Beyond Lord Strathnairn's statue KNIGHTSBRIDGE passes Knightsbridge Barracks, on the right, and Prince's Racquets and Tennis Club on the left. KENSINGTON ROAD begins at Rutland Gardens, and for some distance skirts Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, Nos. 13-14 Prince's Gate, at this point, presented to the United States by J. Pierpont Morgan, became the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador in 1926. In Ennismore Gardens, on the left, is All Saints' Church, with mural decorations in sgraffiato work by Heywood Sumner (1898). Just beyond this side-street is Kingston House (1757), with a large garden. Exhibition Road, diverging on the left, runs south to Cromwell Road (see above) and affords an approach to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the other important institutions of science and art grouped in this part of London. The row of houses on the left side of Kensington Road, between this point and Queen's Gate, is known as Kensington Gore, from Gore House, which stood approximately on the site of the Albert Hall. Gore House was the residence of William Wilberforce at the beginning of the 19th century, but it is more famous for the salon held here by Lady Blessington between 1836 and 1849. At the corner of Exhibition Road, in Lowther Lodge, built by Norman Shaw in 1874, are the quarters of the Royal Geographical Society, founded in 1830, which possesses a library of 80,000 volumes and a large collection of maps and photographs.
