Earl’s Court Tourist Information from Online Discounted Hotels

Despite displaying the same ostentatious architecture as the rest of Kensington and Chelsea, Earl’s Court itself is a less moneyed area, with many houses providing cheap bed-sits and hotels for young Australians and New Zealanders earning it the nickname “Kangaroo Valley”. In the late 1970s, Earl’s Court also became the gay capital of London, a position it has since lost to Soho. Now it's the (male) leather crowd that predominates here, epitomized by The Coleherne on Old Brompton Road, London’s oldest leather pub, and by its most famous former resident, Freddie Mercury, the flamboyant queen of Queen, whose house, Garden Lodge, 1 Logan Place, has remained a shrine for fans since his death in 1991.

The Earl’s Court area is also well known for its two giant exhibition halls ( www.eco.co.uk ). The earlier (and more northern) of the two is the Olympia Exhibition Hall, built in 1884 as the National Agricultural Hall, and now hidden behind a severe 1930s facade at the western end of Kensington High Street. It later made its name as a circus venue, but is now firmly established as a show centre, hosting annual events like the Ideal Home Exhibition, and rock concerts by ageing sock bands. Even larger shows are put on at the Earl’s Court Exhibition Hall, erected in 1937 to the south of Olympia down Warwick Road. Both halls were used during the last war as internment centres for Germans and Italians, many of whom had fled Fascist persecution.

Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery (daily: summer 8am-8pm; winter 8am-4pm; www.royalparks.gov.uk ), the least overgrown of London’s “Magnificent Seven ”Victorian graveyards. It was laid Out on a grid plan in 1840 and is now overlooked by the east stand of Chelsea Football Club. Few  famous corpses grace Brompton, but enthusiasts might like to seek out  suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst; Samuel Sotheby, who founded the Sotherby's auction house; Henry Cole, the man behind the Great Exhibition and V&A; Fanny Brawne, the love of Keats’ life; and John Snow, Queen Victoria’s anaesthetist, whose chloroform-fixes the monarch described as “soothing, quiet- and delightful beyond measure”. Long Wolf, a Sioux Indian chief, was a temporary resident here, after he died while on tour entertaining the Victorian with Colonel “Buffalo Bill” Cody. His body has since been returned to descendants in the USA.  For Hotels in Earls Court London at fantastic discounted rates see this page from Online Discounted Hotels.