King's Road

King's Road | Fulham Road | Cheyne Walk & Embankment

“One of the select few road names which is known around the world, From kitchen sink to miniskirt, from the Stones to the Sex Pistols”

“Tho’ I walks with fifty ‘ousmaids outer Chelsea to the Strand”
Kipling

In Chelsea, the girls in their breathtaking short skirts, their outrageous dresses, their stockings and kinky boots”
Milton Shulman, 1967

“If it’s not for sale it should not be in the window”
Mother of Michael Cain on the Parkinson show.

The Kings Road was so named in honour of King Charles II as his private road from Westminster to Fulham Palace, from where he took a boat on to Hampton Court. The road itself dates back to 704 as the road to the summer residence of the Bishops of London at Fulham Palace, up until 1973.

King Charles also used the road to visit his mistress Nell Gwyn who is thought to have had a house, Sandford Manor at Sands End, near the present Lots Road. He is also reported to have swam in the Thames “over against Chelsea”.

During this time Chelsea became fashionable again and was referred to as “Hyde Park on Thames! [Kensington & Chelsea by William Gaunt]

In 1711 the use of the road was controlled by six gates; including at Chelsea College, Church Street, Worlds End and Sands End.

In the 1719 access was opened up to those with privilege tickets. By 1722 they were copper tokens, stamped the “The Kings Private Roads”. Four types have been identified, examples of which can be seen sunk into the pavement in Duke of York Square. Three toll houses were built. A map of the road published in 1720 describes it as “A Survey of His Majesties Private Road from London to Fulham”.

However by the 1780’s it was open to virtually all, but it was not opened to unhindered public traffic until 1820 when it passed from Crown to Parish. Around 1800 the family of George III used to stop most mornings at Black Lands Farm to take milk, Chelsea Common was attached to this farm as pastureland. George himself used the road to get to Kew. [Chelsea Miscellany 16 I p. 2196, see watercolour]

The Kings Road was widened in the 1860’s . By the beginning of the 20 th century “ it is shabbier than Oxford Street with its straggling dirty stucco mid century houses and shops”. {William Rothenstien, the painter]

Sloane Square
Set out in the 1830’s it was a village green with posts and chain where boys played cricket. { Chelsea Scraps 1-270, 1897]

It was named after Sir Hans Sloane, …-1753, a physician with a degree in medicine from the University of Orange in 1653, a property developer of much of Chelsea having purchased Henry VIII’th Chelsea Manor House, an inventor of milk chocolate whilst in Jamaica as physician to the governor the Duke of Albermarle, a collector whose collection formed the basis of the British Museum, he bequeathed it to the Nation for £20,000 in 1749, a naturalist and President of the Royal Society on the death of Sir Isaac Newton in 1727 until 1741, and a herbalist who ensured the survival of the Physic garden.

It was reported that the Kings Road “afforded the best overland access from Westminster it passed through robber haunted swamps, referred to as Five Fields. [now Belgravia and Pimlico] to a crossing over the River West Bourn just to the east of Sloane Square passed the parade of shops in New Kings Road. It was variously called Blandel Bridge and Bloody Bridge, it was reported that in 1748 four gentlemen were attacked by two highwaymen near the bridge.

The square and surrounding area was extensively redeveloped following the “falling in of Leases” in 1887, “dilapidated and worn out properties principally occupied by the working classes were replaced by mansions and residential flats of a high class character”. Estates Gazette, 1 Oct. 1904.

The River West Bourn rises in Hampstead Heath near Jack Straws Castle and passes via the Serpentine in Hyde Park to the Thames. In the Eighteenth century it was described as “a wood skirted trout stream”. The River currently flows above Sloane Square Station, opened in 1868, via a large highly visible cast iron pipe above the platforms. The tube station was bombed on 12 Nov. 1940, when 79 people were injured.

The statues in the square are; Girl with a Dove by David Wynne, and a fibre glass copy of the 1733 statue of Sir Hans Sloane by Rysbrack, formerly in the Physic Garden and now in the British Museum.
The large brick and stone building on the south side was designed by Amos Faulkner and developed by William Willett.

The Beatles stayed at The Royal Court Hotel prior to their first national TV show in 1962, “Thank Your Lucky Stars” with Janice Nichols of “Oi’ll give it foive” fame.

A famous restaurant in Sloane Square was the Queens Restaurant which had Augustus John’s table for artists and a journalist table, the latter had the tradition of giving free lunches to unemployed hacks.

On the east side of Sloane Square is;

Royal Court Theatre
The Chelsea Theatre first opened on 16 April in 1870in the Ranelegh Chapel. In 1871 it became the Court Theatre. In 1873 a satire, “The Happy Land” by F.Tamline [WS Gilbert] and Gilbert a’Beckett was closed down by Mr Gladstone as he was caricatured by “hack-tors”. In 1876 Miss Ellen Terry appeared in “New Men and Old Acts” and in 1885 the first of A.W. Pinero’s faeces, “The Magistrate, ran for 12 months.

It was demolished following the redevelopment of Sloane Square, and the New Court Theatre, built to the design of Walter Emden and Bertie Crew with a Italian renaissance façade, was opened on 24 November 1888. It featured the plays of Bernard Shaw, the first nights of “Heartbreak House” and “Back to Methusaleh” and ,in 1905 “Major Barbara”, together with plays by John Goldsworthy. It closed in 1932, became a cinema in 1935, bombed during the war, re-opened as a theatre in 1953.

Incidently its telephone number in 1903 was “48 Westminster”.
It taken over by the English Theatre Company in 1956, with the first night of “Look Back In Anger” on 8 May 1956 by John Osborne with Kenneth Haig playing Jimmy Porter. This was followed by among others The Entertainer, N.F. Simpson’s A Resounding Tinkle in 1958, Olivier in Ionesco’s Rhinocerous in 1960, Michael Macliammoir’s The Importance of being Oscar in 1961 and The Rocky Horror Show in 1973. It moved on to the Classic Cinema and then The Essoldo.

It will always be associated with John Osborn, Tony Richardson, George Devine and Lindsay Anderson.
The Oriel bar next door was the “Kings Arms” pub.

