PART I

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The Fascination of London

CHELSEA

* * * * *

_IN THIS SERIES._

Cloth, price 1s. 6d. net; leather, price 2s. net, each.

CHELSEA.

By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.

WESTMINSTER.

By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON.

THE STRAND DISTRICT.

By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON.

HAMPSTEAD.

By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.

* * * * *

[Illustration: CHELSEA OLD CHURCH.

After an etching by Miss E. Piper.]

The Fascination of London

CHELSEA

by

G. E. MITTON

Edited by Sir Walter Besant

London

Adam & Charles Black

1902

PREFATORY NOTE

A survey of London, a record of the greatest of all cities, that should

preserve her history, her historical and literary associations, her

mighty buildings, past and present, a book that should comprise all that

Londoners love, all that they ought to know of their heritage from the

past--this was the work on which Sir Walter Besant was engaged when he

died.

As he himself said of it: "This work fascinates me more than anything

else I've ever done. Nothing at all like it has ever been attempted

before. I've been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I

find something fresh in it every day."

He had seen one at least of his dreams realized in the People's Palace,

but he was not destined to see this mighty work on London take form. He

died when it was still incomplete. His scheme included several volumes on

the history of London as a whole. These he finished up to the end of the

eighteenth century, and they form a record of the great city practically

unique, and exceptionally interesting, compiled by one who had the

qualities both of novelist and historian, and who knew how to make the

dry bones live. The volume on the eighteenth century, which Sir Walter

called a "very big chapter indeed, and particularly interesting," will

shortly be issued by Messrs. A. and C. Black, who had undertaken the

publication of the Survey.

Sir Walter's idea was that the next two volumes should be a regular and

systematic perambulation of London by different persons, so that the

history of each parish should be complete in itself. This was a very

original feature in the great scheme, and one in which he took the

keenest interest. Enough has been done of this section to warrant its

issue in the form originally intended, but in the meantime it is proposed

to select some of the most interesting of the districts and publish them

as a series of booklets, attractive alike to the local inhabitant and the

student of London, because much of the interest and the history of London

lie in these street associations. For this purpose Chelsea, Westminster,

the Strand, and Hampstead have been selected for publication first, and

have been revised and brought up to date.

The difficulty of finding a general title for the series was very great,

for the title desired was one that would express concisely the undying

charm of London--that is to say, the continuity of her past history with

the present times. In streets and stones, in names and palaces, her

history is written for those who can read it, and the object of the

series is to bring forward these associations, and to make them plain.

The solution of the difficulty was found in the words of the man who

loved London and planned the great scheme. The work "fascinated" him, and

it was because of these associations that it did so. These links between

past and present in themselves largely constitute The Fascination of

London.

G. E. M.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFATORY NOTE vii

PART I

CHELSEA SOUTH OF THE KING'S ROAD 1

PART II

CHELSEA NORTH OF THE KING'S ROAD 55

PART III

THE ROYAL HOSPITAL AND RANELAGH GARDENS 67

INDEX 97

_Map at end of Volume._

CHELSEA

PART I

The name Chelsea, according to Faulkner and Lysons, only began to be used

in the early part of the eighteenth century. During the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries the place was known as Chelsey, and before that

time as Chelceth or Chelchith. The very earliest record is in a charter

of King Edward the Confessor, where it is spelt Cealchyth. In Doomsday

Book it is noted as Cercehede and Chelched. The word is derived

variously. Newcourt ascribes it to the Saxon word _ceald_, or _cele_,

signifying cold, combined with the Saxon _hyth_, or _hyd_, a port or

haven. Norden believes it to be due to the word "chesel" (_ceosol_, or

_cesol_), a bank "which the sea casteth up of sand or pebble-stones,

thereof called Cheselsey, briefly Chelsey, as is Chelsey [Winchelsea?] in

Sussex." Skinner agrees with him substantially, deriving the principal

part of the word from banks of sand, and the _ea_ or _ey_ from land

situated near the water; yet he admits it is written in ancient records

Cealchyth--"chalky haven." Lysons asserts that if local circumstances

allowed it he would have derived it from "hills of chalk." Yet, as there

is neither hill nor chalk in the parish, this derivation cannot be

regarded as satisfactory. The difficulty of the more generally received

interpretation--viz., shelves of gravel near the water--is that the

ancient spelling of the name did undoubtedly end in _hith_ or _heth_, and

not in _ea_ or _ey_.

BOUNDARIES

The dividing line which separated the old parish of Chelsea from the City

of Westminster was determined by a brook called the Westbourne, which

took its rise near West End in Hampstead. It flowed through Bayswater and

into Hyde Park. It supplied the water of the Serpentine, which we owe to

the fondness of Queen Caroline for landscape gardening. This well-known

piece of water was afterwards supplied from the Chelsea waterworks. The

Westbourne stream then crossed Knightsbridge, and from this point formed

the eastern boundary of St. Luke's parish, Chelsea. The only vestige of

the rivulet now remaining is to be seen at its southern extremity, where,

having become a mere sewer, it empties itself into the Thames about 300

yards above the bridge. The name survives in Westbourne Park and

Westbourne Street. The boundary line of the present borough of Chelsea is

slightly different; it follows the eastern side of Lowndes Square, and

thence goes down Lowndes Street, Chesham Street, and zigzags through

Eaton Place and Terrace, Cliveden Place, and Westbourne Street, breaking

off from the last-named at Whitaker Street, thence down Holbein Place, a

bit of Pimlico, and Bridge Road to the river.

In a map of Chelsea made in 1664 by James Hamilton, the course of the

original rivulet is clearly shown. The northern boundary of Chelsea

begins at Knightsbridge. The north-western, that between Chelsea and

Kensington, runs down Basil and Walton Streets, and turns into the Fulham

Road at its junction with the Marlborough Road. It follows the course of

the Fulham Road to Stamford Bridge, near Chelsea Station. The western

boundary, as well as the eastern, had its origin in a stream which rose

to the north-west of Notting Hill. Its site is now occupied by the

railway-line (West London extension); the boundary runs on the western

side of this until it joins an arm of Chelsea Creek, from which point the

Creek forms the dividing line to the river.

The parish of Chelsea, thus defined, is roughly triangular in shape, and

is divided by the King's Road into two nearly equal triangles.

An outlying piece of land at Kensal Town belonged to Chelsea parish, but

is not included in the borough.

The population in 1801 was 12,079. In the year 1902 (the latest return)

it is reckoned at 73,842.

Bowack, in an account of Chelsea in 1705, estimates the inhabited houses

at 300; they are now computed at 8,641.

HISTORY.

The first recorded instance of the mention of Chelsea is about 785, when

Pope Adrian sent legates to England for the purpose of reforming the

religion, and they held a synod at Cealchythe.

In the reign of Edward the Confessor Thurstan gave Chilchelle or

Chilcheya, which he held of the King, to Westminster Abbey. This gift was

confirmed by a charter which is in the Saxon language, and is still

preserved in the British Museum. Gervace, Abbot of Westminster, natural

son of King Stephen, aliened the Manor of Chelchithe; he bestowed it upon

his mother, Dameta, to be held by her in fee, paying annually to the

church at Westminster the sum of L4. In Edward III.'s reign one Robert de

Heyle leased the Manor of Chelsith to the Abbot and Convent of

Westminster during his own lifetime, for which they were to make certain

payments: "L20 per annum, to provide him daily with two white loaves, two

flagons of convent ale, and once a year a robe of Esquier's silk." The

manor at that time was valued at L25 16s. 6d. The Dean and Chapter of

Westminster hold among their records several court rolls of the Manor of

Chelsea during the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. With the

exception that one Simon Bayle seems to have been lessee of the Manor

House in 1455, we know nothing definite of it until the reign of Henry

VII., after which the records are tolerably clear. It was then held by

Sir Reginald Bray, and from him it descended to his niece Margaret, who

married Lord Sandys. Lord Sandys gave or sold it to Henry VIII., and it

formed part of the jointure of Queen Catherine Parr, who resided there

for some time with her fourth husband, Lord Seymour.

