Queen's Gate is a major street in South Kensington, London, England. It runs from Kensington Road south, intersecting with Cromwell Road, and then on to Old Brompton Road.
From north to south, places of interest visible from Queen's Gate include the Royal Albert Hall, Imperial College London, Baden-Powell House, Dana Centre and the Natural History Museum. The road also lends its name to an independent girls' school Queen's Gate School, which itself is situated on the road. The entire road, being more of a boulevard, is approximately 1 km in length with varying architecture in relation to the north central and south regions of the road. The north region, adjacent to Queen's Gate, a major southern gate of Kensington Gardens features grand terraced homes on the west side and independent designed attached buildings on the east side. The Huxley Building, built in honour of and named after biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, is the largest of many academic buildings based on the road itself, although other scientific buildings are also visible.
In the central region of the east side of Queen's Gate, major construction work has been ongoing at least since 1998, developing and creating major science research centres, the main one being the Darwin Centre, home to several dozen million animal specimens. The Darwin Centre phase II is currently under construction. both these buildings belong to and are of full use to The Natural History Museum. The public can visit the currently open Darwin Centre by appointment only.
Although there are churches in streets branching from Queen's Gate, the only one on the road is St Augustine's of Canterbury (Church of England). It is situated next to a major parking park, whose entrance is on Harrington Gardens, which is perpendicular to the road on both sides in the southern part. Although there are bars, restaurants and several hotels on the road, the entire area is essentially residential with the nearest shops at least 100 metres away (e.g., on Gloucester Road).
The entire length of Queen's Gate is divided with a central parking reservation, which has done much to ease space on road sides and has no major effect on traffic, as the road is already large and of little wider citizen use. At the northern most part of the road, only metres away from the actual gate of Kensington Gardens, there is a statue of a man, Lord Napier, mounted upon a horse.
The buildings increase in architectural simplicity as one moves southward down the road. the nearest tube stations are South Kensington and Gloucester Road. Two minor bus routes operate on the street.
Four countries have embassies in Queen's Gate. The Bangladeshi High Commission is at No. 28; the Royal Thai Embassy is at Nos. 29-30; the Omani Embassy is at No. 167; and the Bulgarian Embassy is at Nos. 186-188.
Coordinates: 51°29′54″N 0°10′47″W / 51.49834°N 0.17961°W / 51.49834; -0.17961
Famous quotes containing the words queen and/or gate:
“Half-opening her lips to the frost’s morning sigh, how strangely the rose has smiled on a swift-fleeting day of September!
How audacious it is to advance in stately manner before the blue-tit fluttering in the shrubs that have long lost their leaves, like a queen with the spring’s greeting on her lips;
to bloom with steadfast hope that, parted from the cold flower-bed, she may be the last to cling, intoxicated, to a young hostess’s breast.”
—Afanasi Fet (1820–1892)
“And we, barely recalled from sleep there, sense
Arrivals lowing in a doleful distance
Horny dilemmas at the gate once more.
Come and choose wrong, they cry, come and choose wrong....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)