Kennington is a district in the South London Borough of Lambeth, London, England. It was known to the Anglo-Saxons as Chenintune, meaning "Cena's estate" or "King's town". King Harthacanute died at Kennington in 1041, followed by Edward the Confessor in 1066; Harold Godwinson crowned himself at Kennington on Edward's death. King Edward III of England granted Kennington to his son Edward the Black Prince in 1337, and Edward built a palace there; in 1377, during the unrest leading up to Peasants' Revolt, John of Gaunt came to Kennington to flee the fury of the people of London. During the 1770s, the village of Kennington began to be urbanized, becoming a semi-rural suburb by the early 1800s. By 1859, Kennington was overpopulated, and it was struck by a diphtheria outbreak. In 1890, a train station was established in the neighborhood. On 15 October 1940, during The Blitz, a 50-pound German bomb struck the air-raid shelter beneath Kennington Park, killing 104 people. In 1968, the Lambeth Council designated much of Kennington a Conservation Area, and the area's transport links to the City of London and the West End led to its gentrification during the 21st century.
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