KENSINGTON HOUSE 53 



windows may be said to have put the old Pahice out 

 of countenance, then Kensington Pahice was shamed 

 indeed, but only with that very questionable kind of 

 shame which overtakes the poor patrician confronted 

 by a swaggering, pursy millionaire. At any rate, 

 Kensinoton Palace is aveuQ-ed, for not one stone now 

 remains of that pretentious house. It lay back some 

 little distance from the road, from which it was 

 screened by a tall iron railing, with gilded spikes and 

 globular gas-lamps at intervals, of a type closely 

 resembling those in use on the Metropolitan and 

 District Railways. It is not a lovely type, but it is 

 one still greatly favoured in the suburbs of Clapham 

 and Blackheath. 



This ornate palisade of cast-iron, wliicli pretended 

 to be wrought, once passed, a gravel drive led up to 

 the house. Ah, that house ! It possessed all the 

 Hamboyaut glories of Grosvenor Gardens and more, 

 and was of a style called variously by the building 

 journals of that day, French or Italian Renaissance. 

 " Renaissance " is a term which, like charity, covers 

 a multitude of sins, and if you want to cloak a 

 collection of architectural enormities, why, you term 

 it Renaissance, and, by implication, insult the great 

 French and Italian masters of the New Birth. It 

 needs not to trouble about the details of that house, 

 save to say that polished granite pillars were well to 

 the fore, and that portentous Mansard roofs in fish- 

 scale lead coverings, with spikes, finished off its sky- 

 line. For long years Kensington House remained 

 unlet, because of the immense sums its up-keep would 

 have entailed. Millionaires, South African and other 



