Hotels in Kensington

Hotels in Kensington London are not the cheapest but the location takes some beating.  They tend to range from tourist to deluxe standard with very few budget category.

Notable deluxe Kensington Hotels include the much acclaimed Milestone Hotel, a bastion of British traditional style in a genuine 5 star setting opposite Kensington Palace. 

Just across the road is another 5 star, the Royal Garden Hotel, which offers panoramic views over Kensington Palace Gardens. 

Both these 5 star London hotels are within a 5 minute walk of the Royal Albert Hall.  They differ in style in that the Royal Garden is modern and the Milestone is traditional but both are 21st century hotels. At Hotel-Assist, we just love the Milestone, its so so classy and personal.

For those on a more realistic budget have a look at the Kensington Close Hotel which offers great accommodation deals in Kensington and is situated in a fairly quiet position yet two minutes from the tube station and shops.

Another tourist class hotel which gets good client reviews is the John Howard Hotel located very close to the Albert Hall just across the road from Hyde Park.

The majority of Kensington Hotels actually lie within the South Kensington sub district around Gloucester Road and South Kensington tube stations on the Cromwell road.  For a full listing of hotels in this upmarket part of London and a guide to the area, see our South Kensington hotel page.

If you really need a cheap hotel in Kensington then have a look at the Olympia Rooms Hotel in West Kensington which is close to the Olympia Exhibition Centre.

KENSINGTON GUIDE

A must-tick on any London tourist’s list of things to do in the capital, Kensington is home to many of the city’s wealthiest folk – including Queen Elizabeth herself, Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich and this well-to-do district’s most famous former resident, Princess Diana.

Bordered by beautiful Hyde Park and next to central London’s two other green lungs – St James’s, home to Buckingham Palace and Green Park – Kensington High Street is rightly famous for upmarket shopping and excellent restaurants.

If designer wares are your bent, the nearby King’s Road and Sloane Street are essential stops for boutique shopping and high-living. Harrods (87-135 Brompton Road, 020 7730 1234, www.harrods.com) is Kensington High Street’s most venerable institution and no visit to London is complete without a peek inside: at once ultra-upmarket (champagne & oyster bars; designer accessories for dogs) and amusingly tacky (the slightly ridiculous Egyptian Stairs and laugh-out-loud statue of owner Mohammed al-Fayed), a Harrods bag is still a staple tourist status symbol.

The other big draws close by are the big three museums of South Kensington, each offering a world-class experience for millions of visitors each year.

Kids really love the Science Museum (Exhibition Road, 0870 870 4868, www.sciencemuseum.org.uk) and it’s not hard to see why: seven floors of interactive exhibits include spacecrafts, the original steam engine, a 3D IMAX cinema, entertainingly insightful staff and hours of guaranteed fun.

The dinosaurs in the neighbouring Natural History Museum (15 Cromwell Place, 020 7942 5000, www.nhm.ac.uk) are another huge family attraction – the entrance-hall Diplodicus and animatronic T-Rex get the biggest screams, and there’s over three and a half million specimens of animal, vegetable and mineral life dating back millennia scattered around the rest of this vast, fascinating and brilliantly executed museum.

 Making up the hat-trick, the Victor ia & Albert Museum (Cromwell Road, 020 7942 2000, www.vam.ac.uk) is one of the world’s centres of decorative arts, with the largest collection of Italian Renaissance items outside of Italy and some of the best East Asian and Islamic ceramics, glass and textiles ever collected.

Take the Circle or District Lines to High St Kensington, Gloucester Road or South Kensington for the museums – the Piccadilly Line also calls at the latter two.