And on the west side;

Peter Jones, Sloane Square
Founded by Peter Rees Jones [1843-1905] in 1871 in Draycott Avenue as “The Co-operative Drapery”, moving to the Kings Road in 1877. In 1895 he built a new red brick five story building in the present site, parts can still be seen at the back of the present store in Seymour Place. By 1900 his turnover was £180,000, equivalent to ……. today

In 1904 Peter Jones sold the store to John Lewis of Oxford Street for £20,000. He died the following year. Lewis’s son John Seddon Lewis managed the store and in 1929 he made it a profit sharing partnership, on the argument that he should look after both the customer “who exchanged money for his merchandise” but also the staff “who exchanged their work for his money”.

The present iconic building was built by John Lewis in 1935, the architect was William Crabtree of Slater, Crebtree and Moberley together with C.H. Reilly. He was much influenced by Erich Mendelsohn. It was referred to as the Glass Cage and Pevsner refers to it as “still one of London’s most likeable modern buildings”.

Richard Branson in 1973 opened a record store “Virgin Imports” at 2b Symons Street

West along the Kings Road past Peter Jones is;

25 Cadogan Gardens
This building forms part of the Peter Jones complex, and in interesting contrast to the main building. It was designed by the Century Guild leader Arthur Mackmurdo in 1892 for the Australian Mortimer Mennes, the renowned painter, etcher, rifle shot and raconteur. All the internal fittings were imported from Japan. Mennes created the celebrated “Home of Taste” on the Fulham Road.

On the left, south, side is the new shopping complex Duke of York Square, south of which is;

The Duke of York’s Head-quarters
“The Dukies, How Tommy Atkins junior is trained”.
Daily Chronicle, 2 July 1896
Named after Frederick, Duke of York, and son of George III, it was opened in 1803 as a Royal Military Asylum, a boarding school for the orphans of British soldiers, including 700 boys and 300 girls. It was designed by John Saunders who also did the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

In 1909 the school moved to Dover and it was taken over by the London TA. In June 1970 the gym was used for rehearsals of “Oh Calcutta” of which a US critic said “ the kind of show that gave pornography a dirty name”.
The running track was used by Sir Roger Bannister when training for the “four minute mile” in the early fifties.
In 1999 sold back to the Cadogan Estate by the MoD. The new square was designed by Paul Davies & Partners in 2003 and The Saatchi Gallery opened there in 2008 .

The Chapel on the corner of Cheltenham Terrace was consecrated in 1824 by the Bishop of London. Previously there had stood a cottage on this site which in 1797 became the rural retreat of Mrs. Crouch, an accomplished singer who performed at Drury Lane, was a great success in Dublin and who died in 1806, in Brighton. It is now a shop.

The open piazza area has, engraved in the pavement, a map of the Kings Road at the time of Charles II, together with tokens of the time embedded in the pavement.

Opposite is one of the few remaining coherent stretches of mid 19 th. century stucco buildings, stretching from no. 72, the former Colville Tavern to Anderson Street.

Opposite on the north side is Blacklands Terrace, site of;

Blacklands
“Blacklands was situated just to the west of the southern end of Sloane Avenue with extensive land around, in 1771 it comprised at least 89 acres. The house was owned by Charles Cheyne, later Viscount Newhaven, where he and his wife Lady Jane Cheyne would probably have lived prior to the purchase of the Manor of Chelsea.

Blacklands was described as “a lonely place where a cow keeper tended the commoner’s cattle”. In 1729 it is recorded that “on Sunday morning last about 8 0’clock Mr. Rogers of Chelsea crossing the common in order to go to Kensington was knocked down by two footpads who robbed him of his money and beat him in a barbarous manner and then made off across the fields towards Little Chelsea”. The name is perpetuated in Blacklands Terrace.

From the notes to an Exhibition on the history of the Kings Road titled from Inigo Jones to Peter Jones.
The shop on the corner was “The Colville Tavern “ pub which closed in 1969. It was named after Colville’s Flower nursery that was on the site in the 18 th. century.

Further west, on the south side past the Chapel and Cheltenham Terrace is;

Whitelands House
The original building was put up in 1772 as a Girls Boarding School, in 1841 it became a Teacher Training College. The School was rebuilt in 1891 by Henry Clutton In 1881 John Ruskin instituted an annual May Day Flower festival where a gold hawthorn cross designed by Arthur Severn was presented to the chosen queen with a copy of “sesame and Lilies”.. The school moved to West Hill Putney in 1930.

In 1933-35 it became brieflythe HQ of Sir Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists, and known locally as Fascist Fort or Blackhouse. [ Alf Goldberg’s book “Worlds End for Sir Oswald”. Book Guild]

In 1935 it was demolished and the current block of flats built in its place.

An advertisement dated May 1704 describes “Marlborough Tavern and Tea Garden adjoining to White-Lands boarding school near Chelsea, delightfully situated between the Kings Road and Fulham Road, rural prospect and agreeable situation where art modestly endeavours to improve upon natured. Hot rolls every day with the best of tea, coffee and cream, wines, syllabubs. A genteel ordinary on Sundays at 2 o’clock and the choicest of apples and pears lately arrived from France, known by the name of Renette Grife, the pears are Bon Chretien.” From Chelsea Scraps 2.

Opposite on the north side is;

Anderson Street
Karl Marx spent 6 months at 4 Anderson Street in 1848

Followed by;

Tryon Street
Was a footpath, known locally as “Butterfly Alley” separating two famous nurseries; John Colville, opened in 1793, and Thomas Davey. Colville is reputed to have introduced the Chrysanthemum from China. The Estates Gazette of October 1904 reported that many French gardeners came as refugees from 1685 and established a number of nursery gardens in and around the Kings Road. By 1830 tea gardens, nurseries and market gardens lined the Kings Road. It was originally called Keppel Street and was renamed in 1913 after Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon.

Laura Ashley was at 120 Kings Road, the former premises, until 1966, of Thomas Crapper [1836-1910], the water closet manufacturer, who started in Marlborough Road, now Draycott Avenue in 1861 and moved there in 1907. He was initially apprenticed to a plumber in Sidney Street and became plumber to Royalty following his highly succesfull invention “Crapper’s Valveless Waste Preventer” with “Certain Flush with easy Pull.”

Continue west and on the south side is a wide tree lined avenue

Royal Avenue
It was laid out for William III in 1692-4 as part of a proposed Parisian style triumphal way leading from Wren’s Royal Hospital to the south right up to Kensington Palace in the north. He also made substantial alterations to this palace. In true English fashion it got as far as the Kings Road. Foe details of the Royal Hospital please see the Embankment Walk.