Afterwards it appears to have been granted to the Duke of Northumberland,

who was beheaded in 1553 for his attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the

throne. The Duchess of Northumberland held it for her life, and at her

death it was granted to John Caryl, who only held it for a few months

before parting with it to John Bassett, "notwithstanding which," says

Lysons, "Lady Anne of Cleves, in the account of her funeral, is said to

have died at the King and Quene's majestys' Place of Chelsey beside

London in the same year."

Queen Elizabeth gave it to the Earl of Somerset's widow for life, and at

her death it was granted to John Stanhope, afterwards first Lord

Stanhope, subject to a yearly rent-charge. It is probable that he soon

surrendered it, for we find it shortly after granted by Queen Elizabeth

to Katherine, Lady Howard, wife of the Lord Admiral. Then it was held by

the Howards for several generations, confirmed by successive grants,

firstly to Margaret, Countess of Nottingham, and then to James Howard,

son of the Earl of Nottingham, who had the right to hold it for forty

years after the decease of his mother. She, however, survived him, and in

1639 James, Duke of Hamilton, purchased her interest in it, and entered

into possession. He only held it until the time of the Commonwealth, when

it was seized and sold; but it seems that the purchasers, Thomas Smithby

and Robert Austin, only bought it to hold in trust for the heirs of

Hamilton, for in 1657 Anne, daughter and coheiress of the Duke of

Hamilton, and her husband, Lord Douglas, sold it to Charles Cheyne. He

bought it with part of the large dower brought him by his wife, Lady Jane

Cheyne, as is recorded on her tombstone in Chelsea Church. Sir Hans

Sloane in 1712 purchased it from the then Lord Cheyne. He left two

daughters, who married respectively Lord Cadogan and George Stanley. As

the Stanleys died out in the second generation, their share reverted by

will to the Cadogans, in whom it is still vested.

TOPOGRAPHY AND DETAIL.

Beginning our account of Chelsea at a point in the eastern boundary in

the Pimlico Road, we have on the right-hand side Holbein Place, a modern

street so named in honour of the great painter, who was a frequent

visitor at Sir Thomas More's house in Chelsea. Holbein Place curves to

the west, and finally enters Sloane Square.

In the Pimlico Road, opposite to the barracks, there stood until 1887-88

a shop bearing the sign of the "Old Chelsea Bun House." But this was not

the original Bun House, which stood further eastward, outside the Chelsea

boundary. It had a colonnade projecting over the pavement, and it was

fashionable to visit it in the morning. George II., Queen Caroline, and

the Princesses frequently came to it, and later George III. and Queen

Charlotte. A crowd of some 50,000 people gathered in the neighbourhood on

Good Friday, and a record of 240,000 buns being sold on that day is

reported. Swift, in his Journal to Stella, 1712, writes: "Pray are not

fine buns sold here in our town as the rare Chelsea Buns?" In 1839 the

place was pulled down and sold by auction.

The barracks, on the south side of the road, face westwards, and have a

frontage of a thousand feet in length. As a matter of fact, they are not

included in the borough of Chelsea, though the old parish embraced them;

but as they are Chelsea Barracks, and as we are here more concerned with

sentiment than surveyor's limits, it would be inexcusable to omit all

mention of them.

The chapel stands behind the drill-yard at the back. It is calculated

that it seats 800 people. The organ was built by Hill. The brass lectern

was erected in 1888 in memory of Bishop Claughton. The east end is in the

form of an apse, with seven deeply-set windows, of which only two are

coloured. The walls of the chancel are inlaid with alabaster. Round the

walls are glazed tiles to the memory of the men of the Guards who have

died. The oak pulpit is modern, and the font, cut from a solid block of

dark-veined marble and supported by four pillars, stands on a small

platform of tessellated pavement. Passing out of the central gateway of

the barracks and turning northward, we come to the junction of Pimlico

Road and Queen's Road. From this point to the corner of Smith Street the

road is known as Queen's Road. Along the first part of its southern side

is the ancient burial-ground of the hospital. At the western end of this

the tombstones cluster thickly, though many of the inscriptions are now

quite illegible. The burial-ground was consecrated in 1691, and the first

pensioner, Simon Box, was buried here in 1692. In 1854 the ground was

closed by the operation of the Intramural Burials Act, but by special

permission General Sir Colin Halkett was buried here two years later. His

tomb is a conspicuous object about midway down the centre path. It is

said that two female warriors, who dressed in men's clothes and served as

soldiers, Christina Davies and Hannah Snell, rest here, but their names

cannot be found. The first Governor of the Royal Hospital, Sir Thomas

Ogle, K.T., was buried here in 1702, aged eighty-four, and also the first

Commandant of the Royal Military Asylum, Lieutenant-Colonel George

Williamson, in 1812. The pensioners are now buried in the Brompton

Cemetery. For complete account of the Royal Hospital and the Ranelagh

Gardens adjoining, see p. 67.

At the corner between Turks Row and Lower Sloane Street there is a great

red-brick mansion rising several stories higher than its neighbours. This

is an experiment of the Ladies' Dwelling Company to provide rooms for

ladies obliged to live in London on small means, and has a restaurant

below, where meals can be obtained at a reasonable rate. The first block

was opened in February, 1889. It is in a very prosperous condition, the

applications altogether surpassing the accommodation. The large new flats

and houses called Sloane Court and Revelstoke and Mendelssohn Gardens

have been built quite recently, and replace very "mean streets." The

little church of St. Jude's--district church of Holy Trinity--stands on

the north side of the Row, and at the back are the National and infant

schools attached to it. It was opened for service in 1844. In 1890 it was

absorbed into Holy Trinity parish. It seats about 800 persons. From Turks

Row we pass into Franklin's Row. On Hamilton's map (corrected to 1717) we

find marked "Mr. Franklin's House," not on the site of the present Row,

but opposite the north-western corner of Burton's Court, at the corner of

the present St. Leonard's Terrace and Smith Street. The name Franklin has

been long connected with Chelsea, for in 1790 we find John Franklin and

Mary Franklin bequeathing money to the poor of Chelsea. At the south end

is an old public-house, with overhanging story and red-tiled roof; it is

called the Royal Hospital, and contrasts quaintly with its towering

modern red-brick neighbours.

The entrance gates of the Royal Military Asylum, popularly known as the

Duke of York's School, open on to Franklin's Row just before it runs

into Cheltenham Terrace. The building itself stands back behind a great

space of green grass. It is of brick faced with Portland stone, and is of

very solid construction. Between the great elm-trees on the lawn can be

seen the immense portico, with the words "The Royal Military Asylum for

the Children of the Soldiers of the Regular Army" running across the

frieze.

The building is in three wings, enclosing at the back laundry, hospital,

Commandant's house, etc., and great playgrounds for the boys. Long low

dormitories, well ventilated, on the upper floors in the central building

contain forty beds apiece, while those in the two wings are smaller, with

thirteen beds each. Below the big dormitories are the dining-rooms, the

larger one decorated with devices of arms; these were brought from the

Tower and arranged by the boys themselves. There are 550 inmates,

admitted between the ages of nine and eleven, and kept until they are

fourteen or fifteen. The foundation was established by the Duke of York

in 1801, and was ready for occupation by 1803. It was designed to receive

700 boys and 300 girls, and there was an infant establishment connected

with it in the Isle of Wight. In 1823 the girls were removed elsewhere.

There are a number of boys at the sister establishment, the Hibernian

Asylum, in Ireland. The Commandant, Colonel G. A. W. Forrest, is allowed

6-1/2 d. per diem for the food of each boy, and the bill of fare is

extraordinarily good. Cocoa and bread-and-butter, or bread-and-jam, for

breakfast and tea; meat, pudding, vegetables, and bread, for dinner. Cake

on special fete-days as an extra. The boys do credit to their rations,

and show by their bright faces and energy their good health and spirits.

They are under strict military discipline, and both by training and

heredity have a military bias. There is no compulsion exercised, but

fully 90 per cent. of those who are eligible finally enter the army; and

the school record shows a long list of commissioned and non-commissioned

officers, and even two Major-Generals, who owed their early training to

the Chelsea Asylum. The site on which the Asylum stands was bought from

Lord Cadogan; it occupies about twelve acres, and part of it was formerly

used for market-gardens.

