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De Vere Gardens runs between Canning Place and Kensington Gore. It consists mainly of five storey buildings with stucco up to first floor level. On the west side there are several hotels. The street has a good view of Kensington Gardens at the northern end.

The buildings have first floor wrought iron balconies and the first floor windows consist mainly of three distinct sections. At the south end on the east side there is a lower terrace of eight buildings consisting of four floors with the fourth floor having a slate frontage. The southern end of the street is tree lined. On the west side at the south end of the street there is an unusual terrace of four storey buildings with distinctive leaded pane windows on three floors and small bay windows on ground and first floors. These buildings are single occupation with very small patios in front with small bollards abutting the pavement.

De Vere Gardens was the site of Malcolm’s Nursery in 1837 – something like the modern garden centre but for exotic fruit and vegetables. In 1848, the land was taken on a 21 year lease by John Inderwick, the Wardour Street tobacconist who had just developed much of the land in the Launceston Place area. (See Inderwick Estate.) He built some terraces of house, which have not survived.

Most of the area was turned into Grand National Hippodrome, as part of the Great Exhibition in 1851. This was an arena for horse-riding events. It was built of wood and iron and held 14,000 spectators. Races along the lines of Ben Hur were organised, starring female charioteers from France. The whole event was organised by William Batty, who specialised in putting on theatrical and horse riding events. After 1852 the Hippodrome was used as a riding school.

In about 1870 Inderwick’s lease came to an end and the family who owned the land sold it for development. It was ultimately bought by Charles Edward Barlow and William Bennett Daw, who were surveyors and builders. In 1875 they began development of De Vere Gardens. The work was split up among various builders but most of the houses followed a similar pattern. They were built as mirror images of each other with double porticoes providing entrances to two houses. The houses generally had bay windows at ground floor level.

In 1875 Barlow and W.B. Daw granted a building lease of most of the east side of De Vere Gardens to C.A. Daw and his son W.A. Daw (who were presumably related to W.B. Daw). They built Nos. 5-37 between 1875 and 1880. C.A. Daw constructed Nos. 39-53 as well as De Vere Mews behind them from 1877-8.

They also had a smaller section of land on the opposite (west) side. In 1878 they built Nos. 28-32 De Vere Gardens. Between those houses and De Vere Cottages to the south they built De Vere Mansions West in 1884-5.

The other major builders in De Vere Gardens were A.F. Taylor and S.A. Cumming, who operated from Earls Court. They had a site on the west side of De Vere Gardens immediately north of the Daws’ site where they built Nos. 8-26 De Vere Gardens in 1875-8. But where the Daws had constructed houses with gardens running the depth of the plot to Canning Passage, Taylor and Cumming split their plots roughly in half and constructed back-to-back houses, so Nos. 8-26 backed on to houses in Victoria Road.

Taylor and Cummings also had a site on the west side of the road between De Vere Mansions West and Canning Place in the south, where they built Nos. 36-50 De Vere Gardens.

Taylor and Cumming bought the freehold of De Vere Cottages (which open on to Canning Place at the south) and C.A. Daw bought the freehold of De Vere Mews (which similarly opens south onto Canning Place on the east side). De Vere Cottages was then known as Laconia Mews. It seems G.B. Hart was the architect for both sets of cottages. The properties were originally coach houses on the ground floor with stables on the first floor, which the horses reached by going up a ramp a bit like a circular staircase. The second floor was living quarters for the coachmen. There were about 30 stables in all. De Vere Mews was occupied by the Civil Service Riding Club in 1947. It was still used as working stables in the 1970s. In 1978-80, the west side of De Vere Mews was converted to provide houses facing onto De Vere Gardens in 1979 and now numbered 39-51 (odd).

Back at the top on the east side, another Kensington builder, W.H. Willis, built two houses, Nos. 1 and 3 De Vere Gardens in 1876. That just left an original property called Forest House on the east. This was finally demolished in 1881 and Barlow built houses there. It was later converted into the De Vere Hotel.

On the west side, above Taylor and Cumming’s site, Barlow and W.B. Daw retained the land for development themselves. In 1876-7 they built 4 houses, possibly using G.B. Hart as the architect. This part of the site later became the Kensington Palace Hotel.

Completion of the building work coincided with a slump in the property market and the houses were very slow to sell. In the end, many of the houses had to be converted into mansion flats which were becoming popular, That was a better market than large houses from that point onwards. C.A. Daw had seen the trend and in 1880 built purpose built flats, named De Vere Mansions on the site of No. 37 De Vere Gardens. In 1885 they completed De Vere Mansions West, a much larger flat development. Nos. 15, 17 and 19 De Vere Gardens were converted from houses to flats in 1889.

In 1892-3 Nos. 28-30 were converted into a hotel called the Maisonettes Hotel, which contained serviced residential suites. By 1906 No. 6 was also a hotel and several others followed.

Nos. 38-48 De Vere Gardens were originally part of De Vere Cottages and faced the other way. But they were turned to face De Vere Gardens after the First World War.

There were some famous residents:

Robert Browning at No. 29 (1889-9)

Henry James at De Vere Mansions West

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