It was originally called Chestnut Walk on account of the lines of Chestnut trees, by 1748 it was called White Stile Walk and was not called Royal Avenue until 1875. It was closed off from the Kings Road in 1971.
The houses on the west side are 1830’s, on the East 1840’s and 1850’s with 20 th.century replacements to the north..

It was the setting for the cult movie “The Servant” by Harold Pinter and starring Dirk Bogarde and James Fox. Also it was the address Ian Fleming gave for James Bond at nos 30.
On the corner was the famous 1960’s phenomena The Chelsea Drug Store based on Le Drugstore on Boulevard St. Germain. The building was designed by Barnett, Cloughley and Blakemore. Originally it was “the White Hart” pub, dating back to 1880, and is currently a McDonalds, need I say more!

A detour, at the end turn right into;

St Leonard’s Terrace
Bram Stoker, 1847-1912, lived here from 1902 to his death. He first lived with his wife Florence at 27 Cheyne Walk where he wrote his most famous novel Dracula in 1897, one of 18 novels. He worked for Sir Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre from 1879 to 1906.

Joyce Grenfell lived at number 21 St. Leonards Terrace in the 1920’s. Whilst living there; “we had two friends who joined in the Nancy loot sharing” Nancy Astor was her aunt and one of the Langhorne sisters. From there she moved to 149 Kings Road and then 114 Kings Road, and finally to 34 Elm Park Gardens.

Returning to the Kings Road and turning left proceed to;

Wellington Square
Built in the 1850’s by Francis Edwards, the elegant terraces on either side of the square facing Kings Road were built some ten years earlier. It was named in honour of the Duke of Wellington whose body had lain in state in the Royal Hospital.
Aleister Crowley, the stanic author, lived at 31 Wellington Square, as, allegedly did the fictitious James Bond.

And opposite, the cul-de-sac of;

Bywater Street
Built in the 1850’s on the site of a nursery garden and originally called Addison Place.
John le Carre’s character George Smiley in “Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy” [ published 1974] lived at 9 Bywater Street. “ Smiley arrived at the King’s Road, where he paused on the pavement as if waiting to cross. To either side, festive boutiques. Before him, his own Bywater Street, a cul-de-sac exactly one hundred and seventeen of his own paces long.”

The shop on the west side was Beaton’s the baker which flourished from 1913 to the 1990’s.

Continue west on the north side to site of;

Markham Arms
A popular pub sadly converted into a building society, a sign of the times. Virginia Ironside in her book “Chelsea Bird” noted “ Not like the old days when every one has private means and we spent our days in the Markham. Now its coffee and petty pilfering”.

Frank Norman, in his book “Norman’s London”[1969] noted that “Of late I have taken to visiting King’s Road Chelsea, of a Saturday morning, to drink of course, at the Markham Arms and ogle the stunning mini-skirted girls as they parade up and down without destination in the company of their narcissistic boy friends, with lank medusa hair, frilly shirts and gormless expressions. I feel old, ugly ,, fat and lonely”. [from Kings Road by Max Decharne]

Next is the site of;

Bazaar
Mary Quant opened her iconic boutique, Bazaar, in 1955 at Markham House, next to Markham Square, introducing the miniskirt, an iconic symbol of the swinging sixties. Virginia Ironside in her book “Chelsea Bird” noted “We stumbled up the Kings Road back home. We looked, as usual, in Sportique and Kiki Byrne and said how pretty the clothes were, and was Kiki Byrne better than Bazaar. I’m not sure..did you see that pretty blue one with a flared skirt?..yes, but on the other hand there was that brown lace one with long sleaves…oh I didn’t like that, it’s not my colour. I rather enjoy routine conversations as they require very little effort.”

Followed by;

Markham Square
It was started in 1840’s but not completed until 1860’s, and named after Pelham Markham Evans, the owner of Box Farm which stood between here and Markham Street
It had a Congregational church at the end, designed by John Tarring in the Gothic style, opened in 1860 and demolished in 1953. It’s spire was 138 ft. high. The gardens were redesigned in the 1950’s as a private country garden by the head gardener of Royal Hospital.

And opposite;

Smith Street
Built between 1794 and 1807 by a vintner named Thomas Smith.

Continue west on the north side to

Markham Street
The Chelsea Classic Cinema was on the western corner of Markham Street, it was opened initially by the London & Provincial Electric Theatre Company in 1913, designed by Felix Joubert. It was replaced by Boots the Chemist in 1973.

Prior to this the site was occupied by Box Farm, built in 1686 and demolished in 1899. It’s last owner was Mr. Pullam Markham Evans whose family had common rights “since 29 year of Elizabeth. Further up the street a John More had a nursery where he bred pelargonia including More’s Victory Pelargonium.

On to the arch of the;

The Pheasantry
On 152 Kings Road the Pheasantry was a Georgian Mansion built in 1769. The façade was added in 1881 by the artist and interior decorator Amedee/ Lelix Joubert, a member of the Joubert family of cabinet makers in the French style who owned the building. He also added the entrance Arch which is supposed to be a copy of the Arc du Carrousel with its quadriga, a four horsed chariot.

It’s name derived from a game dealer Samuel Baker in 1865.. In 1916 a dancing academy founded by a Russian Princess Serafine Astafieva whose pupils included; Anna Neagle, Anton Dolin, Alicia Markova and Margot Fonteyn, and Diaghilev visited often.

After the war it became a set of apartments “whose tenants included Martin Sharp, who co-edited the underground magazine Oz and wrote the lyrics to Cream’s “ Tales of Brave Ulysses”. On one occasion Eric Clapton, Cream’s guitarist, narrowly escaped arrest on drug charges by fleeing out of the back of the building as Sergeant Norman Pilcher, a detective who had a talent for arresting rock stars, buzzed the intercom, shouting “postman, special delivery” and burst in. [ Gavin Weightman, London’s Thames, John Murray} He was known as The Gardener ” being so good at “planting”.

In 1932 Rene de Meo and Mario Cazzini opened a members only club restaurant on the ground floor and basement, which survived until 1966. Members included Francis Bacon, Aneurin bevan, Marc Chagall, Cyril Connolly. Lucien Freud, Robert Newton, Gregory Peck, John Rothenstien, Dylan Thomas, Peter Ustinov. [see Booklet by Nesta Macdonald]

In 1956 The Pheasantry Club, with its candles in Chianty bottles charged an annual membership of 10/6. Germain Greer wrote “The Femail Eunuch” here.

It was totally redeveloped in 1971-81 save the façade and is currently a pizza restaurant.

