Fenelon Road - at first Alma Road - was created in the 1850s but disappeared during the 1960s.
Residential development south of the Kensington Canal basin began shortly after the 1851 Great Exhibition when local resident Henry Benjamin Kent constructed two model cottages inspired by Prince Albert’s Exhibition housing. Each cottage contained four flats in a simplified version of the royal designs. Built around 1852 and partially occupied by 1854, Kent named the cottages "Shaftesbury" after philanthropist Earl Anthony Ashley Cooper. Situated on the newly created Shaftesbury Road (later Fenelon Place), the cottages had garden plots in front and back. In 1856, Lord Kensington leased the land to Kent for 82 years at £12 annual rent.
At the time, Kent lived with his stepson, builder Frederick Durrant, on Holland Place. The 1851 census listed Kent as a 42-year-old retired coal merchant. Durrant likely built the Shaftesbury Cottages, using some of the land for brick making.
The cottages were informally arranged with the second Lord Kensington. Kent soon started constructing more houses nearby before signing a building agreement with the third Lord Kensington in May 1855. This agreement aimed to develop the entire area south to the planned West Cromwell Road extension. Houses were to line the north side of the new Alma Road (later Fenelon Road) and west side of Warwick Road. The cottage model would extend north and south, while smaller canal-side houses called Ashley Cottages would front a narrow parallel road. Despite the inclusion of the existing cottages, the total ground rent was only £80 annually, costs Kent offloaded to other builders.
The houses along Warwick Road were titled Shaftesbury Terrace. In 1855-56, Durrant built and leased the first eight from Lord Kensington per Kent’s direction. Durrant also subleased a house on Alma Road, but other builders mainly subleased from Kent in the late 1850s and early 1860s, with construction proceeding slowly. After 1863, Kent subleased to confectioner Henry Kingham who built terraced houses around the cottages on Shaftesbury Road and small houses on Alma Road, directly leased from Lord Kensington. The last seven houses went to William Kingham in 1870, likely a relative who took over building. The Ashley Cottages were constructed for Kent in the 1860s once the railway was installed along the old canal.
Kent retired to Dulwich and died in 1887, leaving an estate of over £10,500, including any retained leaseholds.
The 1871 census reveals occupancy patterns in this working-class enclave. The 120 inhabited houses south of the railway housed 967 people in 243 households, averaging eight per house. Two houses had 17 residents across three or four households, including railway workers and tradesmen. The flats in Shaftesbury Cottages mostly housed single families, unlike the cramped Ashley Cottages. Laborers were most common, along with building and railway workers and coal porters. Several piano makers and polishers likely worked at the nearby Erard’s factory.
In 1886, poet Jules Laforgue married Leah Lee at her home, 3 Shaftesbury Terrace. He arrived from Paris that morning and wed Leah with her landlady present.
Before the Second World War, houses on both sides of Fenelon Road were demolished to widen the railway bridge approach for the West Cromwell extension. Prefab houses temporarily filled the north side after the war. By the 1950s, Shaftesbury Cottages were still considered quaint, but within five years the whole area was declared unfit for habitation and cleared by the 1960s, erasing the dense housing but leaving some small industrial buildings along Warwick Road.
