Addison Road stretches from Holland Park Avenue to Kensington High Street.
Addison Road, named after the essayist Joseph Addison, was the first street to be constructed for new house development on the Holland estate, with the purpose of connecting Holland Park with Kensington. The road was built by William Woods, a builder who began work around 1824. The curve in the road near St Barnabas Church was not out of respect for the church but rather due to the builders having to work around extensive ponds called "the Moats," which weren’t completely filled in until about 1900.
The southern part of Addison Road consists of a busy southbound one-way traffic system, with two large modern blocks of flats set back from the road. The middle section is quiet and tree-lined, featuring mainly large detached and semi-detached villas, usually painted white. At the north end of Addison Road stands Addison Court, an unusual 1930s style eight-storey block of flats.
Many of the houses along Addison Road have large front gardens with small sweeping driveways and are well set back from the road behind high front walls and gates, ensuring maximum privacy. Before the mid-nineteenth century, all of these houses had names rather than numbers.
The grandest house on Addison Road is an ornate blue and green glazed-brick and tiled mansion known as ’The Peacock House,’ built in 1906 for Ernest Debenham of the famous department store.
Near Cardinal Vaughan School, where Holland Park Gardens begins, an 8-storey block of flats called Addisland Court was built in the 1930s. The land was formerly occupied by No. 1 Addison Road, one of the large villas built by William Woods. The property became available for development in 1873 upon the death of its owner, Charles Richard Fox, the elder son of Lord and Lady Holland. As Fox was born before his parents were married, he could not succeed to the title. His father gave him No. 1 Addison Road. Fox married the daughter of the future King William IV and became a general. When he died in 1873, the house was demolished, making way for the development of Addisland Court.
The Underground Map project is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying within the M25.
The aim of the project is to find the location every street in London, whether past or present, and tell its story. This project aims to be a service to historians, genealogists and those with an interest in urban design.
The website features a series of maps from the 1750s until the 1950s. You can see how London grows over the decades. |
Addison Road stretches from Holland Park Avenue to Kensington High Street. 