Opposite is;

Radnor Walk
Was named after Letitia, Countess of Radnor, who lived at the corner of Flood Street and Royal Hospital Road in the 17 th. century, on the death of her husband she married Charles Lord Cheyne In the early 19 th. century it was the site of Pilton’s Manufactury.

Ossie Clark & Alice Pollock ran Quorum at 52 Radnor Walk. Other shops of the period included “I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet” and “Granny Takes A Trip”.
Shoe [Susan Mary] Taylor, sixties icon and mistress of Jonathan Guiness, lived in Radnor walk where she brought up their three children. He wrote a biography of her; “ Shoe, the Odessey of a Sixties Survivor”.

The Antiquarius Antique market was originally a Temperance Billiard Hall
And the;

The Chelsea Potter Pub
Originally called “The Commercial Tavern” and dating from 1842 it was renamed “The Chelsea Potter” in 1957. It was built by the owners of a “tea and recreation garden, a sort of little Vauxhall, with coloured lamps, statuary, shrubberyand fountain, with music and dancing” in Manor House, King’s Road. The pleasure garden was started in 1836, but lasted only for a few years when the Commercial was built on the site. [ from Historical notes on Chelsea Pubs and Ellenor]

Virginia Ironside in her book referred to it as the Chelsea Weaver “To be “In” at the time was only to appear once a week at Slashers, have a few drinks at the Chelsea Weaver in the Kings Road, read Town and Queen, have coffee at the Brazil which was also in the Kings Road and refer to girls as birds.”

With, further on;

The Picasso Coffee Bar
First opened in 1958 it is a classic Kings Road feature echoing back to a trendier era..The author Martin Amis, when eighteen and still living at home in the Fulham Road, spent a lot of time, as he later wrote, “mincing up and down the Kings Road in skintight velves and grimy silk scarves and haunting a coffee bar called the Picasso, and smoking hash, then £8 an ounce, and trying to pick up girls” [from Kings Road by Max Decharne]

The next street going south is;

Flood Street
Named in 1906 after a local JP in 1860’s Luke Thomas Flood who lived in Cheyne Walk and was a generous supporter of the Parochial Schools. Previously the street was known as Robinson’s Lane perhaps after Sir Ernest Robinson the developer of Ranelagh Gardens in 1741, and later as Queen Street and initially as Pound Lane. It led directly down to the famous Swan Inn, much frequented by Samuel Pypes

Mr. Flood has a memorial stone in St. Lukes Church.
In May 1964 The Beatles rehearsed a show at the Hall of Remembrance with Long John Baldry, Millie, P.J.Proby, Cilla Black. On 30 March 1967 at Michael Coopers Photographic Studio, 4 Chelsea Manor Studios, 1-11 Flood Street, the sleeve of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was put together.
Quintin Crew lived at nos.33 and the Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher lived at nos, 19. James Joyce, the Nazi propagandist, lived in Flood Street from 1928 to 1930 with his first wife Hazel and their small daughter. He joined the conservative group, the Junior Imperial League, but moved further right and joined Moseley’s Fascist Party. He gave his last pro fascist speech in Sloane Square in August 1939. The next night he fled to Germany. Jonah Barrington of the Daily Express coined his nickname “Lord Haw Haw”. [ From Hester Marsden Smedley, Times of Chelsea, Feb. 1973]

Rossetti Studios where built in 1894 “when Chelsea secured its international name as the art centre of London”. [ Artists Houses in London by Giles Walkley.]

The “Trafalgar” pub opposite was originally called “the Lord Nelson”.

With a detour down to the charmingly named;

Loo Avenue
It was named after William St. Loo, the third husband of Bess of Hardwick. Her fourth husband was the Earl of Shrewsbury who had built Shrewsbury house in 1520. Her second husband was William Cavendish of Chatsworth. The house was finally demolished in 1813.
And return back to the Kings Road up;

Chelsea Manor Street
Previously simply Manor Street it passed through the former great garden of the New Manor House, the home of Katherine Parr.
The Methodist Sunday School built in 1903

Opposite on the north side;

The Gaumont Palace
The Chelsea Electric Palace, 180/182 Kings Road was Chelsea’s original picture theatre. It featured, according to a contemporary advertisement, A Great Vitagraph Masterpiece “Love, Luck and Gasoline”.

The Cinema, designed by W.E. Trent and E.F. Tulley, opened in 1934. The bust on the façade is of W. Friese-Greene between comedy and tragedy.
Waitrose is built on the site of Tankard & Smith’s garage.

Followed by

Bank Building
The adjacent bank was built in 1909 in the Edwardian Baroque style, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield [ 1856-1942], better known for Lambeth Bridge and recasting the facades of John Nash’s Regent Street.

And the site of;

Chelsea Palace of Varieties Theatre
On the corner of Kings Road and Sidney Street it was designed by Wylson Alan & Lang in 1903. It seated 2500 and had such stars as Gracie Fields and George Robie.
In 1940 Alfred Hawthorn Hill- Benny Hill- after Jack Benny, got his first job, at 16 years old, after an audition with Harry Benet at Chelsea Palace. In 1953 The Beverly Sisters and Max Wall played there.

In 1957 it closed and became a Granada recording studio where such programs as The Army game and “Bootsy and Snudge” and a live variety show “Chelsea at Nine” were made. In 1958 Billie Holliday appeared there and in 1960 Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren.
It was demolished in 1969 for flats and a showroom.

The site had previously been Oakley Works where the Wilkinson Sword Company, manufacturer of guns and swords, had a factory.

Opposite is the;

Chelsea Town Hall.
The Chelsea Vestry, including public baths, was built in 1858, the architect was W. Pocock. In 1887 an addition in a palladian style was built on the rear facing Chelsea Manor Gardens, the architect was JM Brydon. Then in 1907 the Vestry part was demolished and the current Town hall built, to the designs of Leonard Stokes in 1908.

With, next door

Chenil Galleries
Were built in 1905 as art galleries by John Knewslub , replacing Charles Chenil’s art material shop, Chenils two sisters were married to William Orpen and William Rothenstien. In 1910 Augustus John had a studio there, as did Eric Gill and Roger Fry and David Bomberg had his first show there in 1914. In 1926 David Barbirolli conducted a chamber Orchestra there. In 1933 the receivers were called. It became a recording studio for Decca, Duke Ellington and his orchestra recorded there. It is now a Toy shop, having been an antique market.
Green and Stone, the artist suppliers, moved from Chenil Galleries to 259 Kings Road in 1934 .

