"Survey and Map of Land Lying in the Parishes of Kensington, Chelsea and St. Margarets Westminster"

A survey of South Kensington depicting an area now owned by the Wellcome Trust. The following description is featured in the upper left corner: "Survey and Map of Land Lying in the Parishes of Kensington, Chelsea and St. Margarets Westminster, In the county of Middlesex, Belonging to the Trustees of Hen. Smith Est."
The survey appears in Dorothy Stroud's publication The South Kensington Estate of Henry Smith's Charity (1975): "A survey made in 1753 ... To the north is the isolated plot, then known as Harris's Field and later called the Carpet Ground, which was exchanged in 1851 for ground of similar dimensions on which Onslow Gardens was to be built." Illustration I.

1753

1 oversize folder

In July 1995 the Wellcome Trust decided to buy the South Kensington estate from Henry Smith's Charity. The Trust acquired the estate in stages between 1995 and 1997 and today it is the single largest asset in the Trust's investment portfolio (albeit an estate that comprises many thousands of individual properties).

The map is believed to have been gifted to the Trust when it purchased the estate. It was displayed on a wall in the Investments area in the Gibbs Building, 215 Euston Road, before being transferred to the archive.