Gore was then considered to be in the country, and spoken of as a mile from London. Count D'Orsay, who had married Lady Blessington's stepdaughter, rather in compliance with her father's wishes than his own inclination, spent much of his time with his mother-in-law, and at her receptions all the literary talent of the age was gathered together—Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli, and Landor were frequent visitors, and Prince Louis Napoleon made his way to Gore House when he escaped from prison. Lady Blessington died in 1849. The house was used as a restaurant during the 1851 Exhibition, and afterwards bought with the estate by the Commissioners.

The name "gore" generally means a wedge-shaped insertion, and, if we take it as being between the Kensington Gardens and Brompton and Cromwell Roads, might be applicable here, but the explanation is far-fetched. Leigh Hunt reminds us that the same word "gore" was previously used for mud or dirt, and as the Kensington Road at this part was formerly notorious for its mud, this may be the meaning of the name, but there can be no certainty. Lowther Lodge, a picturesque red-brick house, stands back behind a high wall; it was designed by Norman Shaw, R.A. In the row of houses eastward of it facing the road, No. 2 was once the residence of Wilkes, who at that time had also a house in Grosvenor Square and another in the Isle of Wight. Croker says that the actor Charles Mathews was once, with his wife, Madame Vestris, in Gore Lodge, Brompton. He was certainly a friend of the Blessingtons, and stayed abroad with them in Naples for a year, and may have been attracted to their neighbourhood at the Gore.

Behind the Albert Hall are various buildings, such as Alexandra House for ladies studying art and music, also large mansions and maisonnettes recently built. The Royal College of Music, successor of the old College, which stood west of the Albert Hall, is in Prince Consort Road. It was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, and opened in 1894. The cost was defrayed by Mr. Samson Fox, and in the building is a curious collection of old musical instruments known as the Donaldson Museum and open free daily. In the same road a prettily designed church, to be called Holy Trinity, Kensington Gore, is rapidly rising. In the northern part of Exhibition Road is the Technical Institute of the City and Guilds in a large red and white building, and just south of it the Royal School of Art Needlework for Ladies, founded by Princess Christian.

Queen's Gate is very wide; in the southern part stands St. Augustine's Church, opened for service in 1871, though the chancel was not completed until five years later. The architect was Mr. Butterfield, and the church is of brick of different colours, with a bell gable at the west end. In Cromwell Place, near the underground station, Sir John Everett Millais lived in No. 7; the fact is recorded on a tablet. Harrington Road was formerly Cromwell Lane, and there is extant a letter of Leigh Hunt's dated from this address in 1830. Pelham Crescent, behind the station, formerly looked out upon tea-gardens. Guizot, the notable French Minister, came to live here after the fall of Louis Philippe. He was in No. 21, and Charles Mathews, the actor, lived for a time in No. 25. The curves of the old Brompton Road suggest that it was a lane at one time, curving to avoid the fields or different properties on either side.

Onslow Square stands upon the site of a large lunatic asylum. In it is St. Paul's Church, built in 1860, and well known for its evangelical services. There is nothing remarkable in its architecture save that the chancel is at the west end. The pulpit is of carved stone with inlaid slabs of American onyx. Marochetti, an Italian sculptor, who is responsible for many of the statues in London, including that of Prince Albert on the Memorial, lived at No. 34 in the square in 1860. But its proudest association is that Thackeray came to the house then No. 36, from Young Street, in 1853. "The Newcomes" was at that time appearing in parts, and continued to run until 1855, so that some of it was probably written here. He published also while here "The Rose and the Ring," the outcome of a visit to Rome with his daughters, and after "The Newcomes" was completed he visited America for a second time on a tour of lectures, subsequently embodied in a book, "The Four Georges." By his move from Young Street he was nearer to his friends the Carlyles in Chelsea, a fact doubtless much appreciated on both sides. He contested Oxford in 1857, and in the following year began the publication of "The Virginians," which was doubtless inspired by his American experiences. In 1860 he was made editor of the Cornhill, from which his income came to something like £4,000 a year, and on the strength of this accession of fortune he began to build a house in Palace Green, to which he moved when it was complete (p. 53).

It has been remarked that this is rather a dismal neighbourhood, with the large hospitals for Cancer and Consumption facing each other across the Fulham Road, and the Women's Hospital quite close at hand. It is with the Consumption Hospital alone we have to do here, as the others are in Chelsea. This hospital stands on part of the ground which belonged to a famous botanical garden owned by William Curtis at the end of the eighteenth century. The building is of red brick, faced with white stone, and it is on a piece of ground about 3 acres in extent, lined by small trees, under which are seats for the wan-faced patients. The ground-plan of the building resembles the letter H, and the system adopted inside is that of galleries used as day-rooms and filled with chairs and couches. From these the bedrooms open off. The galleries make a superior sort of ward, and are bright, with large windows, and polished floors. There is a chapel attached to the hospital, which was chiefly presented by the late Sir Henry Foulis, after whom one of the galleries is named, and who is also recalled in the name of a neighbouring terrace. The west wing of the hospital was added in 1852, and towards it Jenny Lind, who was resident in Brompton, presented £1,600, the proceeds of a concert for the cause. There is also an extension building across the road. Here there is a compressed air-bath, in which an enormous pressure of air can be put upon the patient, to the relief of his lungs. This item, rendered expensive by its massive structure and iron bolts and bars, cost £1,000, and is one of the only two of the kind in existence, the other being in Paris. A Miss Read bequeathed to the hospital the sum of £100,000, and in memory of her a slab beneath a central window is inscribed: "In Memoriam Cordelia Read, 1879." It was due to her beneficence that the extension building was added.

In Cranley Gardens, which takes its name from the secondary title of the Earl of Onslow, is St. Peter's Church, founded in 1866. Cranley Gardens run into Gloucester Road, which formerly bore the much less aristocratic title of Hogmore Lane.

Just above the place where the Cromwell Road cuts Gloucester Road, about the site of the National Provincial Branch Bank, once stood a rather important house. It had been the Florida Tea-gardens, and having gained a bad reputation was closed, and the place sold to Sophia, Duchess of Gloucester, who built there a house on her own account, and called it Orford Lodge, in honour of her own family, the Walpoles. She had married privately William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III. The marriage, which took place in 1766, was not revealed to King George II.