Facts about Earl’s Court
History of Earl’s Court
The Saxon Thegn Edwin held the lordship of the area prior to the Norman conquest. For over 500 years the land, part of the ancient manor of Kensington, was under the lordship of the de Vere family, the Earls of Oxford, descendants of Aubrey de Vere I, who held the manor of Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances, according to the Domesday Book 1086.
By circa 1095, his tenure had been converted, and he held Kensington directly from the crown. A church had been constructed there by 1104. The earls held their manorial court where the Old Manor Yard is now, just by Earl’s Court tube station, eastern entrance. Earl’s Court Farm is visible on Greenwood’s map of London dated 1827.
Gemeral Info
Earl’s Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the sub-districts of South Kensington to the east, Chelsea to the south and Kensington to the northeast. It lent its name to the now-defunct eponymous pleasure grounds opened in 1887. Followed by the pre–World War II Earls Court Exhibition Centre.
In practice, the notion of Earl’s Court, which is geographically confined to the SW5 postal district, tends to apply beyond its boundary to parts of the neighboring Fulham area with its SW6 and W14 postcodes to the west, and to adjacent streets in postcodes SW7, SW10 and W8 in Kensington and Chelsea.