The road from the north is Sidney Street with, half way up;

St Lukes Church Sidney Street
St Luke’s, Sidney Street, in the Gothic Revival style it was built by James Savage in 1821, is the biggest & tallest parish church in London. Its style is magpie like with influences from; Kings College Cambridge, Magdalen College Oxford, Bath Abbey and Exeter Cathedral. According to Eastlake’s “Gothic Revival it is “the earliest groined church of the modern revival”. It was consecrated on 18 October 1824.

James Savage [1779-1852] also designed St. James Spa Road Bermondsey, one of the waterloo Churches.

Charles Dickens & Jerome K. Jerome were marries here. The “K” stands for Klapka, after the hero of the 1849 Hungarian uprising General Georg Klapka. Steven Spielberg chose it for the opening sequence of “Empire of the Sun”.

On the west corner is;

The Board of Guardians Building
Originally a terrace called Parham Place the western part was built in 1883, and the extension in 1903, designed by Lansell & Harrison.

Still on the north side next is;

Dovehouse Green
The land was given to the Church as an overspill graveyard in 1727 by Sir Hans Sloane, it was enlarged in 1790, and closed in 1812. However a mortuary chapel was built in the late 19 th to serve the workhouse. This was demolished in 1947, the tomb stones cleared and opened as a public garden. In 1977 the Old Burial Ground was landscaped and fully opened to the public as Dovehouse Green. The obelisk in the centre was erected in memory of Andrew Millar, a famous bookseller and publisher who died in 1785.

Followed by;

Dovehouse Street
Christine Keeler was in the Chelsea Hospital for Women in 20 Jan 1962

With opposite what was, {but is now Henry J Bean}

The Six Bells Pub
By C.R. Crickmay in 1898 “is a larger than life old English style in the manner of Shaw or George; two splendid lavish storeys of Ipswich windows below three picturesque jettied gables”. Pevsner.
The previous much older building was popular with Whistler and Rossetti, as well as Carlyle, as he was not allowed to smoke at home.
During the rebuilding in 1901 a mammoth’s tooth weighing 16 lbs. and measuring 15” by 12” was excavated.

With back on the north side the;

Fire Station
The fire Station was built in the 1960’s by the London County Council on the site of a regency terrace similar to the existing Kings Parade further west.

The next street south is;

Oakley Street
Formed in 1830 following the demolition of Chelsea Manor House in 1822, and named after William Cadogan who was created Baron Cadogan of Oakley in 1718. The terrace houses date from 1850-60.

The eccentric Dr. John Samuel Phene, who developed Oakley street and lived at nos. 34 Oakley street on the corner of Upper Cheyne Row. He built a house in Carlton terrace featuring an extensive collection of architectural relics on its exterior. He built it as a replica of his family’s Chateau de Savenay in the Loire which was destroyed in 1790s. He never actually lived in the house, nicknamed the Gingerbread Castle by the locals, and it was demolished in 1917. He planted trees in Oakley Street, the first example in London. It was much admired by Prince Albert who proceeded to plant tree in front of the South Kensington Museum.

Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic lived at nos 56 from 1905-08, George Melly lived there in the 1950’s when working for E.L.T. Mesens, a friend of Magritt and head of The Surrealist Group of England. David & Angie Bowie had a large Georgian house in Oakly street in 1973, where he was found in bed with Mick Jagger.. Martin Summer has a roof garden at nos. 90 with 2,500 potted plants.
The pub “The Phene”, built in 1850, was a favourite drinking hole of George Best.
Donald Maclean lived at 29 Oakley Street

Joan Wyndham in her biography “Love is Blue” mentions; “ My week’s leave is coming up soon, thank god, but I have rashly promised to spend it with Petya. He says we’ve got to take a room because of Ethel. Is Ethel his mistress? I ask myself. We wandered through Chelsea eating cherries and looking for digs and finally ended up in Oakley Street at a brothel owned by old Mabel Lethbridge, whose telegraphic address used to be Chastity, London. I did’nt know if it was still a brothel so I pretended to be Petya’s wife, and we booked a lovely room with a window looking onto the garden, a patchwork quilt, a wireless, a copy of Kipling’s If over the bed. Dylan Thomas lives here too but I think he is away at the moment.”

On the south side, next to Oakley Street is;

Argyll House, 211 Kings Road
The society hostess Lady Sibyl Colefax [1874 -1950] lived there from 1922 to 1937, during this time she entertained “tout society” including; Arnold Bennett, Virginia Woolf, Hilair Belloc, Max Beerbolm, Winston Churchill, Fred Astaire and George Gershwin. It is alleged that in 1935 Ernest and Wallace Simpson were introduced to The Prince of Wales, latter Edward VIII who gave up the throne for the woman. Sibyl Colefax set up the interior design company Colefax & Fowler.

It is the oldest existing house on the Kings Road, built in 1723 for a John Perrin by a Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni [1686-1746]. He was a protégé of Lord Burlington, wrote on Palladio and designed Queensbury House Burlington Gardens in 1721, now the Royal Bank of Scotland. . It was purchased by The Duke of Argyll in 1769, hence its name
The next two houses were built in 1720’s in the English Renaissance style. At 213 next door Syrie Maugham lived, a noted society decorator in the 1930’s. After the war Sir Carol Reed, the film director famous for The Third Man, lived there.
At 215 Dr. Thomas Arne [1710-1778], the composer of “Rule Brittannia”, lived in the eighteenth century. He was the doyen of glees, composed for the Pleasure gardens at Ranelagh. It was occupied by the actress Ellen Terry from 1904 to 1920. Later Peter Ustinov lived there.
In 1960 Judy Garland rented Carol Reeds house with Sid Lufts and her children Liza, Lorna & Joey.
At 217, built in 1750, lived James Hutton [1715-1795] one of the founding members of the Moravian Church.

