Notting Dale Workhouse stood on the site of what is now Avondale Park Gardens,
The Mary Place Workhouse, as it was official known, was supposed to be the cruellest in London. To it were sent the difficult cases from all other workhouses and the threat to send inmates to it was an effective method of discipline to others.
In 1870, Kensington Parish set up a labour yard and relief office at Mary Place, Notting Dale (now Avondale Park Gardens), where able-bodied men received out-relief in return for breaking stone. A dispensary was added in 1871 and a casual ward in 1878.
In 1882, at the behest of the Local Government Board, the workhouse became an able-bodied test workhouse, accommodating able-bodied men from all London’s unions. For the next twenty-two years, able-bodied men at Mary Place performed tasks such as stone-breaking, corn-grinding, and oakum picking for 55 to 60 hours a week. The only hour of leisure, from 7-8pm, was filled with "lectures" from a "Mental Instructor", at which attendance was obligatory. The diet was coarse and monotonous and smoking was forbidden. No inmate was ever allowed temporary leave to go out from the premises.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Mary Place workhouse appears to have some success in deterring able-bodied applicants for relief.