One of the schoolrooms has still the pulpit, and a raised gallery running

round, which mark it as having been the original chapel; but the present

chapel stands at the corner of King's Road and Cheltenham Terrace. On

Sunday morning the boys parade on the green in summer and on the large

playground in winter before they march in procession to the chapel with

their band playing, a scene which has been painted by Mr. Morris, A.R.A.,

as "The Sons of the Brave." The chaplain is the Rev. G. H. Andrews. The

gallery of the chapel is open to anyone, and is almost always well

filled. The annual expenditure of the Asylum is supplied by a

Parliamentary grant.

On Hamilton's Survey the ground now occupied by the Duke of York's School

is marked "Glebe," and exactly opposite to it, at the corner where what

is now Cheltenham Terrace joins King's Road, is a small house in an

enclosure called "Robins' Garden." On this spot now stands Whitelands

Training College for school-mistresses. "In 1839 the Rev. Wyatt Edgell

gave L1,000 to the National Society to be the nucleus for a building

fund, whenever the National Society could undertake to build a female

training college." But it was not until 1841 that the college for

training school-mistresses was opened at Whitelands. In 1850 grants were

made from the Education Department and several of the City Companies, and

the necessary enlargements and improvements were set on foot. Some of the

earlier students were very young, but in 1858 the age of admission was

raised to eighteen. From time to time the buildings have been enlarged.

Mr. Ruskin instituted in 1880 a May Day Festival, to be held annually,

and as long as he lived, he himself presented to the May Queen a gold

cross and chain, and distributed to her comrades some of his volumes.

Mr. Ruskin also presented to the college many books, coins, and pictures,

and proved himself a good friend. In the chapel there is a beautiful east

window erected to the memory of Miss Gillott, one of the former

governesses. The present Principal is the Rev. J. P. Faunthorpe,

F.R.G.S.

On the west side is Walpole Street, so called from the fact that Sir

Robert Walpole is supposed to have lodged in a house on this site before

moving into Walpole House, now in the grounds of the Royal Hospital.

Walpole Street leads us into St. Leonard's Terrace, formerly Green's Row,

which runs along the north side of the great court known as Burton's

Court, treated in the account of the Hospital. In this terrace there is

nothing calling for remark. Opening out of it, parallel to Walpole

Street, runs the Royal Avenue, also connected with the Hospital. To the

north, facing King's Road, lies Wellington Square, named after the famous

Wellington, whose brother was Rector of Chelsea (1805). The centre of the

square is occupied by a double row of trees. St. Leonard's Terrace ends

in Smith Street, the southern part of which was formerly known as Ormond

Row. The southern half is full of interest. Durham House, now occupied by

Sir Bruce Maxwell Seton, stands on the site of Old Durham House, about

which very little is known. It may have been the town residence of the

Bishops of Durham, but tradition records it not. Part of the building was

of long, narrow bricks two inches wide, thus differing from the present

ones of two and a half inches; some of the same sort are still preserved

in the wall of Sir Thomas More's garden. This points to its having been

of the Elizabethan or Jacobean period. Yet in Hamilton's Survey it is not

marked; instead, there is a house called "Ship House," a tavern which is

said to have been resorted to by the workmen building the Hospital. It is

possible this is the same house which degenerated into a tavern, and then

recovered its ancient name. Connected with this until quite recently

there was a narrow passage between the houses in Paradise Row called Ship

Alley, and supposed to have led from Gough House to Ship House. This was

closed by the owner after a lawsuit about right of way.

A little to the north of Durham House was one of the numerous dwellings

in Chelsea known as Manor House. It was the residence of the Steward of

the Manor, and had great gardens reaching back as far as Flood Street,

then Queen Street. This is marked in a map of 1838. This house was

afterwards used as a consumption hospital, and formed the germ from which

the Brompton Hospital sprang. On its site stands Durham Place. Below

Durham Place is a little row of old houses, or, rather, cottages, with

plaster fronts, and at the corner a large public-house known as the

Chelsea Pensioner. On the site of this, the corner house, the local

historian Faulkner lived. He was born in 1777, and wrote histories of

Fulham, Hammersmith, Kensington, Brentford, Chiswick, and Ealing, besides

his invaluable work on Chelsea. He is always accurate, always

painstaking, and if his style is sometimes dry, his is, at all events,

the groundwork and foundation on which all subsequent histories of

Chelsea have been reared. Later on he moved into Smith Street, where he

died in 1855. He is buried in the Brompton Road Cemetery.

The continuation of St. Leonard's Terrace is Redesdale Street; we pass

down this and up Radnor Street, into which the narrow little Smith

Terrace opens out. Smith Street and Smith Terrace are named after their

builder. Radnor House stood at the south-eastern corner of Flood Street,

but the land owned by the Radnors gave its name to the adjacent street.

At the northern corner of Radnor Street stands a small Welsh chapel built

of brick. In the King's Road, between Smith and Radnor Streets, formerly

stood another manor-house. Down Shawfield Street we come back into

Redesdale Street, out of which opens Tedworth Square. Robinson's Street

is a remnant of Robinson's Lane, the former name of Flood Street, a

corruption of "Robins his street," from Mr. Robins, whose house is

marked on Hamilton's map. Christ Church is in Christchurch Street, and is

built of brick in a modern style. It holds 1,000 people. The organ and

the dark oak pulpit came from an old church at Queenhithe, and were

presented by the late Bishop of London, and the carving on the latter is

attributed to Grinling Gibbons. At the back of the church are National

Schools. Christchurch Street, which opens into Queen's Road West (old

Paradise Row), was made by the demolition of some old houses fronting the

Apothecaries' Garden.

At the extreme corner of Flood Street and Queen's Road West stood Radnor

House, called by Hamilton "Lady Radnor's House." In 1660, when still only

Lord Robartes, the future Earl of Radnor entertained Charles II. here to

supper. Pepys, the indefatigable, has left it on record that he "found it

to be the prettiest contrived house" that he ever saw. Lord Cheyne

(Viscount Newhaven) married the Dowager Duchess of Radnor, who was at

that time living in Radnor House. After the death of the first Earl, the

family name is recorded as Roberts in the registers, an instance of the

etymological carelessness of the time. In Radnor House was one of the

pillared arcades fashionable in the Jacobean period, of which a specimen

is still to be seen over the doorway of the dining-room in the Queen's

House. On the first floor was a remarkably fine fireplace, which has

been transferred bodily to one of the modern houses in Cheyne Walk. At

the back of Radnor House were large nursery-gardens known as "Mr. Watt's

gardens" from the time of Hamilton (1717) until far into the present

century. An old hostel adjoining Radnor House was called the Duke's Head,

after the Duke of Cumberland, of whom a large oil-painting hung in the

principal room.

From this corner to the west gates of the Hospital was formerly Paradise

Row. Here lived the Duchess of Mazarin, sister to the famous Cardinal.

She was married to the Duke de la Meilleraie, who adopted her name. It is

said that Charles II. when in exile had wished to marry her, but was

prevented by her brother, who saw at the time no prospect of a Stuart

restoration. The Duchess, after four years of unhappy married life with

the husband of her brother's choice, fled to England. Charles, by this

time restored to his throne, received her, and settled L4,000 on her from

the secret service funds. She lived in Chelsea in Paradise Row. Tradition

asserts very positively that the house was at one end of the row, but at

which remains a disputed point. L'Estrange and others have inclined to

the belief that it was at the east end, the last of a row of low

creeper-covered houses still standing, fronted by gardens and high iron

gates. The objection to this is that these are not the last houses in the

line, but are followed by one or two of a different style.

The end of all, now a public-house, is on the site of Faulkner's house,

and it is probable that if the Duchess had lived there, he, coming after

so comparatively short an interval, would have mentioned the fact; as it

is, he never alludes to the exact locality. Even L4,000 a year was quite

inadequate to keep up this lady's extravagant style of living. The gaming

at her house ran high; it is reported that the guests left money under

their plates to pay for what they had eaten. St. Evremond, poet and man

of the world, was frequently there, and he seems to have constituted

himself "guide, philosopher, and friend" to the wayward lady. She was

only fifty-two when she died in 1699, and the chief records of her life

are found in St. Evremond's writings. He, her faithful admirer to the

end, was buried in Westminster Abbey.

