Carlyle’s and Rossetti’s monuments—Paradise Row as it used to
be—Hortense de Mazarin—Whistler’s White House and the Victoria
Hospital—The Physick Garden—Swan Walk and Doggett’s race for the “Coat
and Badge”—The Royal Hospital—Poor, pretty Nelly’s pleasure house—The
Chapel—The Hall—An American offer—A French Eagle—Walpole House and a
Queen at dinner—Ranelagh and its Rotunda—The Pensioners’ Gardens.
IN the Embankment Gardens, facing Cheyne Row and Queen’s House
respectively, are the statue of Carlyle by Boehm and the Drinking
Fountain Memorial to Rossetti, with a portrait in relief by his friend,
Ford Madox Brown. Both are excellent likenesses, though Carlyle’s is a
peaceful presentment, and Rossetti’s mournful and rather repellent.
Passing through the gardens, I have often been reminded of the Greek
painter and the birds who pecked at his grapes, for the children
often stop to finger the pile of books under Carlyle’s chair. “They’m
real books, ain’t they, missus, wat the old genelman wrote?” Thus
we talk of Carlyle still, a stone’s throw from his study windows.
It is interesting to know that the annual number of visitors to the
Carlyle House increases steadily, and the custodian assures us that
the knowledge of his works—intelligent, not merely curious—increases
also, though among Colonials and Americans he is better known than
among ordinary English people. And for “Colonials” read Scotch, or
Scotch extracted.
Leaving Cheyne Walk behind and walking eastward, we pass blocks of
new flats and modern houses where once was Queen’s Road and beautiful
Paradise Row—a terrace of houses that three hundred years ago was a
centre of life and fashion. Here lived Hortense Duchesse de Mazarin,
who dared not marry Charles II. in his days of exile, but flirted with
him extensively later, and accepted a pension from him of £4,000 a
year, which she spent on riotous entertainments rather than on paying
her just rates and debts. Charles, Duke of St. Albans, son of Nell
Gwynn and the Merry Monarch, lived here, and so did Mary Astell, the
Suffragette of her times, whose advanced views found little favour
with the wits at the Don Saltero or the fashionables of the Court,
though serious John Evelyn sees fit to commend her. Dukes and earls and
“smart” bishops jostled each other in Paradise Row in the gay Stuart
days, then artists, physicians, scientists, and schoolmasters succeeded
to the fine old houses with their stately forecourts, and Elizabeth
Fry established her “School of Discipline” for homeless and vagabond
girls at the corner in 1828. Finally, in 1908 it was swept away, and
re-created to meet modern requirements as Royal Hospital Road.
Tite Street turns off towards the river, and holds two buildings of
note: Mr. Whistler’s White House, which looks as if it had strayed out
of its way from Constantinople, and the Victoria Hospital for Children,
a splendid new building, embracing, as its nucleus, Gough House, built
by the Earl of Carberry in Charles II.’s time. Sir Richard Gough, who
succeeded the Earl, gave it its name. The hospital is an unspeakable
boon to the poor of the district; it has seventy beds, and a very
extensive out-patients’ department, as well as a convalescent home at
Broadstairs. Visitors can visit it daily between 2 and 4 p.m., and all
parents must owe it their gratitude for its devotion to the cause of
all children in illness.
The Physick Garden entrance faces Swan Walk, and a ring at the
resounding bell in the wall will bring an answering gardener, who will
admit the inquiring visitor; but it is generally understood that such
visits are made for reasons of botanical or scientific research.
There is no fee, but visitors sign their names in the register, and, if
I am not mistaken, enter the object of their special study. The garden,
presented by Sir Hans Sloane to the Apothecaries Company, is mainly
designed for the use and assistance of students of medicine and botany.
All the plants grown in it have their medicinal value. Only one of the
Lebanon cedars planted in 1683 remains.
[Illustration: _Photo by Miss Charlotte Lloyd._
SIR HANS SLOANE.
p. 66] ]
Linnæus, Sir Joseph Banks, Mrs. Elizabeth Blackwell (the “better
horse” of the luckless Alexander Blackwell, who dwelt in Swan Walk and
would never have written his _Herbal_ without “the grey mare’s” clever
assistance), Philip Miller, of the _Gardeners’ Dictionary_, all loved
the Physick Garden, and used it as Sir Hans intended.
The old houses in Swan Walk—four or five in number—are all beautiful
in their stately proportions and mellow colouring.
The “Old Swan Inn,” a hostel for country junketings in Pepys’s time,
stood on the waterside till the Embankment came to Chelsea. It was
the goal for Doggett’s watermen’s race, still rowed on August 1 in
commemoration of the Protestant Succession. This year, 1914, it will
celebrate its 200th anniversary. The “Coat and Badge” (the latter the
silver token of the White Horse of Hanover) were annually held by the
victor, and a couple of guineas accrued to him as well from the loyal
Irish Orangemen’s pockets. Wentworth House, on the Embankment, now
occupies the site, and the “Old Paradise Wharf and Stairs” were just
beyond.
