Chelsea Then & Now, 6

Chelsea, Then & Now

Kings Road

Cheyne Row

To Master Philip Ransome; " I am staying with Auntie Pauline, not far from the houses in this post card, Much love from Mother". 8 pm, 20 Jan 1909.

The writer and historian Thomas Carlyle, the Sage of Chelsea, lived at number 24 Cheyne Row, on the left of the photo. The row of buildings were built in 1703-08 by Elbrow Glentworthy and are one of the earliest terraces in Chelsea, built in the gardens of the long lost Feathers pub.

Carlyle described his house thus; "it is the remnant of genuine old dutch looking Chelsea, looking out mainly on trees. We might see at half a mile distance Bolingbroke's Battersea". Visitors to the house included the political economist John Stewart Mill, the author Charles Dickens, the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and the art critic John Ruskin. The "gifted feckless dilettante" Leigh Hunt lived at 22 Upper Cheyne Row and sent Carlyle many "kind unpractical messages". Dickens based his character Harold Skimpole in Bleak House on Leigh Hunt. The house is now in the hands of the National Trust and is open to the public.

The artist Stanley Roy Badmin painted a charming view of Cheyne Row looking north, in 1933, see below

To Miss Cappelle, 107 Banbury Road, Oxford; " With Affection". 1904

A painting of Cheyne Walk by the landscape painter Cecil Gordon Lawson in 1870 features Thomas Carlyle on the left.

Finally the Victorian artist John Atkinson Grimshaw, who specialised in moonlight city night scenes did a charming oil of the Cross Keys pub, with Chelsea Old Church in the background, from Cheyne Row.

Upper Cheyne Row

This house bears no relationship to what is claimed to be Leigh Hunt's house on Upper Cheyne Row, see below;

Upper Cheyne Row and Leigh Hunt's house.

Glebe Place

To a Mrs. King in Dover; "I am so sorry to hear you are not at Tunbridge Wells and trust Louis is better, poor little dear I hope she will be soon quite strong again, I was delighted with the parcel you sent, it is too good of you to have done them so beautifully. Will write a letter Sunday as today I am rather busy. Much love to all, Polls." Dated 1905.

A chapel was built in 1687 on Cooks Ground, now Glebe Place, for the Huguenots who had settled in Chelsea after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes  in 1685. It was demolished in 1892 t0 make way for Glebe Place.
Glebe Place and Manresa Road became the centre for artists in London, and in the 1880's internationally famous. Glebe Place Studios, 52-59, 60-61, and 64-65 were all built in 1888, the latter by Dance and Smirk. They were used by, among others, Walter Sickert, William Rothenstien and Ernest Shepard. Cedar Studios were built  for the sculptor  Conrad Dressler in 1885. Francis bacon the painter lived at 1 Glebe Place in the 1930's. He then moved to 7 Cromwell Place, the studio of Sir John Everett Millais. Frank Lowe designed number 50 in 1985-7.
The Studio, number 48, was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1920-24, and he lived at 43a. The small white house in the corner, now the Chelsea Open Air School, is always reputed to be King Henry VIII hunting lodge. There is no evidence but a nice story.

Manresa Road

The Public Library and South West Polytechnic was designed by J.M. Brydon and built in 1891, he was also the architect of Chelsea Town Hall. The 1960's building opposite was the Chelsea College of Art. The Sex Pistols held their second ever gig there in december 1975.

Holman Hunt had a studioin Manresa Street in 1876 where he painted "The Triumph of The Innocents". Along with Glebe Place this was the area of the "advanced" school of artists whom E.M/ Forster referred to as "long haired Chelsea" in 1910. 

Beaufort Street

 "Dear Agnes, Don't forget to come see us before you go back from your holidays. Hoping all are well. Sincerely yours, Maggie" posted September 1908.

Photographed September 2012

These five blocks of flats of red brick were built in 1903-4 by Joseph and Smithem. They were built to provide 261 tenement flats with 8 bathrooms and a drying room in the basements of each block.

The Street was laid out in the mid nineteenth century on the site of Sir Thomas More's house and estate. Following his sad demise in 1535 the house had a series of owners before being purchased in 1682 by Henry Somerset, later Duke of Beaufort. It remained in that family until 1737 when it was purchased by Sir Hans Sloane. He demolished the house in 1740 and from 1751 to 1770 the estate was occupied by Count Nicolas Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brotherhood.

In the late 1940's Marchesa Luisa Casati lived at 32 beaufort Street, she was a wealthy model for Augustus John, Jacob Epstien, Man Ray and Cecil Beaton. She is buried in Brompton cemetery.

