It was built from 1692 on land acquired for the purpose in 1685 and is the oldest such square in Kensington.

[2] In 1685, Thomas Young, a woodcarver, acquired land in Kensington which he sought to develop, and as he later described it in 1701, "did sett out and appoint a considerable part thereof to be built into a large Square of large and substantial Houses fit for the Habitacion of persons of good Worth and Quality, with Courts and Yards before and Gardens lying backwards".

23 was Heythrop College, University of London until 2018, "the Specialist Philosophy and Theology College of the University of London," which included a library originally established in 1614 in Louvain (Leuven) by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) for those studies.

The school built classrooms and fives courts in the gardens of the houses; all that remains is No.

In the 2016 film The Exception, protagonist Mieke de Jong coyly inscribes a copy of landmark philosophical work Beyond Good and Evil with: