Gentrification and Facadism in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London: a tale of three buildings

The name, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, has connotations of affluence, aristocracy, and the elite. This is the borough of a royal residence, Kensington Palace, situated on Kensington Palace Gardens. The road was known locally as Millionaires’ Row when I was growing up, but now it’s Billionaires’ Row, an avenue of private homes, embassies, and a royal palace on the most expensive residential street in Britain (Da Silva 2021). As a child, I would occasionally walk back from school playing hide and seek on this road with my mum although with tall, gated houses either side and regular security guard patrols, there were only a few places to hide – behind a Rolls Royce or secreted in the corner of a white gated column where I would jump out as she walked past. Near to Kensington Palace Gardens are high-end department stores like Harrods and Harvey Nichols (the latter I have never been inside), and supercars, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, speed down Knightsbridge into Chelsea. In March 2022, ITV News reported that residents were pleading for a larger fine, more than the current £100, for supercars that were as loud as jet planes and would wake people up in the night (Harris 2022).