gives a long list.[6] Its name survives formally to this day, only just, in the shared reference to two of the council's electoral wards called, "Brompton" and "Hans Town".[7]
Where the old turnpike highway (Fulham Road) meets today's Thurloe Place and becomesBrompton Road is sometimes calledBrompton Cross. The old village of Brompton carried on straddling the secondary Brompton Lane, laterOld Brompton Road, for the whole of its length. In modern termsOld Brompton centred on today'sSouth Kensington tube station,Gloucester Road tube station and their contiguous streets, and continued all the way toWest Brompton station, betweenEarl's Court andThames-sideChelsea.[8] The historian F.H.W. Sheppard has summarised it thus:
"there was always much traffic on the old turnpike road, which linked London not only with Little Chelsea and Fulham but also (via Putney Bridge) with parts of Surrey as well, and which from 1726 to 1826 was maintained by the Kensington Turnpike Trustees. Anciently, the eastern end of this highway was known indiscriminately as the road to Fulham or the road to Brompton. The name 'Brompton', now used loosely, then applied most precisely to the settlement which lay westwards of what is now South Kensington Station, just off the turnpike road along the lane to Earl's Court. This lane, generally called Brompton Lane or Bell and Horns Lane, diverged from the main road at the Bell and Horns, an inn sited opposite the [Brompton Oratory], where Empire House now stands. After the frontages of Brompton Road nearer London had been built up, the original nucleus of Brompton became known as Old Brompton and Brompton Lane as Old Brompton Road—which name survives today except in the short stretch east of South Kensington Station, where its line is represented by Thurloe Place. Before 1863 therefore, 'Brompton Road' was in general an unofficial term, usually to be construed as meaning the part of the Fulham turnpike road connecting Knightsbridge with Brompton Lane and thus with Old Brompton."[9]
Brompton's northern neighbours were the hamlets ofKensington Gore, dated but not dead in use, andKnight's bridge, a crossing over theculvertedriver Westbourne. As to its old eastern half its administration remains in theCity of Westminster, again due to the tube network it is commonly marked on maps as part of "Knightsbridge" district.Brompton (or very rarelyNew Brompton) had a jagged north-eastern limit owing to the medieval permanent assignation ofKensington Gore toWestminster. According to theChurch of England this has been simplified so that a three-church parishHoly Trinity Brompton –St Paul's, Onslow Square andSt Augustine's, Queen's Gate takes up a1⁄8SW to WSW radial sector focused on what was for many centuries a geographical point, a bridge, "Knights Bridge (Knightsbridge)", from which Brompton was always narrowly omitted.[10] That point later became aCrossroads for arterial roads, known as "Scotch Corner".
Boundaries can be traced in the street network with a few small gaps, clockwise from the north:
West Brompton became overshadowed byEarls Court which overtook its land, but it extended more broadly than is suggested by the above sectors, to have a long border along the hiddenCounter's Creek, (today'sWest London line), with theHammersmith and Fulham borough boundary, then back along theCromwell Road/Queen's Gate throughGloucester Road.[11]
The rest of "South Kensington" and Kensington proper, including the first manor, centred on what became a royal palace (Kensington Palace), instead of simply a manor house, and lay to the north.Chelsea was to the south.
Its fragmented existence is commemorated chiefly through four of the places listed below.
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The first recorded mention of Brompton dates back to 1292.[12] It was a rural area which subsequently attracted attention as the story of developments centred along aturnpike road that ran south westward from London throughKnightsbridge Green and horticultural Brompton to Little Chelsea and the ancient parish ofFulham on the banks of theThames and thence overPutney Bridge onto theCounty of Surrey.[13] Brompton Park Nurseries were founded in 1681 by four leading gardeners, led byGeorge London. In the late 18th century, Carey's map of 1787 shows Brompton as a collection of market gardens.[14] A hundred years later,Charles Dickens Jr. (eldest child ofCharles Dickens) wrote in his 1879 bookDickens's Dictionary of London that "Brompton was at one time almost exclusively the artists' quarter and is still largely frequented by the votaries of the brush and chisel, though of late yearsBelgravia has been encroaching upon its boundaries, and Belgravian rents are stealing westward."[15]
The village gained its first church in 1829,Holy Trinity Brompton, rapidly incepted a parish.[16]
The gradual fragmentation and overshadowing of Brompton was probably due to two factors: theGreat Exhibition of 1851 and the rapid institutional developments in the area, such as museums and colleges; and the arrival of railway transport.[17] The station built in 1868 on theMetropolitan andDistrict Railways to serve the attendant crowds was namedSouth Kensington, not "Brompton". A "Brompton Road station" opened in 1906 for the newGreat Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway; lack of passengers forced it to close in 1934.[1]Gloucester Road tube station on the other hand, which had opened 1868, was originally called "Gloucester Road, Brompton", but for simplicity dropped the Brompton from its name. Thus, Brompton ceased to be a place or destination. A nod to Brompton resurfaced in 1866 withSir John Fowler's "station in the middle of fields",West Brompton station.[18]
In 1965 when the historic boroughs ofKensington andChelsea merged to form one authority, theCollege of Arms created for it a newcoat of arms which included its Brompton roots. The crest contains abroom bush which represents the link between the two former boroughs' connection with the 'Brompton' ward. The area is now part of theChelsea constituency. In medieval times Brompton was famous for its gorse fields. The name was a corruption of 'broom tun', meaning agorse farm.[19] The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has confined its "Brompton Conservation Area" to but the small northern part of the historical village of Brompton.[20] the rest of it is partitioned among several other neighbouring conservation areas.
Brompton is part of theKensington and Bayswater constituency for elections to theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom, represented byLabourMPJoe Powell since2024.[23]
Brompton is part of theBrompton and Hans Townward for elections toKensington and Chelsea London Borough Council.[24]
Brompton and Old Brompton are deemedde facto obsolete names by theTube andpostal systems:
Developers of theEarls Court Exhibition Centre,Lillie Bridge Depot and extant Victorian residential streets at West Brompton have given birth to an entity called, "West Brompton Crossing" to refer to thepop-up retail currently occupying theJohn Young condemned buildings, in the vicinity ofLillie Bridge (Fulham) andWest Brompton station.[25]
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