Kentish Town, Middlesex

Historical Description

Kentish Town, a metropolitan suburb in St Pancras parish, Middlesex. The suburb lies adjacent to the Regent's Canal, on the North London and Midland railway between Camden Town and Highgate, 3½ miles NW of St Paul's, and is in the NW suburban postal district. The manor belonged at Domesday to the canons of St Paul's, went in 1670, by lease, to the Jeffreys family, and subsequently by marriage to the first Earl Camden. The name was anciently Kentistoune, afterwards Kaunteloe or Cantelows, afterwards corrnptedly Kentish Town, and is thought to have sprung from the custom of gavelkind on much of the land, in allusion to the prevalence of that custom in Kent. William Bruges, garter king-at-arms in the time of Henry V., had a country house here, and gave entertainments in it to the Emperor Sigismund when in England to negotiate peace with France. Queen Elizabeth also had a hunting-lodge here on a plot of about 45 acres, on the E side of High Street, now surrounded by Camden Road villas, Gloucester Place, Torriano Avenue, and other edificed thoroughfares, and belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Oxford. See also LONDON.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Kentish Town from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Kentish-Town)

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Middlesex is online.

Maps

Online maps of Kentish Town are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)