The Kensington Canal was a canalisation of a tidal creek. It opened in 1828 and was later taken over by a railway company who built a line to join its terminus, now Kensington (Olympia) station, to Willesden Junction. This lock cottage was extended at the time to become the railway office and committee room. The railway was not commercially successful until, in 1859, it was extended, by filling in the canal, to reach and cross the Thames to arrive at Clapham Junction and join the complex of railways there. The cottage was demolished in 1998 for the building of a supermarket car park, despite a campaign, in which I was engaged, to save it.