The next street on the south side is;

Glebe Place
A chapel was built in 1687 on Cooks Ground, now Glebe Place, for the Huguenots who settled in Chelsea after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. [ Chelsea Scraps 1-270, 1897] It was demolished in 1892 to make way for 64/65 Glebe Place. [ From Notes on Sites and History of French Churches in London by George Beeman, Huguenot Society 1905]
Glebe Place and Manresa Road became the centre for artists in London and, in the 1880’s, internationally famous as the arts centre of London. Glebe Place Studios, 52-59, 60-61 and 64-65 were all built in the 1888, the latter by Dance and Smirk. They were used by, among others, Walter Sickert, William Rothenstien and Ernest Shepard. Cedar Studios were built for the sculptor Conrad Dressler in 1885.
Francis Bacon the painter lived at 1 Glebe Place in the 1930’s, he then moved to 7 Cromwell place, the studio of Sir John Everett Millais.
The West House, no.35 Glebe Place, is regarded as a “landmark in the history of English nineteenth century architecture” signalling the re-emergence of the Queen Ann style. It was built in 1868/69 to the design of Philip Speakman Webb [1831-1915] in a “vernacular domestic astylar eclectisism” for the pre-raphaelite artist G.P. Boyce. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings was founded here. The building much influenced Lutyens [1869-1944]. Webbb also did the Red House in Bexley for William Morris.
The Studio, nos 48, was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1920-4 and built on the gardens of Phenes house where he had buried his horse which haunted the house. Mackintosh lived at nos. 43a. He proposed a major studio development along the south side. See “C.R. Mackintosh, The Chelsea Years” by Alan Crawford, Huntarian Art Gallery.
No. 50 was designed by Frank Lowe in 1985-7.

With opposite

Manresa Street
Holman Hunt had a studio in Manresa Street in 1876 where he painted “The Triumph of The Innocents”. There was a colony of the “advanced” school of artists. E. M. Forster mentions in 1910 “long haired Chelsea” referring to the artist community. The artists colony was in purpose built studios built by John Brass in 1878. Those on the east were known as Trafalgar Studios, and those to the west as Merton Villa Studios.
St Margarets, a house on the south side of Trafalgar Square [now Chelsea Square] was the residence of Lord Gilbert Kennedy. It was demolished for the polythnic.
The Public Library and South West Polytechnic in Manresa Road was designed by J.M. Brydon and built in 1891, who also was the architect for Chelsea Town Hall. The Poly, a Peoples Palace featured courses on; Cookery, Dressmaking, Needlework, Household Management and Home Science. The building on the east side is of the 1960’s are housed the art school; the Chelsea College of Art. The Sex Pistols second gig, on 5/12/1975 was held there.

Involving

King’s Parade
The new buildings on either side of Manresa Road, fire station, art school and hostel, replaced an elegant terrace of houses dating from 1810 and demolished in 1955. They were designed by the LCC architects dept, to much acclaim from the architectural establishment of the day.

“During 1934-6 one of the houses at the western end of King’s Parade, no 292, was used as a showroom by John Fowler, the famous interior decorator and joint founder of Colefax & Fowler. This was just after he had left Peter Jones where he worked in the specialist paint section, it was conveniently located, just opposite Argyll House where Lady Sibyl Colefax was then living”. From Inigo Jones to Peter Jones.

And back on the south side

Bramerton Street
William Joyce, Lord “Haw-Haw”, lived at 77 Flood Street, 37 Bramerton Street
and 44 Jubilee Place. In 1924 he head “Biff Boy” at Mosley’s Chelsea HQ [see; Haw-Haw, the tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce by Nigel Farndale.
At the Clylie Jessop Art gallery at 271 Kings Road a sale of art work to support the Oz trail where David Hockney sold nude prints of the three; Richard Neville who got 12 months, Felix Dennis, 9 months and Jim Anderson, 15 months. Wedgwood had one of their workshops nearby.

Site of the Gateway Club, see notes.
Detour down Bramerton street to;

Lawrence Street
Is one of the oldest in London and names after Sir Thomas Lawrence who owned one of the manor houses in 1583. In nos.16 John Gay, writer of the Beggars Opera lived from 1712 to 1714, and Tobias Smollett from 1750 to 1762.

Back onto Kings Road past;

Borris’s Sandwich shop
S. Borris, the Sandwich shop at 251? Kings Road was run for 35 years by Joe & Terry Heade, who had bought it from Mr. Borris. It closed in 2004 after serving, among others, Lauren bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Mick Jagger, John Lennon & Yoko Ono, John Wayne, Judy Garland, Christine Keeler, Boy George, Billy Connolly.

With opposite, on the north side;

Carlyle Square
Previously Oakley Square, name was changed in 1872 in honour of Thomas Carlyle, unusual as he was still alive. First conceived in 1830 in 1840 two terraces of 3 houses each were built facing each other in a style of Robert Adam. Recession struck, the terrace idea was abandoned and the semi detached houses date from 1862.
The Sitwells lived at nos. 2 . Alfred Whitehead lived at nos. 17 and it was here that Bertrand Russell had his meetings with Lady Ottoline Morrell. He and Whitehead were co-writing Principa Mathematica at the time. Whitehead then moved to 12 Elm Park Gardens in 1917 and back to 14 Carlyle Square in 1921. The Thorndicks lived at nos 6 from 1921. .
The spy Kim Philby, lived at 18 Carlyle Square from 1944 with his wife Aileen and four children until his defection to Moscow in 1963.

Continue past the;

The Cadogan Arms Pub.
The present building dates from 1869, it was built on the site of an earlier 17 th. century pub, the Rose & Crown. The art gallery on Old Church Street is part of this old pub.

To the cross street

Old Church Street, south

The pub, half way down on the left, at no. 35, and currently the “ Pigs Ear” was “The Black Lion” and one of the oldest pubs around. The Notes on Chelsea Pubs states that the present Black Lion is the modern version of a much illustrated and delightfully picturesque 17 th. century inn [Blunt] The old house had the usual accompaniment of tea garden and a bowling green. It was rebuilt in 1860, renamed the “Front Page” in 1986 and renamed again in 1998.
The minerologists Percy & Winifred Botley had their shop at 30 Old Church Street from 1931 to 1982. Customers included Gary Cooper, The King of Sweden.
Sir John Betjemin lived at 53 Old Church Street when he was young, from 1917 to 1924, the family then moved to 29 Radnor Walk; “ I am always annoyed by improvements”.
Jonathan Swift lived at the rectory on Church Lane in 1725
Petyte House was built as a school in 1603, rebuilt in 1703 by William Petyte and bombed in 1941.
The Pink Floyds first record was recorded at Sound Techniques recording studio at 46a Old Church Street.
At the very end, by Chelsea Old Church, was the site of “White Horse” pub reputed to have been visited by King Henry VIII . It was rebuilt in 1840 and painted by Elizabeth Gulston. For details of the Church and area please see the Embankment Walk

On the corner

Cinema
The Essoldo, 281 Kings Road opened on the site of an ice rink on the corner of Old Church Street. The Kings Picture House, on the corner of Church Street, opened on 5 October 1911. The prices were 2/- & 1/- for the dress circle, fauteuils at 6d. and seats, using a separate entrance at 3d.