And now, whether we walk by the Embankment or by the parallel road, we
reach the grounds of the Royal Hospital—that most perfect work of Sir
Christopher Wren, which, oddly enough, Chelsea people still persist in
calling “Controversy College,” Archbishop Laud’s name for it when James
I. tried to coax it into a sort of theological academy. If you ask your
way to the Royal Hospital, you will invariably be corrected, and “the
College” substituted, and why the name remains is a Chelsea mystery.
Nell Gwynn’s part in its foundation as an asylum for old soldiers may
be a myth, but is as certain to live as the Hospital to stand. “What is
this? King Charles’s Hospital?” and its pretty rejoinder, “And Nelly’s
pleasure house,” was almost the most popular quotation of our Chelsea
Pageant in June 1908.
Every 29th of May King Charles’s statue is wreathed with oak, and the
pensioners get double rations of beef and plum pudding, and if you
fall into conversation with one of the red-coated old soldiers in the
hospital gardens, where they love to saunter and watch the nursemaids
and the children and the emancipated terriers of a morning, you will
find that he is well up in the legend of “poor, pretty Nelly,” and
proud of his connection with an institution which is in no sense a
charity.
It is impossible here to describe all that is to be seen at Chelsea
Hospital, but there is no difficulty in going over it—either with a
guide from the secretary’s office on application, or informally by
presenting oneself at service at the Chapel on Sundays (11 a.m. and
6.30 p.m.) and glancing into the hall and the kitchens as one passes
out through the beautiful colonnade, which gives upon the garden side.
The old pensioners are courteous to visitors and love to show all
they can. The great staircases leading to the rooms above are worth
noticing, and so are the doorways, and the wonderful balance and
proportion of the long lines of windows. Restrictions are few, and
one is struck by the ease and freedom of the place, as compared with
similar institutions in other countries.
In the chapel, the wonderful collection of flags taken in action is
worth studying, with the official handbook; perhaps as interesting a
study is that of the faces and expressions of the ranks of old soldiers
as they sit in orderly rows. The service is not long, though when the
preacher allows himself an extra five minutes’ law, I have seen a hand
steal tentatively to a coat-pocket, and a before-dinner pipe stealthily
prepared under shelter of the pew ledge.
The Communion plate—silver-gilt and presented by James I. to his
theologians—is magnificent. An American visitor once offered the
existing chaplain an exact replica of all the articles, and a thousand
pounds for himself, if he would permit the set to be copied, and “no
questions asked.” The transatlantic enthusiast went away with a very
poor idea of English business capacity.
In the hall, which is now the pensioners’ recreation room, there
are numberless objects of interest. We can only instance the case of
unclaimed medals, and the “Black Jack” leather kegs used in the canteen
of the Army in Flanders in Marlborough’s campaigns.
In the hall the Duke of Wellington’s coffin lay in state November 1852,
and during the crowd and excitement of the two days’ ceremony, one of
the French Eagles taken at Waterloo was stolen—re-captured, it is
supposed, by French visitors.
The sittings in the chapel are allotted to the officers and staff of
the hospital (note the _Whitster’s_ Pew, where sits the head of the
laundry), but visitors can generally find accommodation if they present
themselves at the Sunday services.
Walpole House, now the Infirmary, was once the residence of the
great Whig Minister, and in his garden George II. and Caroline the
Illustrious, when Prince and Princess of Wales, sometimes sat down
to dinner, while Chelsea people stared at them through the adjacent
railings. A special permission is necessary to view the Infirmary.
One other Royal remembrance, and I must close this inadequate account
of the Royal Hospital treasures. There is a fine bust of Queen Victoria
executed especially for the hall, and paid for by every man in the
hospital giving his pay for one day—that day being the great Jubilee
of 1887. It shows the great Queen at her noblest and best, as her
soldiers love to remember her.
East of the hospital lie Ranelagh Gardens, beautiful in their placid
old age, and reminiscent in their glades and winding walks of a gay and
frivolous past. The huge Rotunda, where nearly three thousand persons
could circulate with ease, went out of fashion about 1750. Balloon
ascents and fireworks ceased to attract, and in 1804 the big building
was pulled down, and the gardens incorporated in the hospital grounds.
To-day the pensioners’ little plots of garden, to the north of
Ranelagh, are fuller of interest than this flimsy spectre of past
gaiety. Some of the old men are ingenious gardeners; each one expresses
himself in his allotted space, and builds a rockery, an arbour, or
a fountain as his fancy directs, and will gladly sell a nosegay of
old-fashioned flowers to a passing stranger.
Truly Nell Gwynn and Sir Christopher Wren have given the old soldiers a
goodly heritage in the Royal Hospital.
NOTES
L’ENVOI
AND SO WE come to the boundary of Chelsea on the east, for at Sloane
Square (and strictly speaking in a corner house, half of which stands
in the parish and half outside) the “bounds” used to be “beaten,” and
a young boy received a birching which was supposed to write the exact
line of parish demarcation on his memory, for transmission to the next
generation. I suppose he was adequately rewarded, and I never heard
that the assault was made a cause for complaint. Whether a Chelsea boy
of to-day would still suffer it, is questionable.
