Kentishtowner

About Kentishtowner

Kentishtowner is an independent, award-winning hyperlocal news and culture publication serving Kentish Town in the London Borough of Camden. Founded in 2010, it began as a website and grew into a print-and-online title covering the arts, food, community life, development and hidden stories of NW5. It is published as part of London Belongs To Me, a citywide network of neighbourhood travel guides for locals, and remains one of the most frequently cited examples of successful British hyperlocal journalism.

Origins and founding

Kentishtowner was founded in November 2010 by journalist Stephen Emms. He started the site to celebrate what was then an underrated pocket of the capital, at a time when media attention — and the eyes of London's cultural scene — were fixed on Dalston, Shoreditch and other east London neighbourhoods. In its own account of its beginnings, the publication recalls that world-class creative businesses such as Spring Studios and Rankin's Annroy gallery had already been at work for years in the area's understated back streets, largely unnoticed by the wider press.

Emms has said that reading Gillian Tindall's The Fields Beneath — her 1977 in-depth history of Kentish Town, reissued in 2010 — was part of the genesis of the project. Tindall's study of "one London village" dissected the area's history and inspired a new generation of writing about the neighbourhood; she lived for decades in a terrace house built in 1828, and her work gave Emms a template for taking one place seriously as a subject.

An editorial approach built on culture, not hard news

From the start, Kentishtowner deliberately avoided the conventions of regional news. Founder and editor Stephen Emms has said the team liked to avoid hard news such as crime or politics and instead concentrate on community and culture-based articles, specialising in finding "hidden stories and gems" in the town. Every story was approached from a feature-writing background rather than a news-desk one.

The approach proved distinctive enough to win the site national attention. Some commentators described it as "a travel guide for locals" — a phrase Emms himself said he liked, because it summed the project up. Rather than chasing breaking stories, the site published interviews with shopkeepers, profiles of pubs and cafés, histories of streets and buildings, food writing, fashion stories, music columns and opinion pieces about the area. By its own account, it was an attempt to help local people feel more connected to where they lived, at a time when neighbourhoods were not championed in the press the way they later would be.

Growth and audience

By early 2013, when the print edition launched, the website reported a regular audience of around 30,000 monthly visitors. The operation at that stage ran with three full-time writers and around 10 regular contributors. The site received both local and national coverage for its work, and was praised by the trade press for its contribution to local news — one trade report called it a popular hyperlocal website praised for its contribution to local news, notable for having branched into print.

The title's readership has always been strongly rooted in Kentish Town itself and its immediate neighbours — Camden, Tufnell Park, Gospel Oak and Belsize Park — but its model drew interest from journalism circles well beyond NW5, as one of the few independent hyperlocal sites in the UK to sustain itself through advertising and reader support.

The print edition

In February 2013 Kentishtowner launched its first printed edition — a free, monthly, 16-page tabloid printed to a high quality standard. Five thousand copies of the first edition were made available for readers to collect from pubs, bars, shops and cafés across the area. Emms told the journalism trade press that he believed there was a market for a print version even though the website was thriving, noting that all the advertising for the first edition had sold out straight away.

The paper combined pieces that had appeared on the online version with fresh content, including new columns, fashion stories, a music column and area opinion pieces. The first edition included coverage from the site's recent Reader Awards — an annual celebration of the area's best pubs, shops, cafés and people, voted for by readers. Emms projected that the paper would attract a readership of around 20,000. The print title ran alongside the website and was described on the site itself as an award-winning print and online title.

Below the River: expansion to South London

In March 2013, the team behind Kentishtowner expanded with the launch of Below the River, an online magazine for South London. It was published by London Belongs to Me Ltd, the parent company of the Kentishtowner, and edited by Kate Burt, a journalist who had worked as a commissioning editor and columnist at the Independent Magazine and Independent on Sunday. The new site was to be updated six days a week, Monday to Saturday, and sometimes more.

Below the River was dedicated to cultural affairs — art, food, pubs, community, history, architecture, design, music and people — and broadly covered the area from Stockwell to Deptford, while not sticking rigidly to those boundaries and including reviews of events from across London. It also developed a charitable youth arm, which aimed to mentor local under-18s in journalism and digital publishing. The expansion grew out of a long friendship between Burt and Kentishtowner founder Stephen Emms, and their shared idea of extending the award-winning north London formula to champion the other side of the city.

Awards and recognition

Kentishtowner received both local and national coverage for its work during its growth years. It was nominated for a digital award at the Newspaper Awards in 2013, shortlisted against national websites including the Guardian and Metro — an unusual distinction for a one-neighbourhood publication. Its own site describes the title as award-winning, and trade coverage praised its contribution to local news at a time when many regional papers were cutting back on community coverage.

The Reader Awards became one of its signature institutions: annual reader-voted awards recognising the best of Kentish Town's pubs, shops, restaurants and people, reported in the print edition and celebrated at local gatherings.

What it covers

The site's coverage concentrates on arts and culture news for the north London town: gallery openings and exhibitions, new restaurant and café launches, music and nightlife, independent shops and makers, pub culture, local history, development and planning issues as they affect community life, and profiles of the people who give the area its character. Its writers return again and again to the mixed, layered nature of Kentish Town — a place carved up by the railways, where former factories sit alongside genteel Victorian terraces, and where a tradition of creative and independent business runs deep.

Historic Kentish Town themes recur in its writing: the piano factories, livestock markets and tram lines of its industrial past; the legacy of figures such as historian Gillian Tindall; and the evolution of landmarks from the Circle In The Square record shop to Camden Town Brewery. The site's June 2014 "Kentish Cluster" gatherings at venues including The Vine and Camden Town Brewery turned its readership into a physical community.

Community and reader engagement

Community participation has been central to Kentishtowner's identity. The site ran a Community Pinboard where readers debated local issues — from the boundaries of Kentish Town itself to the independent shops of Kentish Town Road — and its comment sections attracted long, spirited discussions about the changing neighbourhood. Readers were invited to vote in the annual Reader Awards, attend its cluster events, and support the site through donations and advertising. As one long-time resident wrote in its pages, the spirit of the place — "too beautifully mixed-up" for homogenisation — was exactly what the publication existed to celebrate.

Funding and independence

Kentishtowner is an independent, commercially supported title. It carries local advertising aimed at Kentish Town businesses and asks readers to support it with small donations — its site has long invited readers to donate modest sums to keep the project going. As part of London Belongs To Me, it sits within a citywide network of neighbourhood guides, but its editorial operation has remained rooted in Kentish Town and run by its founder and a small team.

How to read it

Kentishtowner publishes at kentishtowner.co.uk, where its archive stretches back to the site's 2010 founding. The title remains active, with recent coverage including an October 2025 tribute to Gillian Tindall, the pioneering Kentish Town historian whose book helped inspire the site's creation. Readers can also follow its social channels and support the publication through donations and local advertising.