A near neighbour of the Duchess's was Mrs. Mary Astell, one of the early

pioneers in the movement for the education for women. She published

several volumes in defence of her sex, and proposed to found a ladies'

college. She gave up the project, however, when it was condemned by

Bishop Burnet. She was ridiculed by the wits of her time--Swift, Steele,

and Addison--but she was undoubtedly a very able woman.

The Duke of St. Albans, Nell Gwynne's son, also had a house in Paradise

Row. The Duke of Ormond lived in Ormond House, two or three doors from

the east corner. In 1805 the comedian Suett died in this row. Further

down towards the river are enormous new red-brick mansions. Tite Street

runs right through from Tedworth Square to the Embankment, being cut

almost in half by Queen's Road West. It is named after Sir W. Tite, M.P.

The houses are modern, built in the Queen Anne style, and are mostly of

red brick. To this the white house built for Mr. Whistler is an

exception; it is a square, unpretentious building faced with white

bricks.

At different times the names of many artists have been associated with

this street, which is still a favourite one with men of the brush. The

great block of studios--the Tower House--rises up to an immense height on

the right, almost opposite to the Victoria Hospital for Children. The

nucleus of this hospital is ancient Gough House, one of the few old

houses still remaining in Chelsea. John Vaughan, third and last Earl of

Carbery, built it in the beginning of the eighteenth century. He had been

Governor of Jamaica under Charles II., and had left behind him a bad

reputation. He did not live long to enjoy his Chelsea home, for Faulkner

tells us he died in his coach going to it in 1713. Sir Robert Walpole,

whose land adjoined, bought some of the grounds to add to his own.

In 1866 the Victoria Hospital for Children was founded by a number of

medical men, chief of whom were Edward Ellis, M.D., and Sydney Hayward,

M.D. There was a dispute about the site, which ended in the foundation of

two hospitals--this and the Belgrave one. This one was opened first, and

consequently earned the distinction of being the first children's

hospital opened after that in Ormond Street. At first only six beds were

provided; but there are now seventy-five, and an additional fifty at the

convalescent home at Broadstairs, where a branch was established in 1875.

The establishment is without any endowment, and is entirely dependent on

voluntary subscriptions. From time to time the building has been added to

and adapted, so that there is little left to tell that it was once an old

house. Only the thickness of the walls between the wards and the

old-fashioned contrivances of some of the windows betray the fact that

the building is not modern. Children are received at any age up to

sixteen; some are mere babies. Across Tite Street, exactly opposite, is a

building containing six beds for paying patients in connection with the

Victoria Hospital.

Paradise Walk, a very dirty, narrow little passage, runs parallel to Tite

Street. In it is a theatre built by the poet Shelley, and now closed. At

one time private theatricals were held here, but when money was taken at

the door, even though it was in behalf of a charity, the performances

were suppressed. Paradise Row opens into Dilke Street, behind the

pseudo-ancient block of houses on the Embankment. Some of these are

extremely fine. Shelley House is said to have been designed by Lady

Shelley. Wentworth House is the last before Swan Walk, in which the name

of the Swan Tavern is kept alive. This tavern was well known as a resort

by all the gay and thoughtless men who visited Chelsea in the seventeenth

century. It is mentioned by Pepys and Dibdin, and is described as

standing close to the water's edge and having overhanging wooden

balconies. In 1715 Thomas Doggett, a comedian, instituted a yearly

festival, in which the great feature was a race by watermen on the river

from "the old Swan near London Bridge to the White Swan at Chelsea." The

prize was a coat, in every pocket of which was a guinea, and also a

badge. This race is still rowed annually, Doggett's Coat and Badge being

a well-known river institution.

Adjoining Swan Walk is the Apothecaries' Garden, the oldest garden of its

kind in London. Sir Hans Sloane, whose name is revered in Chelsea and

perpetuated in one of the principal streets, is so intimately associated

with this garden that it is necessary at this point to give a short

account of him. Sir Hans Sloane was born in Ireland, 1660. He began his

career undistinguished by any title and without any special advantages.

Very early he evinced an ardent love of natural history, and he came over

while still a youth to study in London. From this time his career was one

long success. When he was only twenty-seven he was selected by the Duke

of Albemarle, who had been appointed Governor of Jamaica, to accompany

him as his physician. About a year and a half later he returned, bringing

with him a wonderful collection of dried plants.

Mr. Sloane was appointed Court physician, and after the accession of

George I. he was created a Baronet. He was appointed President of the

Royal Society on the death of Sir Isaac Newton in 1727. He will be

remembered, however, more especially as being the founder of the British

Museum. During the course of a long life he had collected a very valuable

assortment of curiosities, and this he left to the nation on the payment

by the executors of a sum of L20,000--less than half of what it had cost

him. In 1712 he purchased the Manor of Chelsea, and when the lease of the

Apothecaries' Garden ran out in 1734, he granted it to the Society

perpetually on certain conditions, one of which was that they should

deliver fifty dried samples of plants every year to the Royal Society

until the number reached 2,000. This condition was fulfilled in 1774. Sir

Hans Sloane died in 1753.

A marble statue by Rysbach in the centre of the garden commemorates him.

It was erected in 1737 at a cost of nearly L300. Mr. Miller, son of a

gardener employed by the Apothecaries, wrote a valuable horticultural

dictionary, and a new genus of plants was named after him.

Linnaeus visited the garden in 1736. Of the four cedars--the first ever

brought to England--planted here in 1683, one alone survives.

Returning to the Embankment, we see a few more fine houses in the

pseudo-ancient style. Clock House and Old Swan House were built from

designs by Norman Shaw, R.A. Standing near is a large monument, with an

inscription to the effect: "Chelsea Embankment, opened 1874 by Lt.-Col.

Sir J. Macnaghten Hogg, K.C.B. Sir Joseph W. Bazalgette, C.B., engineer."

The Embankment is a magnificent piece of work, extending for nearly a

mile, and made of Portland cement concrete, faced with dressed blocks of

granite. Somewhere on the site of the row of houses in Cheyne Walk stood

what was known as the New Manor House, built by King Henry VIII. as part

of the jointure of Queen Catherine Parr, who afterwards lived here with

her fourth husband, Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral. Here the young

Princess Elizabeth came to stay with her stepmother, and also poor little

Lady Jane Grey at the age of eleven. The history of the Manor House, of

course, coincides with the history of the manor, which has been given at

length elsewhere. Lysons, writing in 1795, states that the building was

pulled down "many years ago." It was built in 1536, and thus was probably

in existence about 250 years. More than a century after, some time prior

to 1663, James, Duke of Hamilton, had built a house adjoining the Manor

House on the western side. The palace of the Bishops of Winchester at

Southwark had become dilapidated, and the Bishop of that time, George

Morley, purchased Hamilton's new house for L4,250 to be the episcopal

residence. From that time until the investment of Bishop Tomline, 1820,

eight Bishops lived in the house successively. Of these, Bishop Hoadley,

one of the best-known names among them, was the sixth. He was born in

1676, the son of a master of Norwich Grammar School. He was a Fellow of

Catherine's Hall at Cambridge, and wrote several political works which

brought him into notice. He passed successively through the sees of

Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester. He was succeeded by the Hon.

Brownlow North, to whom Faulkner dedicated his first edition of

"Chelsea." Lady Tomline, the wife of the Bishop of that name, took a

dislike to the house at Chelsea and refused to live there. The great hall

was forty feet long by twenty wide, and the three drawing-rooms extended

the whole length of the south front. The front stood rather further back

than the Manor House, not on a line with it. The palace stood just where

Oakley Street now opens into Cheyne Walk. The houses standing on the

sites of these palaces are mostly modern. No. 1 has a fine doorway which

came from an old house at the other end of the row. In the next Mr.

Beerbohm Tree and his wife lived for a short time after their marriage.

No. 4 has had a series of notable inmates. William Dyce, R.A., was the

occupant in 1846, and later on Daniel Maclise, R.A. Then came George

Eliot, with Mr. Cross, intending to stay in Chelsea for the winter, but

three weeks after she caught cold and died in this house. Local

historians have mentioned a strange shoot which ran from the top to the

bottom of this house; this has disappeared, but on the front-staircase

still remain some fresco paintings executed by Sir J. Thornhill, and

altered by Maclise. In 1792 a retired jeweller named Neild came to No. 5.