Including, south on the left;

The Rectory
In 1566 the land owner the Marquis of Winchester gave the land to the Church for a rectory. The house dates from early Georgian with later additions, but it has recently been extensively rebuilt and extended. It has a 2 acre garden. Rectors of the Old Church include Gerald Wellesley, brother of the Duke of Wellington, Charles Kingsley, father of Charles and Henry Kingsley, and Gerald Blunt, father of Reginald the local historian.

And;

Old Church Street, north
The sporting painter John Sartorius, 1775-1830, lived at nos. 155
The Chelsea Arts Club at 143, initially at 181 Kings Road, was founded by Walter Sickert, George Clausen and Whistler. The first Arts Club Ball was held in the Albert Hall in 1908, and was finally banned in 1959.
Katherine Mansfield lived at 141A Old Church Street
Terrace of Georgian houses 141 to 129
William de Morgan lived at 127, which were in fact two houses converted by him into one.
117 Old Church Street was designed, in 1914, by Halsey Ralph Ricardo [1854-1928] for his daughter and her husband artist Maresco Pearce as a wedding present.
Number 123 was built in 1894 for Felix Moschelis.
In 1885 the owner of 125-129 Old Church Street was prosecuted for running a high class brothel for members of the Army and Navy and other West End gentleman’s clubs. It was also claimed that it operated as a clearing house for the white slave trade.
The two exceptional modern movement buildings are no. 64 and 66. Nos 64 was by Eric Mendelsohn & Serg Chermayeff. Serg Chermayeff who did the De La Warr Pavillion in Bexhill was born in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.

No. 66 was by Walter Gropius & Maxwell Fry for the playwright Benn Levy and his wife Constance Cummings. He said “I paid for it from the profits of a film script I did’nt want to write in 1936. The architect gropius was a refugee who needed a job.. Builders were idle. The plot of land was for sale. I did’nt want to build an old house, if you see what I mean, so I built a new one.” From “Night & Day in Chelsea” by Alan Brien in Lilliput.

H. Haworth lived in Upper Church Street in 1825 where he had an unrivalled Museum of Entymology and Natural History featuring 40,000 insects and 20,000 dried plants.
Alexander Stephens lived in Park House, Upper Church Street, from 1757 to 1821.
The Landscape painter Philip Reinagle RA lived in the street in the 1820’s as did the animal portrait painter W.H. Davis.
Constance Cummings lived at nos.66 from 1947 to 1967, Anthony Goss the artist at nos. 137 from 1948 to 1968.
Number 149 was an asylum for women.
The Secret Intelligence Service used no. 111 in the 1950’s to train Baltic émigrés to be intelligence agents.
Also living here were; Felix Moscheles the painter, Mr. de Morgan the novelist, Mr. Bernard Partridge the Punch cartoonist.

Returning to the Kings Road and turning right to the next street;

The Vale
The Vale was cottages when Whistler lived there. In 1888 the newly weds William and Evelyn de Morgan had a cottage there, as did Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon, publishers of The Dial and founders of the Vale Press
See separate article. G.B. Stuart in his book “A Road Book to Old Chelsea” published in 1914 noted; “But the newly planned Avenue of the Vale, with its antennae of new streets in every direction, has cost us Church Street as we have loved it since childhood; c’est magnifique, this new tasteful suburb of old Chelsea, but it is not the homely purlieu that we, and dean swift, used to know”.

With a detour north to;

Mallord Street
A.A. Miln lived first at 11 Mallord street and then at 13 Mallord Street [1925-29], Christopher Robin was born there in 1920 and Winnie the Pooh published in 1926 followed by House at Pooh Corner in 1928. Pooh Bear came from Harrods.
In 1914 Augustus John had Robert van Hoff design him a house at 28 Mallord street as a copy of Rembrandt’s studio house in Amsterdam. In 1935 he moved to 49 Glebe Place and then from 1940 to 1958 he lived at 33 Tite Street.

South of The Vale is;

Paulton Square
Set out in 1836 it is the best preserved example of a late Georgian Square, each of its three sides is a symmetrical terrace with projecting houses at each end and a central section of taller houses with an attic storey. An example of Palace Fronted Terrace, uniform terrace articulated with centre and end houses breaking forward and embellished with pediments. It is looked after by the Sloane-Stanley Estate Trustees. On the death of Sir Hans Sloane, who had no son, part of his estate passed to his eldest daughter, Sarah, who was wife of George Stanley of Paultons, Hampshire. The other part went to his younger daughter Elizabeth who had married a Welshman Charles Cadogan of Oakley. To the south is Danvers Street where Jonathan Swift lived in 1711, and Alexander Fleming of Penicillin fame lived at nos. 20a from 1929 to 1958. It was named after Danvers House.

West of the Vale on the north side is;

Bluebird Garage
The terrace opposite Kings Parade, Beaufort Terrace, was demolished and replaced by the Blue Bird garage. It was designed by Robert Sharp and built in 1923 as the largest and most modern garage in Europe. Petrol was 1/5 a gallon. The buildings on either side had segregated waiting and writing rooms for ladies, owner drivers and chauffeurs. Donald Campbell, holder of land speed records, named his cars after this garage. In the 1950’s it became an ambulance station and in 1997 Sir Terence Conran converted it into a Gastrodome.

Note; the oldest shops are 229-235.

The next cross street is

Beaufort Street
The street was laid out on the site of Sir Thomas More’s house and estate. Following his demise in 1535 the house had a number of owners before being purchased in 1682 by Henry Somerset, later Duke of Beaufort, hence the name. It remained in that family until 1737 when it was purchases, now derelict, by Sir Hans Sloane. He demolished the house in 1740. From 1751 t0 1770 the estate was occupied by Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brotherhood who occupied Lindsey House. They planned to create a community, called Sharon, but ran out of Money. The land was then sold off as building plots and Beaufort Street came into existence. A busy bit of land.
In the late 1940’s Marchesa Luisa Casati lived at 32 Beaufort Street [1881-1957] , a wealthy model for Augustus John, Jacob Epstien , Man Ray and Cecil Beaton. Buried in Brompton cemetery.
The five hefty blocks of flats in red brick were built in 1903-4 by Joseph & Smithem. The were built to provide 261 self contained tenements with eight bathrooms and a drying room in one of the basements.