Old Chelsea, with its queer ways and its originality in thought and
action, is fading day by day. The Bun-house has gone from Union Street,
and Box Farm from King’s Road. Who thinks of the “callous murder of an
Oriental” when they cut through Turk’s Row? Even the Duke of York’s
School, founded in 1801, has carried its little “sons of the brave” off
to Dover, where we hope they still say, as they ought, “God bless the
Regent and the Duke of York!” but where the object-lesson of the Royal
Hospital will not be a part of their education, as it was in Chelsea.
And with these changes thick and fast upon us, can you, O stranger,
cousin from America, or brother from Greater Britain overseas, wonder
that we of the old village by the river cling fast to our legends and
traditions of the past, setting them, childish as some may deem them,
in that Light of Romance “that never was on sea or land.” How it gilds
the simplest deed, lights up the dimmest corner; how it shows certain
figures of the past, more real to us than any neighbours of to-day!
Here in a Chelsea backwater where the children have spread a
“grotto,” and cry for your “remembrance” of the Holy Sepulchre that
they symbolise so unwitting, we too may realise that we have been
on pilgrimage back to Tudor days, and the stately times of great
Elizabeth, and the Court of merry Charles.
And if the Road-book has served you, as an afternoon’s guide, to make
you love and see Chelsea, then, by my halidom! two of us are well
pleased!
PERCY T. HARRIS, M.P.S.
_Silver Medallist in Chemistry & Physics_
DISPENSING STORE CHEMIST
183a, King’s Road, Chelsea
_Tel._: 3029 Western.
All Prescriptions and Medicines Skilfully prepared from materials of
the best quality only. Absolute accuracy of detail, early delivery,
and moderate charges characterise this old-established but up-to-date
business, which affords a choice of the largest Stock of Chemists’
Sundries, Photographic Materials, and Patent Medicines in Chelsea.
* * * * *
RODWELL BROS.
for
AFTERNOON TEAS
235 King’s Road, Chelsea
BAKERS, CONFECTIONERS
AND CATERERS, ETC.
All Orders carried out under Personal Supervision
_FOR PARTICULARS OF CHARACTERISTIC_
CHELSEA
HOUSES
TO BUY OR RENT, APPLY
WHEELER BROS.
Chartered Surveyors and Auctioneers
1, SYDNEY STREET, FULHAM RD.,
CHELSEA
TELEPHONE: KENSINGTON 1687
* * * * *
Tuberculin Dispensary
The Old Chelsea Dispensary has been reopened by the Tuberculin
Dispensary League, and Patients are treated at 1, Manor Street, Chelsea
(next to the Town Hall). Letters of recommendation are unnecessary.
Subscriptions will be gratefully received by the Hon. Treasurer,
RANDALL DAVIES, ESQ.,
1, CHEYNE GARDENS, CHELSEA,
or by the London & South Western Bank, 140, King’s Road, S.W.
ESTABLISHED AT COOK’S GROUND, CHELSEA, OVER 100 YEARS
The Farm, being but a few yards away from Carlyle’s House in Cheyne
Row, two goats were kept at it specially to supply him with milk.
TELEPHONE:
WESTERN
1782
WRIGHT’S DAIRY
_Chief Office
and Dairies_:
38, 44, 46, 48, Church Street,
CHELSEA.
_Branch Offices_: 69, KING’S ROAD, CHELSEA, AND
3, WESTBOURNE STREET, SLOANE SQUARE.
_DAIRY FARMS_:
FARINGDON, BERKS :: TETBURY, GLOS.
Under Medical, Veterinary, and Sanitary Inspection.
SPECIALITY—
Nursery Milk for Infants & Invalids
HAS SUPPLIED THE CHEYNE HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN FOR OVER THIRTY-FIVE
YEARS.
[Illustration: “The Chelsea Weavers.”
258 King’s Rd. Chelsea.]
* * * * *
“The Good Intent”
Restaurant and Tea Rooms
12, Vale Terrace, King’s Road, Chelsea
_=Lunches=_ _(2 courses), 12.30 to 2 p.m._ _=1/3=_
_=Teas=_ _ - - - - _ _=6d.=_
_=Dinners=_ _(3 courses), 6.45 to 9 p.m._ _=1/6=_
“‘THE GOOD INTENT’ did not indeed require that last resort
of the apologist—to be credited with good intentions; and I used
sometimes to think that here was a possible successor to the beloved
Don Saltero who used to gather together the Chelsea celebrities for the
purpose of refreshing their wits and their bodies.”
_From “The Architectural Review,” November, 1912_
The...
Animals’ Hospital & Institute
75, KINNERTON STREET,
WILTON PLACE, S.W.
Telephone 317 Victoria. Established 1888.
TO PROVIDE TREATMENT
FOR SUFFERING ANIMALS
All information will be given on application to—
WALTER BETTS, _Secretary_.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See Mr. Randall Davies’ _Greatest House in Chelsea_.
End of Project Gutenberg's A road-book to old Chelsea, by G. B. Stuart