The condition of prisoners incarcerated for small debts occupied his

thoughts and energies, and he worked to ameliorate it. He left his son

James Neild an immense fortune. This eccentric individual, however, was

a miser, who scrimped and scraped all his life, and at his death left all

his money to Queen Victoria. The gate-piers before this house are very

fine, tall, and square, of mellowed red brick, surmounted by vases. These

vases superseded the stone balls in fashion at the end of the Jacobean

period. Hogarth is said to have been a frequent visitor to this house. In

the sixth house Dr. Weedon Butler, father of the Headmaster of Harrow,

kept a school, which was very well known for about thirty years. In the

next block we have the famous Queen's House, marked by the little

statuette of Mercury on the parapet. It is supposed to have been named

after Catherine of Braganza, but beyond some initials--C. R. (Catherine

Regina)--in the ironwork of the gate, there seems no fact in support of

this. The two Rossettis, Meredith, and Swinburne came here in 1862, but

soon parted company, and D. G. Rossetti alone remained. He decorated some

of the fireplaces with tiles himself; that in the drawing-room is still

inlaid with glazed blue and white Persian tiles of old design. In his

time it was called Tudor House, but when the Rev. H. R. Haweis (d. 1901)

came to live here, he resumed the older name of Queen's House. It is

supposed to have been built by Wren, and the rooms are beautifully

proportioned, panelled, and of great height.

The next house to this on the eastern side was occupied for many years by

the artistic family of the Lawsons. Thomas Attwood, a pupil of Mozart and

himself a great composer, died there in 1838. The house had formerly a

magnificent garden, to the mulberries of which Hazlitt makes allusion in

one of his essays. No. 18 was the home of the famous Don Saltero's

museum. This man, correctly Salter, was a servant of Sir Hans Sloane, and

his collection was formed from the overflowings of his master's. Some of

the curiosities dispersed by the sale in 1799 are still to be seen in the

houses of Chelsea families in the form of petrified seaweed and shells.

The museum was to attract people to the building, which was also a

coffee-house; this was at that time something of a novelty. It was first

opened in 1695. Sir Richard Steele, in the _Tatler_, says: "When I came

into the coffee-house I had not time to salute the company before my eye

was diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room and on the

ceiling." Catalogues of the curiosities are still extant, and one of them

is preserved in the Chelsea Public Library.

Of the remaining houses none have associations. The originals were too

small for the requirements of those who wished to live in such an

expensive situation, and within the last score of years they have been

pulled down and others built on their sites. One of these so destroyed

was called the Gothic House; in it lived Count D'Orsay, and it was most

beautifully finished both inside and out. The decorative work was

executed by Pugin, and has been described by those who remember it as

gorgeous. In another there was a beautiful Chippendale staircase, which,

it is to be feared, was ruthlessly chopped up. In the last house of all

was an elaborate ceiling after the style of Wedgwood. The doorway of this

house is now at No. 1.

The garden which lies in front of these houses adds much to their

picturesqueness in summer by showing the glimpses of old walls and red

brick through curtains of green leaves. In it, opposite to the house

where he used to live, there is a gray granite fountain to the memory of

Rossetti. It is surmounted by a bronze alto-relievo bust modelled by Mr.

F. Madox Brown.

A district old enough to be squalid, but not old enough to be

interesting, is enclosed by Smith and Manor Streets, running at right

angles to the Embankment. New red-brick mansions at the end of Flood

Street indicate that the miserable plaster-fronted houses will not be

allowed to have their own way much longer. No street has changed its name

so frequently as Flood Street. It was first called Pound Lane, from the

parish pound that stood at the south end; it then became Robinson's

Lane; in 1838 it is marked as Queen Street; and in 1865 it was finally

turned into Flood Street, from L. T. Flood, a parish benefactor, in whose

memory a service is still held every year in St. Luke's Church.

Oakley Street is very modern. In a map of 1838 there is no trace of it,

but only a great open space where Winchester House formerly stood. In No.

32 lives Dr. Phene, who was the first to plant trees in the streets of

London. Phene Street, leading into Oakley Crescent, is named after him.

The line of houses on the west side of Oakley Street is broken by a

garden thickly set with trees. This belongs to Cheyne House, the property

of Dr. Phene; the house cannot be seen from the street in summer-time.

The oldest part is perhaps Tudor, and the latest in the style of Wren.

One wall is decorated with fleurs-de-lys. In the garden was grown the

original moss-rose, a freak of Nature, from which all other moss-roses

have sprung. In the grounds was discovered a subterranean passage, which

Dr. Phene claims fixes the site of Shrewsbury or Alston House. It runs

due south, and indicates the site as adjacent to Winchester House on the

west side. Faulkner, writing in 1810, says: "The most ancient house now

remaining in this parish is situated on the banks of the river, not far

from the site of the Manor House built by King Henry VIII., and appears

to have been erected about that period. It was for many years the

residence of the Shrewsbury family, but little of its ancient splendour

now remains." He describes it as an irregular brick building, forming

three sides of a quadrangle. The principal room, which was wainscotted

with oak, was 120 feet long, and one of the rooms, supposed to have been

an oratory, was painted in imitation of marble. Faulkner mentions the

subterranean passage "leading towards Kensington," which Dr. Phene has

opened out.

Shrewsbury House was built in the reign of Henry VIII. by George, Earl of

Shrewsbury, who was succeeded in 1538 by his son Francis. The son of

Francis, George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who succeeded in his turn, was

a very wealthy and powerful nobleman. He was high in Queen Elizabeth's

favour, and it was to his care that the captive Mary, Queen of Scots, was

entrusted. Though Elizabeth considered he treated the royal prisoner with

too much consideration, she afterwards forgave him, and appointed him to

see the execution of the death-warrant. He married for his second wife a

lady who had already had three husbands, each more wealthy than the last.

By the second of these, Sir William Cavendish, she had a large family.

Her husband left his house at Chelsea wholly to her. She outlived him

seventeen years, and with her immense wealth built the three magnificent

mansions of Chatsworth, Oldcotes, and Hardwick, and all these she left to

her son William Cavendish, afterwards created Baron Cavendish and Earl of

Devonshire. A son of a younger brother was created Marquis of Newcastle,

and his daughter and coheiress was Lady Jane, who brought her husband,

Charles Cheyne, such a large dower that he was enabled to buy the Manor

of Chelsea.

After the death of the Earl of Devonshire, Shrewsbury House became the

residence of his widow until her death in 1643. It then was held by the

Alstons, from whom it took its secondary name, and was finally in the

possession of the Tates, and was the seat of a celebrated wall-paper

manufactory. "The manufacture of porcelain acquired great celebrity. It

was established near the water-side.... Upon the same premises was

afterwards established a manufactory of stained paper." This seems to

point to Shrewsbury House as the original home of the celebrated Chelsea

china. But, on the other hand, all later writers point authoritatively to

Lawrence Street, at the corner of Justice Walk, as the seat of the china

manufacture. There seems to be some confusion as to the exact site of the

original works, for in "Nollekens and his Times" it is indicated as being

at Cremorne House, further westward. One Martin Lister mentions a china

manufactory in Chelsea as early as 1698, but the renowned manufactory

seems to have been started about fifty years later. The great Dr. Johnson

was fired with ambition to try his hand at this delicate art, and he went

again and again to the place to master the secret; but he failed, and one

can hardly imagine anyone less likely to have succeeded. The china

service in the possession of Lord Holland, known as Johnson's service,

was not made by him, but presented to him by the proprietors as a

testimony to his painstaking effort. The first proprietor was a Mr.

Nicholas Sprimont, and a jug in the British Museum, bearing date "1745

Chelsea," is supposed to be one of the earliest productions.

The first sale by auction took place in the Haymarket in 1754, when table

sets and services, dishes, plates, tureens, and epergnes were sold. These

annual sales continued for many years. In 1763 Sprimont attempted to

dispose of the business and retire owing to lameness, but it was not

until 1769 that he sold out to one Duesbury, who already owned the Derby

China Works, and eventually acquired those at Bow also.

