All Souls Avenue is a street which separates Willesden from Kensal Rise.
In the early 15th century, Thomas Chichele Archbishop of Canterbury from 1414-1443, acquired lands in Willesden and Kingsbury. In the year of his death he founded All Souls College, Oxford and endowed it with these lands. As a result, most of Willesden and Kensal Green remained largely agricultural until the mid-1800s, well into the Victorian era.
All Souls College, Oxford, began with a policy of selling land when it reached £800 an acre and sold land at Kensal Green to the United Land Company in 1882. After 1888, however, a more adventurous estates bursar (Henry O. Wakemen, 1888-99) followed the advice of the college agents and began to exploit the estates directly: the college built roads and assumed responsibility for the overall planning while individual plots were leased to builders.
All Souls Avenue was laid out about 1901.
By 1904, building had spread as far north as Leighton Gardens with the northern section being suburbanised by the 1920s.
