Earls Court was once a rural area, covered with green fields and market gardens. 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 Vere family, the Earls of Oxford and descendants of Aubrey de Vere I, who held the manor of Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances, in Domesday Book in 1086. By circa 1095, his tenure had been converted, and he held Kensington directly of the crown. A church had been constructed there by 1104. The earls held their manorial court where Old Manor Yard is now, just by the London Underground station.Earls Court Farm is visible on Greenwood’s map of London dated 1827.

20th Century History of Earls Court

Following WWII a number of Polish immigrants settled in the Earls Court area leading to Earls Court Road being dubbed ‘The Danzig Corridor’. During the late 1960s a large transient population of Australia and New Zealand travellers began to use Earls Court as a UK hub and over time it gained the name ‘Kangaroo Valley’. Since the 1980s the area has become a very desirable residential area and is highly popular with persons from all parts of the world.

Blue Plaques in Earls Court

• Howard Carter (1874–1939), English archaeologist, Egyptologist and primary discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun, lived at 19 Collingham Gardens.
• Benjamin Britten (1913–1976), English composer, conductor, violist and pianist, lived at 173 Cromwell Road.
• Edwin Arnold (1832–1904), English poet and journalist, lived at 31 Bolton Gardens.
• Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980), English filmmaker and producer, lived at 153 Cromwell Road.
• Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby (1861–1936), British soldier and administrator famous for his role during World War I when he led the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in the conquest of Palestine and Syria, lived at 24 Wetherby Gardens.
• Dame Ellen Terry (1847–1928), leading Shakespearian stage actress in Britain in the 1880s and 1890s, lived at 22 Barkston Gardens.
• Sir William Orpen (1878–1931), Irish portrait painter, lived at 8 South Bolton Gardens.
• Norman Lockyer (1836–1920), English scientist and astronomer credited with discovering the gas helium, lived at 16 Penywern Road.

Other Notable Residents of Earls Court

• Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997), the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, lived at 60 Coleherne Court, Old Brompton Road, from 1979 – 1981. The 3-bedroom flat was bought for her by her parents for £50,000 as an 18th birthday present. Diana, who shared the space with three room-mates who paid her £18 per week rent, once said it was where she spent the happiest time of her life. Diana lived there until February 1981 when she moved into Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s residence, on the night before her engagement to Prince Charles was officially announced.^[8][9] In the 1990s, Diana regularly returned to the area to work out at Earls Court Gym (now part of the Soho Gyms chain) next to Earls Court underground station.^[10]
• Freddie Mercury (1946–91), flamboyant lead singer with the world-renowned rock group Queen, lived, and died, at a house at 1 Logan Place, just off the Earls Court Road
• Stewart Granger (1913–1993), Hollywood actor, was born in Coleherne Court, Old Brompton Road, and spent most of his childhood there.^[11]
• Horace Donisthorpe (1870–1951), British myrmecologist and coleopterist, lived at 58 Kensington Mansions, Trebovir Road. Memorable for championing the renaming of the genus Lasius after him as Donisthorpea, and for discovering new species of beetles and ants, he is often considered the greatest figure in British myrmecology.
• Major Sir William Palliser (1830–1882), Irish-born politician and inventor, Member of Parliament for Taunton from 1880 to his death, lived in Earls Court Square.
• Gary Barlow (1971), English singer, has a home in Earls Court.
• H. G. Pelissier (1874–1913), English theatrical producer, composer and satirist, lived at 1 Nevern Square
• Howard Spensley (1834–1902), Australian lawyer and British Liberal politician, lived in Earls Court Square.
• John Barrowman (1967), British entertainer has a house with his partner Scott Gill in Earls Court.