The Chelsea china was very beautiful and costly. An old tradition is

mentioned in the "Life of Nollekens" that the clay was at first brought

as ballast in ships from China, and when the Orientals discovered what

use was being made of it, they forbade its exportation, and the

Englishmen had to be content with their own native clay. Nollekens says

that his father worked at the pottery, and that Sir James Thornhill had

furnished designs. The distinctive mark on the china was an anchor, which

was slightly varied, and at times entwined with one or two swords.

Walpole in 1763 says that he saw a service which was to be given to the

Duke of Mecklenburg by the King and Queen, and that it was very beautiful

and cost L1,200.

From the corner of Oakley Street to the church, Cheyne Walk faces a

second garden, in which there is a statue of Carlyle in bronze, executed

by the late Sir Edgar Boehm and unveiled in 1882. This locality is

associated with many famous men, though the exact sites of their houses

are not known. Here lived Sir Richard Steele and Sir James Northcote,

R.A. Somewhere near the spot Woodfall, the printer of the famous "Letters

of Junius," lived and died. A stone at the north-east corner of the

church (exterior) commemorates him. In the Chelsea Public Library is

preserved the original ledger of the _Public Advertiser_, showing how

immensely the sales increased with the publication of these famous

letters.

In this part there was a very old inn bearing the name The Magpie and

Stump. It was a quaint old structure, and the court-leet and court-baron

held sittings in it. In 1886 it was destroyed by a fire, and is now

replaced by a very modern structure of the same name. Further on there

are immense red-brick mansions called Carlyle Mansions, and then, at

right angles, there is Cheyne Row, the home for many years of one of

England's deepest and sincerest thinkers. Carlyle was the loadstar who

drew men of renown from all quarters of the civilized globe to this

somewhat narrow, dark little street in Chelsea. The houses are

extraordinarily dull, of dark brick, monotonously alike; they face a row

of small trees on the west side, and Carlyle's house is about the middle,

numbered 24 (formerly 5). A medallion portrait was put up by his admirers

on the wall; inscribed beneath it is: "Thomas Carlyle lived at 24, Cheyne

Row, 1834-81." The house has been acquired by trustees, and is open to

anyone on the payment of a shilling. It contains various Carlylean

relics: letters, scraps of manuscript, furniture, pictures, etc., and

attracts visitors from all parts of the world. There is no need to

expatiate on the life of the philosopher; it belongs not to Chelsea, but

to the English-speaking peoples of all countries. Here came to see him

Leigh Hunt, who lived only in the next street, and Emerson from across

the Atlantic; such diverse natures as Harriet Martineau and Tennyson,

Ruskin and Tyndall, found pleasure in his society.

At the north end of Cheyne Row is a large Roman Catholic church, built

1896. Upper Cheyne Row was for many years the home of Leigh Hunt. A small

passage from this leads into Bramerton Street. This was built in 1870

upon part of what were formerly the Rectory grounds, which by a special

Act the Rector was empowered to let for the purpose. Parallel to Cheyne

Row is Lawrence Street, and at the corner, facing the river, stands the

Hospital for Incurable Children. It is a large brick building, with four

fluted and carved pilasters running up the front. The house is four

stories high and picturesquely built. In 1889 it was ready for use. The

charity was established by Mr. and Mrs. Wickham Flower, and had been

previously carried on a few doors lower down in Cheyne Walk. Voluntary

subscriptions and donations form a large part of the income, and besides

this a small payment is required from the parents and friends of the

little patients. The hospital inside is bright and airy. The great wide

windows run down to the ground, and over one of the cots hangs a large

print of Holman Hunt's "Light of the World," a gift from the artist

himself, who formerly lived in a house on this site and in it painted the

original. The ages at which patients are received are between three and

ten, and the cases are frequently paralysis, spinal or hip disease.

Lawrence or Monmouth House stood on the north side of Lordship Yard. Here

Dr. Smollett once lived and wrote many of his works; one of the scenes of

"Humphrey Clinker" is actually laid in Monmouth House. The old parish

church stands at the corner of Church Street. The exterior is very

quaint, with the ancient brick turned almost purple by age; and the

monuments on the walls are exposed to all the winds that sweep up the

river. The square tower was formerly surmounted by a cupola, which was

taken down in 1808 because it had become unsafe. The different parts of

the church have been built and rebuilt at different dates, which makes it

difficult to give an idea of its age. Faulkner says: "The upper chancel

appears to have been rebuilt in the fifteenth century; the chapel of the

Lawrence family at the end of the north aisle appears to have been built

early in the fourteenth century, if we may judge from the form of the

Gothic windows, now nearly stopped up. The chapel at the west end of the

south aisle was built by Sir T. More about the year 1522, soon after he

came to reside in Chelsea. The tower was built between the years 1667 and

1679."

The interior is so filled up with tombs and a great gallery, that the

effect is most strange, and the ghosts of the past seem to be whispering

from every corner. There are few churches remaining so untouched and

containing so miscellaneous a record of the flying centuries as Chelsea

Old Church. A great gallery which hid Sir Thomas More's monument was

removed in 1824. Soon after the church was finished it was enlarged by

the addition of what is now known as the Lawrence Chapel on the north

side. This was built by Robert Hyde, called by Faulkner 'Robert de

Heyle,' who then owned the manor-house. In 1536 the manor was sold to

King Henry VIII., who parted with the old manor-house and the chapel to

the family of Lawrence. There are three monuments of the family still

existing in the chapel. The best known of these is that against the north

wall, representing Thomas Lawrence, the father of Sir John, kneeling with

folded hands face to face with his wife in the same attitude. Behind them

are respectively their three sons and six daughters. This is the monument

which Henry Kingsley refers to through the mouth of Joe Burton in his

novel "The Hillyars and the Burtons."

Not far from this is a large and striking monument to the memory of Sarah

Colvile, daughter of Thomas Lawrence. She is represented as springing

from the tomb clothed in a winding-sheet. The figure is larger than life

and of white marble, which is discoloured and stained by time. Overhead

there was once a dove, of which only the wings remain, and the canopy is

carved to represent clouds. The third Lawrence monument is a large tablet

of black marble set in a frame of white marble, exquisitely and richly

carved. This hangs against the eastern wall, and is inscribed to the

memory of Sir John Lawrence. A hagioscope opens from this chapel into the

chancel, and was discovered accidentally when an arch was being cut on

the north wall of the chancel to contain the tomb of Lord Bray. This tomb

formerly stood in the "myddest of the hyghe channcel," but being both

inconvenient and unsightly, it was removed to its present position in

1857. It possessed formerly two or three brasses, which have now

disappeared. This is the oldest tomb in the church, dated 1539.

The Lawrence Chapel was private property, and could be sold or given away

independently of the church. Between it and the nave--or, more

accurately, over the north aisle, at its entrance into the nave--is a

great arch which breaks the continuity of line in the arch of the

pillars. This is the Gervoise monument, and may have originally enclosed

a tomb. Of this, however, there is no evidence. In the chancel opposite

to the Bray tomb stands the monument of Sir Thomas More, prepared by

himself before his death, and memorable for the connection of the word

"heretics" with thieves and murderers, which word Erasmus afterwards

omitted from the inscription. More's crest, a Moor's head, is in the

centre of the upper cornice, and the coats-of-arms of himself and his two

wives are below. The inscription is on a slab of black marble, and is

very fresh, as it was restored in 1833. The question whether the body of

Sir Thomas More lies in the family vault will probably never be

definitely answered. Weever in his "Funeral Monuments" strongly inclines

to the belief that it is so. "Yet it is certain," he says, "that

Margaret, wife of Master Roper and daughter of the said Sir Thomas More,

removed her father's corpse not long after to Chelsea."

