The area saw further development after World War II and has a rich history of political representation, with the Holborn and St Pancras seat held by Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer as of July 2024.

It is home to numerous independently owned shops, music venues, and cultural establishments, such as the Kentish Town Community Centre.

The name of Kentish Town is probably derived from Ken-ditch or Caen-ditch, meaning the "bed of a waterway" and is otherwise unrelated to the English county of Kent.

The early 19th century brought modernisation, causing much of the area's rural qualities, the River Fleet and the 18th-century buildings to vanish, although pockets still remain, for example Little Green Street.

A network of streets in the north of Kentish Town was part of a large estate owned by St John's College, Cambridge.

In 1912 the Church of St Silas the Martyr (designed by architect Ernest Charles Shearman) was finally erected and consecrated, and by December of that year it became a parish in its own right.

[7] In his poem Parliament Hill Fields, Sir John Betjeman refers to "the curious Anglo-Norman parish church of Kentish Town".

Kentish Town is part of the Holborn and St Pancras seat which is held by Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer as of March 2024.

Kentish Town South reelected Labour Councillors Georgia Gould, Meric Apac, and Jenny Headlam-Wells.

In addition, the video of the Madness track "Baggy Trousers" was filmed at Islip Street School and the park in Kentish Town.

[11] Plenty of exterior shots in the BBC tragicomedy Fleabag were filmed in Kentish Town, star/writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge being a resident.

[12] The high street is a mixture of national retail chains and independent shops, including a long-standing bookshop, several delis and organic stores.

However, since 2009 there has been a marked increase in independent shops being replaced with chain stores including Pret a Manger, Costa Coffee, Caffe Nero and Sainsbury's.

[15] Torriano Avenue, dating back to 1848, is a Kentish Town street home to Pete Stanley, one of the country's best-known bluegrass banjo players; British actor Bill Nighy; and The Torriano Poets, where local poets have met for over 20 years and still hold weekly public poetry readings on Sunday evenings: its founder was John Rety.

They take their names from the local landowners, Sir David Leighton and Joshua Torriano, who developed the land for housing in the mid 19th century.

[17] The largest municipal building is the Kentish Town Sports Centre [18] which opened as the St Pancras public baths in 1903,[19] designed by Thomas W.

[19] Kentish Town has a fairly large boundary, stretching from Camden Gardens to as a far north as the Highgate Road/Gordon House Road junction near Dartmouth Park.