Kensington by Car: High Street, Palace Gardens and Routes

The high street and its one-way legacy

Kensington High Street carries the A315 and connects Hammersmith in the west to Knightsbridge in the east, which makes it a genuine through route rather than a local shopping street. Traffic here is shaped by bus movements, the junction at Kensington Church Street and the pressure of vehicles filtering towards Cromwell Road. Kerb space is largely bus lane, loading bay and crossing, so arrivals are handled from the side streets rather than the main frontage.

Kensington Palace Gardens and restricted roads

Kensington Palace Gardens is a private road with controlled access, gated at both ends and staffed. Vehicles do not simply drive through it, and a journey that a mapping application routes along it will not work in practice. Where an address genuinely sits on the avenue, access is arranged through the gate and the visit is expected rather than improvised, so the details need confirming in advance rather than on arrival.

The same principle applies in a softer form on several nearby streets, where bollards, barriers and one-way arrangements exist to stop drivers using residential roads as a bypass for the high street. A route that looks clever on a screen frequently ends at a set of bollards.

The residential streets north and south

North of the high street the ground rises through Campden Hill, Aubrey Road and the streets towards Notting Hill Gate. These are narrow, steep in places and tightly parked, and several are one-way in a direction that is not obvious from the junction. South of the high street, the grid around Kensington Court, Cornwall Gardens and Lexham Gardens is flatter but equally permit-controlled, with communal garden squares that follow their own restriction pattern.

• Kensington Court and Kensington Court Place for addresses near the eastern high street
• Argyll Road and Phillimore Gardens for the Campden Hill side
• Wrights Lane and Marloes Road for the southern approach from Cromwell Road

Routing through rather than around

For east-west journeys, Kensington High Street and Cromwell Road are the two realistic options, and the better choice depends on the hour. Cromwell Road carries airport traffic on the A4 corridor and can be heavy in both directions during peaks but rarely stops entirely. The high street is shorter but more interrupted. For journeys towards Heathrow, joining the A4 early is usually preferable to threading through the high street first.

Events at the park edge

Kensington Gardens and the northern edge of the district absorb event traffic several times a year, and road closures around the park perimeter affect Kensington Road and Palace Gate more than the high street. Where an event is running, the practical approach is to plan the arrival from the west or south rather than crossing the park frontage, and to accept that the last few hundred metres may be on foot.

Plan your chauffeur journey

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