Sir Thomas More's chapel is on the south side of the chancel. It was to

his seat here that More himself came after service, in place of his

manservant, on the day when the King had taken his high office from him,

and, bowing to his wife, remarked with double meaning, "Madam, the

Chancellor has gone." The chapel contains the monuments and tombs of the

Duchess of Northumberland and Sir Robert Stanley. The latter is at the

east end, and stands up against a window. It is surmounted by three urns

standing on pedestals. The centre one of these has an eagle on the

summit, and is flanked by two female figures representing Justice and

Solitude in flowing draperies. The one holds a shield and crown, the

other a shield. In the centre pedestal is a man's head in alto-relievo,

with Puritan collar and habit. On the side-pedestals are carved the heads

of children. The whole stands on a tomb of veined marble with carved

edges, and slabs of black marble bear the inscriptions of Sir Robert

Stanley and two of his children. The tomb of the Duchess of

Northumberland which stands next, against the south wall, has been

compared to that of Chaucer in Westminster Abbey. This has a Gothic

canopy, and formerly contained two brasses, representing her eight sons

and five daughters kneeling, one behind the other, in the favourite style

of the time. The brass commemorating the sons has disappeared.

A little further south, in the aisle, formerly stood the tomb of A.

Gorges, son of Sir A. Gorges, who was possessor of the chapel for many

years. This blocked up the aisle and was taken to pieces. The black slab

which was on the top is set in the floor, and the brasses containing an

epitaph in doggerel rhyme, attributing all the merits in the universe to

the deceased, hang on the wall on the north side. The date of the chapel,

1528, is on the capital of one of the pillars supporting the arch which

divides the chapel from the nave. The capitals are beautifully executed,

though the design is grotesque. In one of them the rough end of stone is

left unfinished, as if the builder had been called hastily away and had

never been able to complete his task. The chapel was recently bought by

the church on the death of its owner, and is now inalienably possessed by

the parish.

Just below the south aisle is the Dacre tomb, the richest and most

striking in the church. It contains two life-size effigies of Lord and

Lady Dacre lying under a canopy which is supported by two pillars with

gilded capitals; above is a semicircular arch. The whole interior of the

arch and the background is most richly carved and gilded. Above the arch

are the Dacre coat-of-arms and two shields, while two smaller pillars,

wedge-shaped like Cleopatra's Needles, rise at each corner. At the feet

of the figures lie two dogs, and the effigy of a small child lies on a

marble slab below the level of its parents. By Lady Dacre's will certain

presentations to some almshouses in Westminster are left to the parish on

condition of the tombs being kept in good repair. The tomb was

redecorated and restored in 1868.

The south and west walls are covered with monuments, and careless feet

tread on inscribed stones in the aisle. On the northern wall below the

north aisle is a monument which immediately attracts attention from its

great size and striking design. It is that of Lady Jane Cheyne, daughter

of William, Duke of Newcastle. It is an effigy of Lady Jane in white

marble, larger than life-size; she lies in a half-raised position. Below

is a black marble tomb with lighter marble pillars. Overhead is a canopy

supported by two Corinthian columns. The inscription, which states it was

with her money her husband bought the Manor of Chelsea, is on a black

marble slab at the back. The monument is by Bernini.

All these tombs, with their wealth of carving and bold design, give a

rich and furnished look to the dark old church, an effect enhanced by the

tattered colours hanging overhead. The principal one of these colours was

executed by Queen Victoria and her daughters for the volunteers at

Chelsea when an invasion was expected. The shelf of chained books by a

southern window is interesting. These formerly stood against the west

wall, but were removed here for better preservation. They include a

"Vinegar" Bible, date 1717, a desk Prayer-Book, and Foxe's "Book of

Martyrs." The Communion-rails and pulpit are of oak, and the font of

white marble of a peculiarly graceful design. Outside in the south-east

corner of the churchyard is Sir Hans Sloane's monument. It is a funeral

urn of white marble, standing under a canopy supported by pillars of

Portland stone. Four serpents twine round the urn, and the whole forms a

striking, though not a beautiful, group.

The church has been the scene of some magnificent ceremonies, of which

the funeral of Lord Bray was notable. It was in this church that Henry

VIII. married Jane Seymour the day after the execution of Anne Boleyn.

Church Lane, near at hand, is very narrow. Dean Swift, who lodged here,

is perhaps one of the best-known names, and his friend Atterbury, who

first had a house facing the Embankment, afterwards came and lived

opposite to him. Thomas Shadwell, Poet Laureate, was associated with the

place, and also Bowack, whose "Antiquities of Middlesex," incomplete

though it is, remains a valuable book of reference. Bowack lived near the

Rectory, and not far from him was the Old White Horse Inn, famous for the

beauty of its decorative carving.

Petyt's school was next to the church. The name was derived from its

founder, who built it at his own expense for the education of poor

children in the beginning of the eighteenth century. William Petyt was a

Bencher of the Inner Temple, Keeper of the Records in the Tower, and a

prolific author. A tablet inscribed with quaint English, recording

Petyt's charity, still stands on the dull little block building of the

present century, which replaced the old school.

Dr. Chamberlayne was another famous inhabitant of Church Street. His

epitaph is on the exterior church wall beside those of his wife, three

sons, and daughter, the latter of whom fought on board ship against the

French disguised in male attire. Chamberlayne wrote and translated many

historical tracts, and his best-known work is the "Present State of

England" (1669). He was tutor to the Duke of Grafton, and later to Prince

George of Denmark, and was one of the original members of the Royal

Society.

The Rectory was built by the Marquis of Winchester. It was first used as

a Rectory in 1566. It is picturesque, having been added to from time to

time, and has a large old garden. The list of Rectors includes many

well-known men. Dr. Littleton, author of a Latin dictionary, was

presented to the living in 1669, and held it for twenty-five years. He

was succeeded by Dr. John King, whose manuscript account of Chelsea is

still extant. Reginald Heber, the father of the celebrated Bishop Heber,

came in 1766. Later on the Hon. and Rev. Dr. Wellesley, brother to the

first Duke of Wellington, was Rector from 1805, and still more recently

the Rev. Charles Kingsley, father of the two brothers who have made the

name of Kingsley a household word by the power of their literary talent.

The next turning out of the Embankment after Church Street is Danvers

Street, and an inscribed stone on the corner house tells that it was

begun in 1696. Danvers House, occupied, (some authorities say built,) by

Sir John Danvers in the first half of the seventeenth century, seems,

with its grounds, to have occupied almost the whole space from the King's

Road to the Embankment. Thus Paulton's Square and Danvers Street must

both be partly on its site. The gardens were laid out in the Italian

style, and attracted much notice. Sir John Danvers was knighted by James

I. After he had been left a widower twice and was past middle age, he

began to take an active part in the affairs of his time. He several times

protested against Stuart exactions, and during the Civil War took the

side of the Parliament. He was one of those who signed Charles I.'s

death-warrant. He married a third time at Chelsea, and died there in

April, 1655. His house was demolished in 1696. The house has gained some

additional celebrity from its having been one of the four supposed by

different writers to have been the dwelling of Sir Thomas More. This

idea, however, has been repeatedly shown to be erroneous. More's house

was near Beaufort Street.

The next opening from the Embankment to the King's Road is Beaufort

Street. There is no view of More's house known to be in existence, and,

as stated above, four houses have contended for the honour--Danvers,

Beaufort, Alston, and that once belonging to Sir Reginald Bray. Dr. King

went very carefully into the subject, and one of his manuscripts

preserved at the British Museum is "A letter designed for Mr. Hearn

respecting Sir Thos. More's House at Chelsea." His reasons cannot be

given better than in his own words:

"First, his grandson, Mr. Thomas More, who wrote his life ... says that

Sir Thomas More's house in Chelsea was the same which my lord of Lincoln

bought of Sir Robert Cecil. Now, it appears pretty plainly that Sir

Robert Cecil's house was the same which is now the Duke of Beaufort's,

for in divers places [are] these letters R.C., and also R.c.E., with the

date of the year, viz., 1597, which letters were the initials of his name

and his lady's, and the year 1597, when he new built, or at least new

fronted, it. From the Earl of Lincoln that house was conveyed to Sir

Arthur Gorges; from him to Lionel Cranford, Earl of Middlesex; from him

to King Charles I.; from the King to the Duke of Buckingham; from his

son, since the Restoration, to Plummer, a citizen, for debts; from the

said Plummer to the Earl of Bristol; and from his heirs to the Duke of

Beaufort, so that we can trace all the Mesne assignments from Sir Robert

Cecil to the present possessor."

