KENNINGTON, a district in the parish of LAMBETH,
eastern division of the hundred of BRIXTON,
county of SURREY, 2 miles (S. S. W.) from London.
The population is returned with Lambeth. This place
consists principally of several ranges of handsome
houses in the line of road leading from the metropolis
towards Clapham and Brixton. The name is said to be of
Saxon origin, there having been a royal palace here prior
to the Conquest, whence the appellation Cijnington, from
the Saxon Cyning, a king. Kenuington is distinguished in
history as the scene of the banquet, or marriage festival,
of a Danish nobleman, at which Hardicanute, the son of
Canute the Great, became the victim of his own intemperance,
or, according to some writers, was poisoned;
and, in commemoration- of his death, the festival called
Hocktide is supposed to have been instituted. The
palace was subsequently the favourite residence of the
Black Prince, and the occasional resort of Henry VIII.
and some of his predecessors; but it was at length
superseded by the manor-house, which was inhabited by
Charles I., when Prince of Wales; and the site, called
Park Place, is now covered by modern buildings. Kennington
common, an unenclosed tract of ground belonging
to the duchy of Cornwall, was formerly the place of
execution for criminals convicted at the Surrey assizes;
and here several of the adherents of the Pretender underwent
the sentence of the law as traitors, in 1746.
This place is lighted withgas, and is supplied with
water from the South London Water-works. Here are
manufactories for oil of vitriol and wadding. Kennington
is within the jurisdiction of a court of requests
held in the borough of Southwark, for the recovery of
debts under 40s.; also within the limits of the New
Police. The church, dedicated to St. Mark, is a spacious
edifice, with a Grecian Doric portico, tower, and cupola,
at the west end, erected in 1824, at an expense, including
the purchase of the site and furniture, of
£22,719. 19. of which sum the parliamentary commissioners
gave £7651. 1. 10., lent without interest
£8442. 2 6., and the remainder with interest. The
living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of
Surrey, and diocese of Winchester, and in the patronage
of the Rector of Lambeth. This is one of the four districts
into which the parish of Lambeth has lately been
divided, each of which, on the decease of the present incumbent
of Lambeth, will be constituted a distinct rectory.
There is an episcopal chapel in Kennington-lane; and
those at Stockwell and South Lambeth are within this
district. The Independents have two places of worship,
and the Baptists and Wesleyan Methodists have one
each. There is a school in Kennington-lane under the
patronage of the Company of Licensed Victuallers, in
which eighty-nine boys and eighty-nine girls are clothed
and educated. A National school, in which two hundred
boys and one hundred and sixty girls are instructed,
was erected in Kennington-oval, in 1824, at an expense
of £2500; and an infant school for this district was
instituted in 1828.