Worlds End

  

King Charles II is the reputed originator of the Worlds End. His coach broke an axel there and on seeing the muddy fields on one side and the sand bank on the other exclaimed "Odds blood, it would have to happen at the worlds end". An added rumour is that he was going to see Nell Gwynn who had a house nearby.

By the time the dramatist William Congreve wrote "Love for Love" in 1695 the Worlds End had a tea garden which he described as a "a resort of doubtful repute". 

Mrs Forsight; "I suppose you would not go alone to the Worlds End"

Mrs Frail "The Worlds End! What, do you mean to banter me".

The current pub was rebuilt in1897 by John Bowden of the Royal Chelsea Brewery. It replaced a 1860 building which in turn replaced a building dating back to at least 1670. The area was badly damaged in the Second World War and completely redeveloped from 1967 to 1977 by Eric Lyons as a "1970 style council community.

Chelsea Then & Now, 5

Chelsea, Then & Now

South Kensington

"Dear Lena, I have sent your P & B off today, hope you will like it get Daddy to write your name on it, love from Anty Ally". Posted 12.15 am, Jan 20, 1906.  

To a Miss Alice in Rosary gardens "Wishing you many happy returns of the day with best wishes yours truly". Posted March 29, 1906.

St. Lukes Church, Sydney Street

To a Miss Griffith of Duke Street St. James; "This is the church we ought to go to tomorrow around about 3-30, Love in haste." posted 12.15,3 Sept, 1905.

St. Lukes Church, Sydney Street, was built by James Savage in 1831, an early example of the Gothic revival. It is the largest and tallest parish church in London. It's style is magpie like, drawing influences from Kings College Cambridge, Magdalen College Oxford, Bath Abbey and Exeter cathedral. According to Eastlake's "Gothic Revival" it is " the earliest groined church of the modern revival".

The novelists Charles Dickens and Jerome K Jerome were married in the church. The "K" stands for Klapka, after the hero of the 1849 Hungarian uprising General Georg Klapka.

The film director Steven Spielberg chose it for his opening sequence of "Empire of the Sun".

Fulham Road

Pelham Crescent

To a Miss Carey of Kensal Rise; "Dear Evelyn, Received postcard many thanks. Gertie and I will be over tomorrow, Wed." Jan 1909

The Crescent on the left was developed by the architect George Basevi and the builder James Bonnin between 1833 and 1845. This followed the bankruptcy of the tenant nurserymen in 1832. The landowner was the Smiths Charity which was sold to the Wellcome Trust in 1996 for £280 million. The Smiths Charity was initially set up in 1628 by a Henry Smith to raise money to pay the ransom for seaman held by Barbary pirates.

George Basevi built two Gothic churches in Chelsea, St. Jude and St. Saviour, and he designed Belgrave Square, developed between 1825 and 1841. 

Ian Nairn in his book "Nairn's London" described the crescent thus; "It makes a perfect urban unit, formal but not rigid, self contained but not sealed up".

Cecil Beaton lived at 8 Pelham Place from 1935 to 1974.

The 1930's block of flats on the right replaced "The Stag" public house.

"Love to a kiss from the Count" 1909 to Vivienne, 81 The Crescent Wisbeach Cambs. 

Sydney Place from Pond Place

to Mr. J Jury, Blackhall, Sevenoaks, Kent' " Dear John, Just a card to you at last. I hope you are a good boy. With love from e m." Feb. 1913 

Pond Place, from where the photo was taken, was named in 1865 after a large village pond that was part of the 37 acre Chelsea Common. This common land was, according to observers at the time, as agreeable as Clapham Common. Incidentally King Charles I reviewed his troops on this common.

It is also reported that Nell Gwynn's mother drowned, when drunk, in the pond. See "I Never Knew That About London" by Christopher Winn.

The Cadogan Family enclosed the land in 1790 where they built low grade houses, of which a few survive. These houses became slums and were replaced by early examples of social housing supported by private benefactors. Examples include The Samuel Lewis Housing Trust built in 1915 and The Sutton Trust in 1912 to designs by ECP Monson.

The Royal Marsden Hospital

The Royal Marsden Hospital was founded by William Marsden in1861, it was the first hospital in the world designed specifically for cancer patients. Initially called the Cancer Hospital it was named the Royal Cancer Hospital in 1936 and the Royal Marsden in 1954. 

The building opposite was the Hospital For Consumption and Diseases of the Chest was built in a Tudor style in 1844-46. It was designed by FH Francis featuring patterned red and blue brickwork and Caen stone. It was converted into luxury flats in 2004, called The Bromptons.

