Linley Sambourne House

Among the streets that fill the area north of Kensington High Street with stuccoed monotony, Stafford Terrace appears at first glance quite unexceptional. Two rows of conventional brick houses with podgy Italianate dressings, rather old-fashioned in style for the early 1870s when they were built, enclose the thoroughfare with relentless rhythm of bay windows and pillared porches; conformity, not individuality, is what adds value to these addresses. Only at one house, No. 18, is there any attempt to stand out from the neighbours. Glazed fern cases at the ground- and first-floor windows and an elaborate brass nameplate on the olive-green front door distinguish this as the home of Edward Linley Sambourne, a talented artist who supplied cartoons for Punch from 1867 until his last illness in 1909.