Named after the park where a real queen grew up and a fictional boy never did, this small bar has been noticed by very few
The Kensington Gardens Bar has fifty-three reviews and a 4.4, and it borrows the name of one of the grandest of London’s royal parks – a place tangled up with a real queen and a fictional boy who refused to grow up.
The park
Kensington Gardens began as the private gardens of Kensington Palace, and it remains one of the Royal Parks, immediately west of Hyde Park. It is genuinely royal ground – Kensington Palace has been a royal residence for over three hundred years, and it is where the future Queen Victoria was born and raised.
Victoria’s childhood at Kensington was famously miserable – she was subjected to the controlling “Kensington System,” a strict regime designed to keep her dependent – and she left the moment she became queen in 1837 and reportedly never wanted to live there again. The palace where a lonely girl was kept under near-house-arrest is now a major tourist attraction, and the gardens around it are among the most beautiful public spaces in London.
Peter Pan
The gardens have a second, gentler claim on the imagination. J. M. Barrie lived beside Kensington Gardens and set the earliest Peter Pan stories there – Peter Pan first appeared in a book called “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.” Barrie befriended the Llewelyn Davies boys, whom he met in the gardens, and who became the inspiration for the Lost Boys.
In 1912 Barrie had a statue of Peter Pan secretly erected in the gardens overnight, so that it appeared as if by magic, and it is still there, one of the most beloved statues in London. So the park contains both the childhood prison of a real queen and the eternal childhood of a fictional boy – misery and magic, a few hundred yards apart.
The fifty-three
Fifty-three reviews is a small sample, and by the standards this survey has applied throughout, a 4.4 across it tells you relatively little. As with the hotel bars we have discussed, a low count often reflects a venue that trades on a specific, quieter clientele rather than the general public – discoverable to few, reviewed by fewer.
Verdict
A small, quiet bar borrowing the name of a park where a queen was raised in misery and a boy stayed young forever.
The Broad Walk and the Round Pond
Kensington Gardens rewards the walk. The Broad Walk runs up beside the palace; the Round Pond, where model boats have sailed for generations, sits in front of it; the Italian Gardens at the north end were a gift, it is said, from Prince Albert to Queen Victoria. The Serpentine and the Long Water divide the gardens from Hyde Park next door.
It is one of the great achievements of London that so much of its centre is given over to these vast royal parks, open to everyone, free, in the middle of some of the most valuable land on earth. Kensington Gardens was once the private garden of a palace; now anyone may walk in it, feed the ducks, and stand before the statue of a fictional boy. The democratisation of a royal garden is, quietly, one of the nicer things this city has done.
Verdict
A small, quiet bar borrowing the name of a park where a queen was raised in misery and a boy stayed young forever.
Go, have a drink, and then walk into the actual gardens and find Peter Pan. He has been standing there, refusing to age, since 1912.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
The thing about it for educators is it proves you can understand London only by actually paying attention to how it operates, not reading official narratives.