The Jewish Burial Ground next to the Cancer Research Centre was opened in 1813 [Blunt} or 1816 [George Bryan] and closed before the end of the century. George Bryan in his book "Chelsea in Olden Times and Present Times" published in 1869 included a rather strange anecdote told to him by the Rev. Owen, Vicar of St. Judes, about a Hebrew friend who gave a toast thus; " The Queen of the Jews and of no other nation:. His explanation was  "J [or I] , E, W, S makes Ireland, England Wales and Scotland and J.E.W.S. spells Jews, and makes Queen Victoria Queen of the Jews and of no other nation.

The family of Charles Dicken's wife, Catherine Hogarth, lived at 18 York Place. demolished to make way for the Royal Brompton Hospital, previously the Chelsea Hospital for Women.  

To Miss Walker; "Dear Dolly, I arrived home quite safe last night at 10 past 11 o'c. Love Maggi" March 1910

Elm Park Gardens

1915

The terraces of tall gault brick houses that form Elm Park Gardens were built in the 1990's to the designs of George Godwin. He, and his brother Henry, had made a significant contribution to the transformation of Brompton and South Kensington in the second half of the nineteenth century from market gardens to an elite residential area of London. He was editor for many years of "The Builder' magazine and is buried in Brompton Cemetery 

 Designed as single family houses they were converted into flats after the Second World War following their purchase by Chelsea Borough Council. Adopting a policy of scrap and rebuild half the houses on the right hand side were demolished in the 1960's and replaced by the current blocks of flats.

Past residents include the comedian Joyce Grenfell, sculptor Elizabeth Frink and painter John Bratby, a member of the Kitchen Sink School of painting. He did a painting of the houses in 1955. 

The poet Laurie Lee lived there and was a regular in the now sadly lost Queens Elm Pub. [ See; The Smell of Broken Glass by Sean Treacy]  In an article on Elm Park Gardens he described it as "one of those ante-chambers of experience through which we must all pass at some stage of our lives". Similar to Redcliffe Gardens!

Elm Park Gardens was the last part of Chelsea Park to be developed. The Park formed part of Sir Thomas More's estate which he purchased in 1524 whilst Lord Chancellor to King henry VIII. In the 18 th century a Dr Bloomfield built an elegant Georgian House in the park, following the demise of the Silk Farm in 1724. This was demolished in 1876 to be replaced by a high Victorian house which in turn was demolished in the 1960's and replaced by the somewhat dull modernist tower block.  

 Elm Park Gardens by John Randall Bratby, 1959

Fulham Road

Looking west, with  Mimosa Street to the immediate left, Rostrevor Road on the right in the middle distance and Munster Road beyond. 

Chelsea Then & Now, 4

Chelsea Then & Now

Kings Road

The Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York Square

To Miss Moullin Annesley of Guernsey; " Thanks for your nice long letter glad you are having nice weather and a nice rest and hope you are all feeling much better after a lot of rain yesterday it is much colder today but fine" J Brynatey Lt. August 30 1915

To a Miss Hunt of Cambridge Terrace, Hyde Park, London " Dear Ellen, I am sorry I have not written before but we have visitors here and the head housemaid is away so we are busy, but I like it very much at present have you seen Edie Latby. Will write you both a letter soon, love." 1912 

The Duke of York's Headquarters was named after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of King George III. It was opened in 1803 as a Royal Military Asylum, a boarding school for the orphans of British Soldiers. "The Dukies, How Tommy Atkins junior is trained", Daily Chronicle, 2 July 1896.
It was designed by John Saunders. Prince Frederick was "The Grand Old Duke of York" who, in the nursery rhyme, "marched ten thousand men to the top of the hill, and marched them down again". He had a chequered military career, as the rhyme applies, being responsible for a defeat in Flanders in 1799.
In 1909 the school moved to Dover, where it still operates, and the building was taken over by the Territorial Army. The running track was used by Sir Roger bannister when training for his "four minute mile" which her broke in 1954. In jJune 1970 the gym was used for rehearsals of Kenneth Tynan's  play "Oh Calcutta" of which an American critic said; "the kind of show that gave pornography a dirty name".
In 1999 the Ministry of Defence sold to the Cadogan Estates. They employed the architects Paul Davies & Partners to create the new Duke of York Square in 2003, and the Saatchi Art gallery which opened in 2008.

