Kensington High Street
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Kensington High Street
Best for: young fashion (eastern end), bespoke travel
agents and outdoor retail specialists (western end), boutiques in
Kensington Church Street, and generally a less crowded place to
find the big High Street names.
You can combine shopping with a trip to Kensington
Palace, the Royal Albert Hall,
Leighton House Museum or
the Linley Sambourne Family
Home . The former Derry and Toms department store
was the home of Big Biba in the 70s, once described as the most
beautiful shop in the world. Its spirit lives on in the young
fashion shops concentrated in the eastern end of the street. The
department store’s roof gardens, 100ft above the High Street, have
three themed gardens and resident flamingos.
See The Roof Gardens for
more details, or call +44 (0)207 937 7994 if you'd like to find out
when the gardens are open to visit.
The heritage bus route 9H runs from Kensington High Street to
Trafalgar Square every 20 minutes from 9:30am until about 6:30pm,
Monday-Sunday using old Routemaster vehicles (the iconic
London bus).
Specialist shops: Whole Foods
Market is probably the largest mainly organic food shop in the
country, and has an extensive market restaurant upstairs.
There are also numerous antiques shops in
Kensington Church Street.
People spotting: there are several record
companies based here and Simon (Pop Idol, X Factor, Britain’s Got
Talent and American Idol) Cowell’s office so you could spot
established musicians or the next big thing.
Trivia: the Roof Gardens' flamingos are called
Bill, Ben, Splosh and Pecks.