At Knightsbridge there used to be a toll collector, but I do not
recollect any toll gate. A man used to come out of a gate in the fence
to collect it, about where the Bank now stands, beside it the Cannon
Brewery, a large building with a cannon at the top, with the back
overlooking the park. That and White's menagerie, adjoining the Fox and
Bull tavern, were pulled down, and one of the first National Exhibitions
was built on the ground. It was for a collection formed by a doctor who
had travelled in China. It was a collection of all sorts of curios,
illustrative of the habits, idol worship and life and industry of the
Chinese, with native workmen and women carrying on their various trades
and domestic apparatus, as they did at home with their temples, and
performances in idol worship. It was first exhibited at the back of the
Alexandra Hotel in a large room in the old barrack yard, and it was such
a success that in the following year the large brick building was built
on the site of the Cannon Brewery. There were a lot of immense stuffed
dragons and winged snakes and flying fish and many-headed monsters and
curious reptiles that had never been seen in Europe before, and several
Chinese ladies sitting on pedestals exhibiting their deformed feet, which
looked like hoofs with a row of small lumps of flesh underneath with
nails that represented the toes. There was a large number of visitors,
and it kept open for about two years, having had some waxworks added to
its attractions.
A little beyond the Alexandra Hotel stood a dairy that was noted for its
asses' milk, which at that time was considered a cure for consumption.
There would be as many as forty donkeys there of a morning and they would
be driven in pairs by boys round to the customers and milked at their
doors twice a day, which was a very large and profitable business.
On the Knightsbridge Road, opposite Gore House, stood an old tavern in
the middle of the road with some old stables and sheds, a great place for
the market carts and country wagons to stop at of a morning. Gore House
became the residence of the Countess of Blessington, her daughter and
Count D'Orsay, a very handsome and fashionable Frenchman. There were
large grounds attached to the house and they used to give very grand
garden parties both public and private, many of them for charities. I
recollect going to one given for the benefit of the Caledonian School.
It was a very grand and fashionable Fancy Fair with the guards and the
Caledonian School band, and Athletic Sports, trials of strength, sword
dances and the Highland fling, putting the stone and flinging the hammer,
the bag-pipes, and many other Scotch pastimes. The grounds were very
beautiful. The property was bought by the commissioners of the '51
Exhibition from their surplus funds, and the Albert Hall now stands on
the site.
The "Admiral Kepple" tavern at the top of College Street stood by itself,
with tea garden at the back, and at the west side in the Fulham Road was
the old parish pond, and a little farther west at the back of about where
the "Stag" tavern now stands was a large pond from which Pond Place took
its name. The present road in front of Chelsea Hospital was only a
footpath that was closed every Holy Thursday; and the parish authorities
beat the bounds, which they did on Holy Thursdays with the two beadles in
uniform, the churchwardens, overseers, and parish constable, and the
way-warden; and a great number of school children with willow wands would
perambulate the parish to beat the bounds, and would knock down the
obstruction and pass through the district called Jews' Row at that part,
a labyrinth of courts and passages of small and two-roomed houses. It
was called Jews' Row, bounded by White Lion Street on the east, Turk's
Row on the north, and Franklin's Row on the west, and was inhabited by
the very lowest and most depraved and criminal class both male and
female, many low lodging houses and thieves' kitchens, and the roadway
was at least one foot six inches lower than the path, and all along the
curb the low, loose women would sit and insult and rob the passers by.
It was quite impossible to arrest them as they escaped down the labyrinth
of courts and alleys, and it was so well-known as a dangerous locality
that very few people would venture through it, while the district lying
to the east between White Lion Street and the boundary of the parish, and
Chelsea Market, where Sloane Gardens now stand, was nearly as bad, with
courts and alleys and crime and depravity. As a market it had long been
disused. I can just recollect a few poor miserable stalls on the large
open space enclosed by posts and rails in front of the shops in Lower
Sloane Street, where Sloane Gardens now stand. This district is now
nearly all swept away and made one of the best and most fashionable
residential districts of the west of London.
[Picture: Decorative image]
Dear old Chelsea, the land-marks fast fading away,
Where the warrior, the statesmen, the grave, and the gay,
Came to rest and to play.
Where fair maids and grand dames spent their fortune and fame,
Then flirted away where grand lords and gay courtiers came
For their wooing by the silent highway.
Where men of learning high in the state,
Passed from their hearths to the dungeons and died for their Faith.
Brave to the last,
Dear old Chelsea will soon be but a page of the past.
[Picture: Decorative image]
Footnotes:
{32} It marks the parish boundary, and is carried across Sloane Square
Station in great iron cylinders.--J. H. QUINN.