It was a grand sight on the first of May to see the four-horse mail
coaches pass along Knightsbridge at eight in the evening. As many as
fourteen would pass all in their new livery of scarlet coats and
broad-brimmed top hats, trimmed with gold lace, the guards blowing their
horns. I have seen them take up passengers at the top of Sloane Street,
who arrived there in one of the old two-horse hackney coaches, and it
appeared quite an undertaking to get the passengers on board. They would
branch off there, some going along the upper road through Kensington, and
the others along the Fulham Road and across the river at Putney. The
road from Chelsea to Buckingham Palace was mostly through fields, some of
them called the Five Fields (now Eaton Square and neighbourhood),
extending as far as Grosvenor Place and St. George's Hospital, which you
could see from the toll-gate in Sloane Squire, the only building on that
part being Eaton Chapel. The road to the Palace was very lonely, as
there were but few houses. The Chelsea Bun Houses--there were two of
them--stood on the left side of the Pimlico Road, about one hundred yards
beyond the toll-gate by the "Nell Gwynn" tavern. The first one kept at
that time by London, had a frontage of at least fifty feet. It was built
out fifteen or twenty feet from the house, and had a colonnade in front
over the pathway; the other, kept by Chapman, was two doors further on,
of the same style but much smaller. On a Good Friday morning I have seen
a large crowd waiting to get served, which they did through the window.
I have seen carriages and traps waiting as far as the tollhouse. A
little farther on, where St. Barnabas' Church now stands, was the
"Orange" tavern and tea gardens, with a theatre where regular plays were
acted, and beyond, just before you came to the wooden bridge over the
canal there was a road leading down to the Chelsea Water Works reservoir
and filtering beds, and at the bottom stood the "White House," with its
ferry over to the "Red House" at Battersea, a great sporting riverside
house, where nearly all the pigeon shooting took place. There was always
a great crowd of amateur sportsmen outside waiting for a shot at any
birds that escaped, and frequently a dispute would arise as to who shot
the bird, often ending in a fight.
There were no buildings on the right hand side of the road, but some
marshy ground and a row of willow trees between it and the canal as far
as the basin, which was surrounded by a few shops and wharves, and where
Victoria Station now stands. And nearly opposite stood Bramah's Iron
Foundry, where nearly the first iron lighthouse was built and fitted
together and erected in the yard complete, and then taken and shipped to
one of the West India Islands, I think Jamaica, and re-erected. It was
afterward's Bramah's Great Unpickable Lock Factory.
At the other side of the canal was the Willow Walk, a raised road leading
from the Monster Gardens to Rochester Row, with market gardens and low
swampy ground running right down to the river on one side, and the canal
on the other. In winter I have seen snipe, teal and wild duck shot on
the ground at the west end of Chelsea. Just over Stamford Bridge stood
Stamford House, once the residence of Nell Gwynn, now occupied by the Gas
Company's engineer, and just beyond, through a farm yard, was a public
footpath right through the orchards and market gardens alongside of the
river right away to a riverside tavern, with a lane bringing you out by
Parson's Green. In the orchards was grown some of the choicest fruit to
be found in the country. There were some old walls with fruit trees that
appeared to have stood there for centuries. This district was known as
Broom-house, and was owned and occupied by the Bagleys, Steels, Matters,
and Dancers, market gardeners and fruit growers. Higher up the river at
Hammersmith, Chiswick and Isleworth were the strawberry gardens that
supplied London with that delicious fruit. They were carried to Covent
Garden Market twice a day by women in large round baskets on their heads.
You would meet them along the road of a morning about seven, and again
about three with a second picking, always on the trot, in gangs of as
many as twenty. The strawberries were packed in small tapering baskets
called pottles, holding about two-thirds of a pint, and then in large
baskets called rounds, containing seventy-two pottles; these rounds
containing seventy-two pottles would sell at from twelve to sixty
shillings, according to the season and quality of the fruit. This was
considered a very profitable industry as both pickers and the carriers
were much better paid than the ordinary employees. It was quite a
harvest, and lasted from three weeks to a month.
The lying in state of the Duke of Wellington was held in the dining hall
of Chelsea Hospital. There was a raised platform at the west end
beautifully draped in black velvet and white silk, with silver cords and
tassels. The coffin was attended by four officers, generals, as chief
mourners, and the gangway that the public passed along was lined with
guardsmen. During the ten days for which the body was on view the crowd
was immense, and on about the third day there were two women trampled to
death, and a great number injured, owing, it was supposed, to a number of
artillerymen marching up in a body and trying to force their way through
the crowd. Steps were immediately taken to erect barricades, and police
officers were stationed to regulate the crowd. As it extended three
parts of the way up Ebury Street, some had to wait from five to six
hours, only a certain number being allowed to pass round at a time, and
there were many taken out of the crowd that could not stand the crush and
had fainted.
The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race was best seen from Cheyne Walk as the
course at that time was from Westminster to Putney, for that and all
other leading races, and the race was considered a dead certainty for
whichever boat got through Battersea Bridge first and had the Middlesex
shore.
They used to have some tolerably good sailing matches for small boats off
Chelsea Reach. The course was from a boat moored opposite the "Adam and
Eve," turning round a boat moored off Lambeth Palace, and back to the
starting point. Races were arranged to start at about three-quarter's
flood so that they would finish on the ebb of the tide. They were small
tubby-looking, half-decked boats, not above three tons, and would carry
an immense amount of canvas, and when there was a breeze and the river
was a little bit lumpy they would dance about merrily and were a very
pretty sight. They were generally sailed by the owners.