To Mrs. Galen, Jubilee Police Station, Fulham Cross, Fulham; " Dear Mrs Galen, I will meet you Monday about 6.30 ish by Timothy Davies. Hoping you are quite well, with love from here. I remain your affek. E. Davids" 30 August 1915

The Chapel on the corner of Cheltenham terrace was consecrated in 1824 by the Bishop of London. Previously there had stood a cottage on the site which, in 1797, became the rural retreat of a Mrs, Crouch, an accomplished singer who performed at Drury Lane and was a great success in Dublin. She died in 1806 in Brighton. It is now a shop.

Opposite is one of the few remaining coherent stretches of mid 19 th. century stucco buildings, stretching from number 72 Kings Road, formerly the Colville Tavern, to Anderson Street.

Kings Road at Dovehouse Green

To Miss Whitten; "Dear Lisa, Received your PC. Lets know when you are coming home. Very hot up here , I mean the weather. With love Mac" 1907

The black & white pub in the middle of the picture, known as the Six Bells pub, was built in 1898 on the site of a Tudor pub and bowling green. This earlier pub was much visited by the painters Whistler and Rossetti and the writer Carlyle whose wife did not allow him to smoke at home. 

The architect was CR Crickmay. Pevsner describes it thus; "a larger than life old English style in the manner of Shaw of George, two splendid lavish storeys of Ipswich windows below three picturesque jettied gables".

It is currently the Henry J. Bean.

The open space opposite is known as Dovehouse Green. Sir Hans Sloane gave the land to the Church     

as an overspill graveyard in 1727, it was enlarged in 1790 and closed in 1812. A mortuary chapel was built in the late 19 th. century and then became a workhouse. This was demolished in 1947, the tombstones cleared and opened as a public garden. In 1977 the old burial ground was landscaped and fully opened to the public as Dovehouse Green. The obelisk in the centre was erected in memory of Andrew Millar, a famous bookseller and publisher who died in 1785. 

Chelsea, Then & Now, 3

Chelsea Then & Now

Kings Road

Oakley Street

Looking south towards Albert Bridge

Oakley Street was created in 1830 on the site of the old Chelsea Manor House. This pleasant red brick house had been acquired by Henry VIII in 1536. It subsequently passed through the hands of Lord Cheyne and Sir Hans Sloane before being demolished in 1755.

The terraced houses date from the 1850's and 1860's. The street was named after William Cadogan who had been made Baron Cadogan of Oakley in 1718.

Robert Falcon Scott of Antarctic fame lived at number 56 from 1905 to 1908, Oscar Wilde's mother Lady Wilde lived at number 87, followed some years later the footballer George Best, and actress Dame Sybil Thorndike at 74. George Melly, the jazz musician, critic and writer, lived on Oakley Street in the 1950's when working for ELT Mesens, head of the Surrealist Group of England. Melly wrote his biography. 

To a Miss Larne of Padstow; "Thanks for letter, will write soon. This view is other end of Oakley Street showing our house more distinctly, have put crosses just exactly where it is. much love, Florence" 1908

Looking north towards the Kings Road

The spy Donald Maclean lived at number 29 before his departure. According to the writer Joan Wyndham's war time diaries a certain Mabel Lethbridge ran a brothel in the street, her telegraphic address was 'Chastity London".

Dr. John Phene, the developer of Oakley Street built for himself an eccentric house on the corner with Upper Cheyne Row where 32 Oakley Street now stands. With an extensive collection of architectural relics on it's exterior it was a replica of his family's Chateau de Savenay in the Loire which was destroyed in the Revolution. The house was sadly demolished in 1917.

Incidentally Dr. Phene was the first to plant trees in London streets. This was much admired by Prince Albert who proceeded to plant trees in front of the South Kensington Museums.

Chelsea Palace of Varieties

The Chelsea Palace of Varieties Theatre was on the corner of the Kings Road and Sidney Street. It was designed by Wylson Alan & Lang in 1903. Stars such as Gracie Fields and George Robie played there.  In 1940 a certain Alfred Hawthorn Hill got his first job there at the age of 16, the comedian adopted the stage name of Benny Hill, after Jack Benny. In 1953 The Beverley Sisters and Max Wall played there.

In 1957 it closed and became a Granada recording studio where such TV series as "The Army Game" and "Bootsy and Snudge" were made. In 1958 Billie Holliday appeared and in 1960 Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren recorded there.

The Theatre was demolished in 1969 and replaced by the block of flats and showroom shown in the photograph.

Prior to the theatre the site had been occupied by the Oakley Works where the Wilkinson Sword Company, manufacturer of guns and swords, had a factory.