Roland Gardens, London

Roland Gardens on an 1890s Ordnance Survey map, not long after it was built. (Running south from Old Brompton Road at the top)

Roland Gardens is a street in South Kensington, London SW7. It runs north to south from Old Brompton Road to Drayton Gardens at its southern end, where it becomes Evelyn Gardens.

History

Building on the street was started in 1870 by Charles Aldin and his sons Charles and William, with more than half completed by 1874, and the rest by 1893.[1]

Notable buildings and residents

• Blakes Hotel, is at no. 33, and is considered to be one of the world's first boutique hotels.
• The National Laboratory of Psychical Research was once at no. 13.
• The artist Collier Twentyman Smithers died in 1943 at no. 36.
• Blanche Dugdale, author and Zionist and her husband Edgar Dugdale, a Lloyd's of London underwriter, lived at no. 1.[2]
• Douglas Green, Australian artist, and his wife Helen lived at 21 in 1951.[3]
• Stanley Bate, composer, lived in a Roland Gardens flat from 1949 until his death in 1959.[4]

References

1. "Roland Gardens - British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
2. "Dugdale [née Balfour], Blanche Elizabeth Campbell". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/62138. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 30 November 2017. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; BT27 Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Outwards Passenger Lists; Reference Number: Series BT27-164521
4. Stanley Bate obituary, The Manchester Guardian, 20 October 1959, p. 2

External links

Media related to Roland Gardens at Wikimedia Commons

51°29′24.13″N 0°10′50″W