Street, the Free Library and the Town Hall attract
attention. The latter is nearly on the site of the old free schools,
which were built by Sir John Vanbrugh with all the solidity
characteristic of his style; and Leigh Hunt opined, if suffered to
remain, they would probably outlast the whole of Kensington. However, no
such misfortune occurred, and the only relics of them remaining are the
figures of the charity children of Queen Anne's period, which now stand
above the doorway of the new schools at the back of the Town Hall.

William Cobbett, "essayist, politician, agriculturist," lived in a house
on the site of some of the great shops on the south side of the High
Street, opposite the Town Hall. His grounds bordered on those of
Scarsdale House, and he established in them a seed garden in which to
carry out his practical experiments in agriculture. His pugnacity and
sharp tongue led him into many a quarrel, and he was never a favourite
with those who were his neighbours. He advocated Queen Caroline's cause
with warmth, and was the real author of her famous letter to the King.
But he will always be remembered best by his _Weekly Register_, a potent
political weapon.

The parish church of St. Mary Abbots, with its high spire, forms a very
striking object on the north side of the road. There is a stone porch
over the entrance to the churchyard, and a picturesque cloistered
passage leading round the south side. Within the cloister is a tablet
commemorating the fact that it was partly built by Rev. E. C. Glyn and
his wife in memory of his mother, who died in 1892. A little further on,
immediately facing the south door, is another tablet, stating that the
porch at the entrance to the cloister was erected by the widow of James
Liddle Fairless in memory of her husband, who died in 1891. Within the
church the walls are thickly covered with memorial tablets, and on the
north and south walls are rows of them set in coloured marble. The
reredos is a representation of the four evangelists in mosaic work in
four panels, enclosed in a Gothic canopy of marble. On the north side of
the chancel is a fresco painting enclosed in marble, presented by the
Archbishop of York on leaving the parish. On the south side there is
also a small fresco painting, but the greater part of the wall is
occupied by the sedilia. The transept on the south side of the nave
contains numerous memorial tablets and two brasses: nearly all of these
belong to the e