. Chelsea Old Church in background. (January 2006)]]
, its first owner. But it is not native to Chelsea - it is a survivor of the
Great Fire Of London . It was shipped brick by brick from
Bishopsgate in 1910 after being threatened with demolition. (January 2006)]]
is a district of
London bounded to the south by the
River Thames , where its frontage runs from
Chelsea Bridge along the
Chelsea Embankment ,
Cheyne Walk ,
Lots Road and
Chelsea Harbour . Its eastern boundary was once defined by the
River Westbourne , which is now in a pipe above
Sloane Square Tube Station . The modern eastern boundary can be said to be
Chelsea Bridge Road and the lower half of
Sloane Street , including
Sloane Square . To the north and northwest, the area fades into
Brompton and
South Kensington , but it is safe to say that the area north of the
King's Road as far northwest as the
Fulham Road is part of Chelsea.
The district is now part of the
Royal Borough Of Kensington And Chelsea , but until the creation of the GLC in 1965 it was a London borough in its own right, the
Metropolitan Borough Of Chelsea .
Note also that
Stamford Bridge , the famous headquarters of
Chelsea Football Club , though close to the west end of the King's Road, is actually in nearby
Fulham , which therefore hosts two
Premiership teams.
Chelsea originated as a
Saxon settlement. The word "Chelsea" is probably derived from an
Anglo-Saxon description – the word Cealchyoe meant chalk wharf or harbour. The first record of the Manor of Chelsea precedes the
Domesday Book and records the fact that Thurstan, governor of the King's Palace during the reign of
Edward The Confessor , gave the land to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster. Abbot Gervace subsequently assigned the manor to his mother, and it passed into private ownership.
Henry VIII acquired the manor of Chelsea from Lord Sandys in 1536. Both
Catherine Parr and
Anne Of Cleves lived in the Manor House, Princess Elizabeth (the future
Queen Elizabeth I ) was a resident, and Sir Thomas More lived more or less next door at Beaufort House.
James I established a theological college on the site of
Chelsea Royal Hospital (which was founded by
Charles II ).
By 1694, Chelsea – always a popular location for the wealthy, and once described as "a village of palaces" – had a population of 3,000. Even so, Chelsea remained rural and served London to the east as a
Market Garden , a trade that continued until the 19th century development boom when the district was finally absorbed into the metropolis.
The King's Road was named for Charles II, recalling the king’s private road from
St James's Palace to
Fulham , which was maintained until the reign of
George IV . According to ''
Encyclopædia Britannica '' "the better residential portion of Chelsea is the eastern, near Sloane Street and along the river; the western, extending north to
Fulham Road , is mainly a poor quarter". This is no longer the case, with parts of Fulham such as
Parson's Green attracting equally high house prices and being deemed desirable places to live. This has been recognised by the
Boundary Commission , who have adjusted the parliamentary boundaries so that there will be a new constituency of
Chelsea And Fulham which will reflect the harmonisation of the two areas. See
UK Parliamentary Constituencies
The memorials in the churchyard of Chelsea Old Church, near the river, illustrate much of the history of Chelsea. These include Lord and Lady Dacre (1594—1595);
Sir John Lawrence (1638);
Lady Jane Cheyne (1698);
Francis Thomas , "director of the china porcelain manufactory"; Sir
Hans Sloane (1753);
Thomas Shadwell , poet laureate (1692). Sir
Thomas More 's tomb is also there.
Chelsea was once famous for the manufacture of
Chelsea Bun s (a Chelsea bun is made from a long strip of sweet
Dough tightly coiled, with
Currant s trapped between the layers, and topped with sugar). Chelsea is still famous for its "Chelsea China" ware, though the works, the
Chelsea Porcelain Factory - thought to be the first workshop to make
Porcelain in England - were sold in 1769, and moved to
Derby . Examples of the original Chelsea ware fetch high values.
The best-known building is
Chelsea Royal Hospital for invalid soldiers, set up by Charles II (supposedly on the suggestion of
Nell Gwynne ), opened in 1694. The beautifully proportioned building by
Wren stands in extensive grounds. There was also until recently the
Duke Of York's Barracks off the King's Road, now a
Shopping Mall .
Chelsea Barracks , at the end of Lower Sloane Street, is still in use - primarily by ceremonial troops of the
Household Division .
Chelsea's modern reputation as a centre of innovation and influence originated in a period during the 19th century when the area became a veritable Victorian artists' colony (see 'Borough of artists' below). It also became prominent once again as one of the centres of 1960s "
Swinging London " (see 'Swinging Chelsea' below).
Chelsea once had a reputation as London's , American investment bankers and film stars, and latterly the sexy pop siren
Kylie Minogue .
In fact it has always reflected an odd mixture of the English
Upper Class , and the cultural ever-so-slightly-
Avant-garde .
