Living and renting in South Kensington: travel links, parking, schools, best streets — and the average cost of monthly rent

Sometimes referred to as Paris’s 21st arrondissement, until the mid-19th century South Kensington was mainly market gardens.

Then the area was designated as a new arts and scientific quarter for London, and the museums of Exhibition Road began to be built, two-and-a-half miles west of central London.

Streets and squares of white stucco houses followed, and initially these Italianate villas attracted an arty, intellectual crowd: Virginia Woolf, Francis Bacon, Sir Isaiah Berlin and Oscar Wilde all lived there.

In 1920 the French school, the lycée, moved in, bringing European families with it.

In 2012 fresh life was breathed into South Kensington with the redesign of Exhibition Road into a shared space, where kerbs and crossings have been removed and pedestrians share the roadway with drivers, while speeds have been cut to a maximum of 20mph.

This has encouraged an alfresco lifestyle around the Tube station.

Who lives there? Famously popular with French expats, South Ken also has a notable Italian community, and is popular with international students from Imperial College — if they have wealthy parents to pay the bills.

Because of high local prices, South Kensington generally attracts a more mature crowd.

“It is unlikely you are going to get someone at the start of their career,” says Marlon Lloyd Malcolm, head of sales at mews specialist estate agents Lurot Brand.

Residents’ parking permits cost between £87 and £236 depending on the age and engine size of the vehicle.

Crime rates are above average for London at 13 offences per 1,000 population, with theft, motor vehicle crime and burglary top of the list.

There is a PureGym close to the station, and The Gym Way close to Gloucester Road. Chelsea Leisure Centre has a pool and gym. It’s a bit of a walk — but that’s good for you.

Source: Rightmove

The most sought-after addresses in South Kensington are its garden squares, says Marlon Lloyd Malcolm, head of sales at Lurot Brand.

The grand apartments overlooking Onslow Square, with their large entertaining spaces, are particularly lovely.

For houses, both Thurloe Square and Pelham Crescent are beautiful — but most of these properties are huge.

Although nowhere in South Kensington is exactly cheap, a flat in one of its main roads provides best value.

South Kensington Tube in Zone 1 is on the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines, and particularly good for those who work in the West End.

For non-French speakers Our Lady of Victories RC Primary School, The Oratory Roman Catholic Primary School, and St Thomas More Language College (seniors) all have “outstanding” Ofsted reports.

South Kensington Farmers’ Market takes place in Bute Street on Saturdays, when the street is closed to traffic.

There is a Waitrose by Gloucester Road station, and two branches of Tesco Express.

Partridges in Gloucester Road styles itself a “gourmet grocery shop”; La Cave à Fromage is great for speciality cheeses, and Bute Street has some delectable bakeries.

There aren’t many modest-sized houses in this area. They are either huge, or absolutely massive and have thus been converted into flats.

It can also get overcrowded. “It is very popular with tourists, because of the museums as well as the shops and restaurants,” says Lloyd Malcolm.

It is the epicentre of London’s French community, and on a sunny Saturday morning it is as Gallic as you can get without hopping on the Eurostar.

South Kensington’s European vibe attracted Sam Brunero and his girlfriend Lucy Breton to this rarefied part of central London — and some clever negotiating helped them manage it without an enormous budget.

The couple, both 25, pay £1,384 a month for their one-bedroom garden square flat, having signed up for a three-year lease and agreed to cosmetically upgrade the property during their tenure, putting in new carpets and redecorating.

That was 18 months ago and Sam, founder of the Brunero Property Group, and Lucy, studio manager for a jewellery company, love the cosmopolitan charm of South Ken.

“It is bustling, with lots of lovely cafés and restaurants, and the housing stock is really, really good,” says Sam.

There are a good number of predictably expensive boutiques dotted around.

The Conran Shop on Brompton Cross is the go-to browse for homeware fans, fresh as ever after more than 30 years, and the fabulous Victoria & Albert shows how to do a museum shop right.

However, Sam and Lucy tend to use the shops in Kensington High Street, Knightsbridge and King’s Road, all of which are within a mile.

The Ciné Lumière offers a programme of art house and French language movies.

You are also around the corner from London’s “big three” museums: Science, Natural History and the Victoria & Albert, while the Royal Albert Hall and Saatchi Gallery are both within walking distance.

Sam recommends an alfresco drink at Coco Momo in Gloucester Road, which he says is “great for people watching”.

He also has high praise for the dim sum at Jia in Harrington Road, while Bute Street is full of pretty cafés frequented by elegant Frenchwomen drinking black coffee, and also by pupils from the nearby Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle de Londres taking their lunch breaks.

You will never go short of a delicious croissant here, that’s for sure.

Not a desperately green quarter if you don’t have a key to one of its garden squares. But Hyde Park is only half a mile away.