46 THE BATH ROAD 



lu 1827, London and its neighbourhood began to 

 be relieved of the incubus of the turnpike-gates. In 

 that year twenty- seven toll-gates were removed by 

 Parliament; eighty-one were disestablished July 1, 

 1864 ; and sixty-one, October 31, 1865. Many 

 others were swept away on the Essex and Middlesex 

 roads on October 31, 1866, while the remainder 

 ceased July 1, 1872. The first toll-gate Avhicli 

 gave the traveller pause from 1856 to July 1, 1864, 

 on the Bath and Exeter roads stood in Kensington 

 Gore, and barred the roadway just where Victoria 

 Road branches off. Many yet living can recall the 

 " Halfpenny Hatch," as it was familiarly known. At 

 the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851 the road 

 was distinctly rural. It was that greatest of all 

 exhibitions which gave an impetus to building in 

 this neighbourhood. Up to that time London had 

 not " discovered " Kensington, and the highway was 

 not a mere street, but looked as though the country 

 were round the corner, which, indeed, was very nearly 

 the case. You could then, in fact, well imagine 

 yourself to be on the highway to somewhere or 

 another — a thing demanding more imagination to-day 

 than most people are capable of calling up. 



VIII 



It may be as well to put on record in this place 

 the Kensington of my own recollection. My reminis- 

 cences of Kensington by no means go so far back as 

 the time when Leigh Hunt wrote his " Old Court 