He goes on to add that More built the south chancel (otherwise the

chapel) in the church, and that this belonged to Beaufort House until Sir

Arthur Gorges sold the house but retained the chapel. When Sir Thomas

More came to Chelsea he was already a famous man, high in the King's

favour. The house he lived in is supposed to have stood right across the

site of Beaufort Street, not very far from the river. It is unnecessary

here to sketch that life, already so well known and so often written, but

we can picture that numerous and united household which even the second

Lady More's mean and acrid temper was unable to disturb. Here royal and

notable visitors frequently came. The King himself, strolling in the

well-kept garden with his arm round his Chancellor's neck, would jest

pleasantly, and Holbein, in the dawn of his fame, would work for his

patron, unfolding day by day the promise of his genius. Bishops from

Canterbury, London, and Rochester came to confer with More. Dukes and

Lords were honoured by Sir Thomas's friendship before his fall. The barge

which so often carried its owner to pleasure or business lay moored on

the river ready to carry him that last sad journey to the Tower; and

sadder still, to bring back the devoted daughter when the execution was

accomplished, and later also when she bore her gruesome burden of a

father's head, said to have been buried with her in Chelsea Church.

After his death, More's estates were confiscated and granted to Sir

William Paulet, who with his wife occupied the house for about fifty

years. It then passed through the possession of the Winchesters and the

Dacres, the same whose tomb is such an ornament in the church, and by

will Lady Dacre bequeathed it to Sir Robert Cecil, who sold it (1597) to

the Earl of Lincoln, from which time we have the pedigree quoted from Dr.

King. On the death of the Duke of Beaufort, Sir Hans Sloane bought it for

L2,500 and pulled it down (1740).

Beaufort Street has not the width of Oakley Street, but it is by no means

narrow, and many of the houses, which are irregularly built, have gardens

and trees in front. A few yards further westward is Milman Street, so

called after Sir W. Milman, who died in 1713. The site of his house is

not definitely known, but the street marks it with sufficient accuracy.

It is interesting to reflect that these great houses, described in

detail, stood in their own grounds, which reached down to the water's

edge, whence their owners could go to that great London, of which Chelsea

was by no means an integral part, to transact their business or pleasure.

The water highway was by far the safest and most convenient in those days

of robbery and bad roads. "The Village of Palaces," as Chelsea has been

called by Mr. L'Estrange, is no purely fanciful title.

Milman Street at present does not look very imposing. The houses and

shops are squalid and mean. Near the King's Road end is the Moravian

burial-ground, which is cut off from the street by a door, over which are

the words "Park Chapel National School, Church of England." The

burial-ground is small in extent, and is a square enclosure surrounded by

wooden palings, and cut into four equal divisions by two bisecting paths.

One of its walls is supposed to be the identical one bounding Sir T.

More's garden. At one end it is overshadowed by a row of fine elms, but

in the plot itself there are no trees. What was formerly the chapel, at

the north end, is now used as a school-house. Now and then the Moravians

hold meetings there. The gravestones, laid horizontally in regular rows,

are very small, and almost hidden by the long grass. The married men are

in one quarter, and the bachelors in another, and the married and single

women are separated in the same way. On the side of the chapel is a slab

to the memory of Count Zinzendorf, who died in 1760.

Not far from the corner (eastward), as we turn on to the Embankment, is

the famous Lindsey House, which claims to be the second oldest house in

Chelsea, the first being Stanley House (see p. 55). The original house

was built by Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, some time before the middle of

the seventeenth century. De Mayerne was Court physician to Henry IV. and

Louis XIII. of France. About twenty years later it was bought by Montague

Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey, whose son rebuilt or altered it largely.

It remained in the Lindsey family until 1750. The family of the Windsors

leased it for some time, and one of them was married in the parish church

to the widow of the unjust Judge Jeffreys. In 1750 the Earl of Lindsey,

created Duke of Ancaster, sold it to the Count Zinzendorf mentioned

above, who intended to make it the nucleus for a Moravian settlement in

Chelsea. Ten years later he died, and some time after his death the

Moravians sold Lindsey House. It is now divided into five houses, and the

different portions have been so much altered, by the renovations of

various owners, that it is difficult to see the unity of design, but one

of the divisions retains the old name on its gateway. It is supposed that

Wren was the architect. Amongst other notable residents who lived here

were Isambard Brunel, the engineer; Bramah, of lock fame; Martin, the

painter, who was visited by Prince Albert; and Whistler, the artist.

Close by Lindsey Row the river takes an abrupt turn, making a little bay,

and here, below the level of the street, is a little creeper-covered

house where the great colourist Turner lived for many years, gaining

gorgeous sky effects from the red sunsets reflected in the water. The

house is numbered 118, and has high green wooden pailings. It is next to

a public-house named The Aquatic, and so will be easily seen. The turning

beyond is Blantyre Street. Turner's real house was in Queen Anne Street,

and he used to slip away to Chelsea on the sly, keeping his whereabouts

private, even from his nearest friends. He was found here, under the

assumed name of Admiral Booth, the day before his death, December 19,

1851. The World's End Passage is a remembrance of the time when the

western end of Chelsea was indeed the end of the world to the folks of

London. Beyond World's End Passage were formerly two houses of

note--Chelsea Farm, afterwards Cremorne Villa, and Ashburnham House. The

first of these lay near what is now Seaton Street. If we pass down

Blantyre Street, which for part of the distance runs parallel to World's

End Passage, we find three streets running into it at an obtuse angle.

The first of these, from the King's Road end, is Seaton Street. It was

just beyond this that the Earl of Huntingdon, about the middle of the

eighteenth century, built Chelsea Farm. His widow, who lived there after

his death, was connected with the Methodist movement, and built many

chapels. She left the farm in 1748. It was then sold, and passed through

various hands, until it came into the possession of Baron Dartrey,

afterwards Viscount Cremorne, from whom it gained its later name. Lady

Cremorne was frequently visited by Queen Charlotte. This Lady Cremorne

was a descendant of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. After her

death the villa and grounds were sold. In 1845 the place was opened as

Cremorne pleasure-gardens. These gardens, though famous, never rivalled

successfully those of Ranelagh, at the eastern extremity of Chelsea. They

were only open for thirty-two years, but during that time acquired the

reputation for being the resort of all the rowdies in the neighbourhood.

The noise made by the rabble passing along the river side after the

closing at nights caused great annoyance to the respectable inhabitants,

and finally led to the suppression of the gardens. L'Estrange says that

the site extended over the grounds of Ashburnham as well as Cremorne

House.

Cremorne Road is an offshoot of Ashburnham Road. Ashburnham House was

built in 1747 by Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, son of the Bishop of that name,

and author of "The Suspicious Husband." However, the house is remembered,

not by his name, but by that of its second purchaser, the Earl of

Ashburnham, who had here a collection of costly paintings. The grounds

were very well laid out, and adorned with statues.

Lots Road, running parallel to the river, retains in its name a memory

of the "lots" of ground belonging to the manor, over which the

parishioners had Lammas rights.

Burnaby Street, running out of it, is named after a brother of Admiral

Sir William Burnaby, who lived for some time in the neighbourhood. Beyond

is Stadium Street, named after Cremorne House when it was used as a

national club, and bore the alternative name of The Stadium. To the south

of Lots Road are the wharves of Chelsea and Kensington. Chelsea Creek

runs in here, cutting past the angle of Lots Road and turning northward

to the King's Road, where it is crossed by Stanley Bridge. The West

London railway-line has its Chelsea station just above the bridge.

Even this remote corner of Chelsea is not without its historical

associations. Just across the bridge, on the Fulham side, but usually

spoken of as belonging to Chelsea, is the old Sandford Manor House,

supposed to have been the home of Nell Gwynne. This house is connected

with Addison, who wrote from here many beautiful letters to little Lord

Warwick, who became his stepson on his marriage with the Dowager Countess

in 1716. In one of these he says: "The business of this is to invite you

to a concert of music, which I have found in a neighbouring wood. It

begins precisely at six in the evening, and consists of a blackbird, a

thrush, a robin redbreast and a bullfinch. There is a lark that, by way

of overture, sings and mounts until she is almost out of hearing ... and

the whole is concluded by a nightingale."

It would be difficult to find a wood affording such a concert in the

vicinity of Chelsea Creek now.