fortune
of L200,000 was divided among six or seven day labourers, who were his
next of kin. A new Kensington House was built on the site of these two,
and is said to have cost L250,000, but its owner got into difficulties,
and eventually the costly house was pulled down, and its fittings sold
for a twentieth part of their value. Near at hand are De Vere Gardens,
to which Robert Browning came in June, 1887, from Warwick Crescent.

Further eastward we come to Palace Gate. Some of this property belongs
to the local charities. It is known as Butts Field Estate, and was so
called from the fact that the butts for archery practice were once set
up here.

KENSINGTON GARDENS AND PALACE.

The Gardens are so intimately connected with the Palace that it is
impossible to touch upon the one without the other, and though Leigh
Hunt caustically remarked that a criticism might be made on Kensington
that it has "a Palace which is no palace, Gardens which are no gardens,
and a river called the Serpentine which is neither serpentine nor a
river," yet in spite of this the Palace, the Gardens, and the river
annually give pleasure to thousands, and possess attractions of their
own by no means despicable. The flower-beds in the gardens nearest to
Kensington Road are beautiful enough in themselves to justify the title
of gardens. This is the quarter most patronized by nursemaids and their
charges. There are shady narrow paths, also the Broad Walk, with its
leafy overarching boughs resembling one of Nature's aisles, and the
Round Pond, pleasant in spite of its primness. The Gardens were not
always open to the public, but partly belonged to the palace of
time-soiled bricks to which the public is now also admitted.

The first house on this site of which we have any reliable detail is
that built by Sir Heneage Finch, the second of the name, who was Lord
Chancellor under Charles I. and was created Earl of Nottingham in 1681,
though it is probable that there had been some building on or near the
same place before, possibly the manor-house of the Abbot. The first Earl
of Nottingham had bought the estate from his younger brother, Sir John,
and it was from his successor, the second earl, that William III. bought
Nottingham House, as it was then called.

William suffered much from asthma, and the gravel pits of Kensington
were then considered very healthy, and combined the advantages of not
being very far from town with the pure air of the country