Chelsea's reputation stems from a period in the 19th century when it became a sort of Victorian artists' colony: painters such as
Dante Gabriel Rossetti ,
J.M.W. Turner ,
James McNeill Whistler ,
William Holman Hunt , and
John Singer Sargent , as well as writers such as
George Meredith ,
Algernon Swinburne ,
Leigh Hunt , and
Thomas Carlyle all lived and worked here. There was a particularly large concentration of artists in the area around
Cheyne Walk (pronounced Cheyn''ee'') and Cheyne Row, where the
Pre-Raphaelite movement had its heart.
Jonathan Swift lived in Church Lane,
Richard Steele and
Tobias Smollett in Monmouth House. Carlyle lived for 47 years at No. 5 (now 24) Cheyne Row. After his death, the house was bought and turned into a shrine and literary museum by the Carlyle Memorial Trust, a group formed by
Leslie Stephen , father of
Virginia Woolf .
Virginia Woolf set her
1919 novel
Night And Day in Chelsea, where Mrs. Hilbery has a Cheyne Walk home.
A central part of Chelsea’s artistic and cultural life was Chelsea Public Library, originally situated in Manresa Road. Its longest serving member of staff was
Armitage Denton , who joined in 1896 at the age of 22 – and he remained there until his retirement in 1939. He was appointed Chief Librarian in 1929.
Armitage Denton had two principal passions in his professional life: books and pictures. As Chief Librarian of the
Metropolitan Borough Of Chelsea , he was able to indulge and inspire both. His lasting achievements were to increase substantially the number of books on the Library shelves – in one year alone by an extraordinary 2,981 volumes – and to inject vigour and momentum into the Chelsea Collection.
The
Chelsea Collection is a priceless anthology of prints and pictures of old Chelsea. Begun in 1887, it contains works by artists as notable and diverse as Rossetti and Whistler. During his time at the Library, Armitage Denton built the Collection assiduously, so that by the time of his death in July 1949 it numbered more than 1,000 items. At the end of the 20th century, the Collection totalled more than 5,000 works, and it continues to grow.
On his retirement on 10 June 1939, Chelsea Council paid tribute to Armitage Denton’s “unfailing courtesy” not only to members of the authority, but also to the public. To commemorate his time in office, a framed etching of The Old Lombard, Cheyne Walk, by
Henry Rayner , was donated to the Library by “a Group of Chelsea Artists in appreciation of Mr A. Denton’s service as Librarian”.
In a curious book, ''Bohemia in London'' by
Arthur Ransome which is a partly fictional account of his early years in London, published in 1907 when he was 23, there are some fascinating, rather over-romanticised accounts of bohemian goings-on in the quarter. The American artist
Pamela Colman Smith , the designer of
A.E. Waite 's
Tarot card pack and a member of the
Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn , features as "Gypsy" in the chapter "A Chelsea Evening".
Chelsea shone again, brightly but briefly in the
1960s Swinging London period and the early
1970s . The
Swinging Sixties was defined on the King's Road which runs the length of the area and both
The Beatles and
The Rolling Stones lived here at one time. In the 1970s the "World's End" of the King's Road was home to
Vivienne Westwood 's shop ("Sex"), and saw the birth of the
Punk movement. Then
Youth Culture decamped forever, the
Goth s moving to the newly fashionable quarter of
Camden Town and the
Hippies to
Notting Hill .
Chelsea probably has more
Blue Plaque s than any other district of London. Some of the great and not-so-good who have lived here include
Bob Marley composed his hit "I Shot The Sheriff" in a one-bedroom flat off Cheyne Walk in the mid-Seventies.
Gwyneth Paltrow has recently put in an offer for a £1.25 million apartment just off the King's Road.
Johnny Depp rented a property on the King's Road for the duration of filming
Finding Neverland , which follows the life of
J.M. Barrie , creator of
Peter Pan .
Chelsea consists of two main postcodes (SW3 and SW10) but also includes small sections of SW1. All of chelsea is, by definition, in the London borough of "The Royal Borough Kensington and Chelsea" (RBKC). On the eastern side RBKC meets the equably fashionable and expensive borough of the City of Westminster (COW), this meets at Lower Sloane Street where the postcode is SW1W, with one side of the road being in COW and the other in RBKC. However it does give the strange result that some of RBKC is in SW1W.
The vast majority of Chelsea is SW3. The far west of Chelsea is SW10/SW5 but due to the absence of tube coverage in large parts of the Borough, most people in SW10 use Earls Court tube in SW5.
The Kings road is the major artery in Chelsea and is a very busy road. Unfortunately, despite its reputation as a shopping mecca, it is now mostly made up of the same shops which are found all over the rest of the UK (eg Gap, Virgin, MacDonalds etc).
Sloane Street is overtaking Bond Street as London's premier shopping destination. Its shops are mostly fashion (eg Gucci) or jewellery (Graff).
The most desirable part of Chelsea is around Sloane Square tube. Around here, Chelsea meets Belgravia and Knightsbridge. This property market attracts considerable (international) attention, and is a very complex market.
A lot of Chelsea (SW3) and Knightsbridge (SW1X) is still owned by Earl Cadogan. This has a major influence on the markets as the Earl is the freeholder. http://www.cadogan.co.uk/
