The name 'Kensal Green' was first recorded in 1550 and applied to a long area of roadside common land, to the west of Kensal Town, in the ancient parish of Willesden.

[5] The Kensal New Town estate was laid out shortly after the arrival of the railway, lying south of the canal and contained by the boundaries of the exclave.

The newly built Kensal New Town Estate quickly attracted a large Irish community, and the surrounding area still has a significant number of Catholic churches.

When the local MP for Chelsea, Emslie Horniman, presented an acre of ground between East Row and Bosworth Road to the London County Council in 1911 for recreational purposes, he stated that there was then "no place within a mile or more where children could play, except in the streets, nor anywhere for the mothers and old people to rest".

[11][12] In 1900, despite stiff local opposition, the exclave of Kensal Town was removed from Chelsea and divided between its neighbours.

[13] Some of the area north of the Canal in the City of Westminster, including the Queens Park Estate and the Mozart Estate, is regarded as also being a part of Queens Park, an area that extends further to the north-east into the former parish and borough of Willesden, now the London Borough of Brent.