With on the corner the site of;

The Roebuck Pub
Was built in the 1890’s, between 1975 and 1978 John Lydon of the Sex Pistols met and played here, calling it a flag ship boozer. It was converted into a bar and is currently being re-developed.

Up Beaufort Street is;

Chelsea Park Gardens
The development of this group of houses started in 1916 in the style of the Garden City Movement.
Alfred Munnings lived at 96 Chelsea Park Gardens from1920 to 1959. A well known painter of horses and a strident anti modernist. He was a rather poor president of the Royal Academy from 1944 to 1949, having beaten Augustus John to the post.

Back on the Kings Road and continuing west

Chelsea Park Dwellings
Set up as housing for the working classes by Catherine Baroness Courtney of Penwith, who lived in Cheyne Walk, in 1885. the 60 flats were designed by Elijah Hoole “in a rural style” He also designed Hereford House in Old Church Street for Octavia Hill who was very active in the 1860’s building blocks for the poor with money from John Ruskin. It was bought by developers in the 1980’s and is now known as The Portico.

The restaurant is on the corner of Park Walk, was “The Man in the Moon” pub and dates back to1726, but rebuilt in 1891 and converted in 2003. It was the centre for punk in 1977.

On the south side of the Kings Road and just beyond “the kink” is;

Milman Street
Opened in 1726 and named after Sir W. Milman [d.1713] who owned a house nearby, The first modern Ice Rink, the Glaciarium, was opened in the street under canvas in 1876.
The custard coloured tower, no. 355, was built as council flats in 1969, and revamped by Fitch & co in 1988.

And behind a cream coloured wall and large wooden door is;

Moravian Chapel, Manse and Burial Ground, Millman Street.
The Moravians were a Protestant sect founded in Bohemia by John Huss in the 1400s, a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. One of its leaders in 1751, Count Zinzendorf bought Lindsey House as a centre for them in England, converting the stables into a Chapel and Burial ground, both of which exist today. He sold it in 1770. The burials include James Hutton, pioneer of the movement, James Gilray, father of the caricaturist, Benjamin Latrobe, architect of the Capitol in Washington, Nunal, an unbaptised Esquimau Indian, Captain James Fraser, explorer of the west coast of Canada and who crossed the Atlantic 56 times. Also buried there is Minister Petrus Bohler [d.1775] to whom John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, attributed his conversion. Wesley preached in Old Church in 1775.
The pub next door, now a restaurant was “The Globe”.

On the north side, with its fast clock is home to some definitive boutiques;

430 Kings Road
The boutique;
Hung on You 1966 Michael Rainey
Mr. Freedom 1968
Let it Rock 1971 Vivienne Westwood&Malcolm McLaren
[ Malcolm Edwards aka Talcy Malcy
Too Fast to Live too young to Die 1972
SEX 1974 Swastika & upsidedown crucifix
Seditionanes 1977

With, further on;

488 Kings Road
Granny Takes a Trip 1966

Between the two is the rather elegant;

Sloane Stanley Estate
The estate stretches from Limerston Street west via Horbury Street and Shalcomb Street to Langton Street. It was designed very much as a respectable middle class development, in the 1850’s, in contrast to, at the time, the Latin Quarter image of Cheyne Walk.
The restaurant on the corner of Limerston Street was “The Stanley” pub.

To the south side is a pub, the;

Worlds End
King Charles is the reputed originator of the Worlds End. His coach broke an axel there and on seeing the muddy fields on one side and sand bank on the other he exclaimed “Odds blood, it would have to happen at the worlds end”. It was a noted house of entertainment in the reign of King Charles II when access was by river.

By the time the dramatist William Congreve wrote “Love for Love” in 1695 the Worlds End had a tea garden which he described as “a resort of doubtful repute”.

Mrs Forsight “I suppose you would not go alone to the Worlds End”
Mrs. Frail “The Worlds End! What, do you mean to banter me”.

The current pub was rebuilt in 1897 by John Bowden of the Royal Chelsea Brewery. It replaced a 1860 building which in turn replaced a building dating back to at least 1670.

In 1792 there was a plan to burn an effigy of Tom Paine at Worlds End, he had recently been indicted following publication of the Rights of Man and had fled to France

Diana Dors had a flat in Worlds End in 1949, when she was known as “Swinging Dors” For New Year Party in 1950 she and Dandy Kim had a party at the Cross Keys pub, and drove around in a powder blue Cadillac. By 1963 she was living in Elystan Place

The area around the Worlds End, including the Guinness Trust buildings, was badly damaged in the war and completely redeveloped from 1967 -77 by Eric Lyons as a “1970 style council community”, with echoes of social engineering. In 1973 Christine Keller was a tenant. The neighbouring Cremorne Estate was built in the 1950’s.

See; “World’s End, a Memoir of a Blitz Childhood” by Donald James Wheal.

St. Johns Church, Worlds End Passage by Newton & Belling, demolished after the war.

The next cross street is Edith Grove, followed by, from the south Tedema Road, and going north;

Gunter Grove
John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, tried to drive once and drove straight under a lorry on Gunter Grove, in Chelsea, where he lived riotously during the punk era in 1975, when he was invited by McLaren to join the Sex Pistols. Malcolm McLaren opened the SEX shop on the Kings Road

A detour south down Tadema Road leads to;

Lots Road
Named after the “Lots” of ground belonging to the manor over which parishioners had “Lamas” rights, grazing rights from 13 August to sowing time..
The Power station was built in 1905 by an American, Charles Tyson Yerkes, whose company owned a number of tube lines including the District, Bakerloo, Central and Piccadilly. He deeded the power to run the trains. The architect was a fellow American James Russell Chapman.

And the site of;

Cremourne Gardens
The site was originally Chelsea Farm, and bought by a supporter of the Methodist Movement, Selina The Countess of Huntingdon, who built a house there. It was purchased by Viscount Cremorne in 1778. His wife Lady Cremorne, was the great, great grand daughter of William Penn. She died in 1825.
In 1832 it was bought by the self styled Baron de Beaufain and opened a sporting club. It failed and was sold in 1842 to Renton Nicholson who opened a successful pleasure and entertainment park, including an American Bowling saloon. A feature was Balloon ascents, Montgolfier performed there. In 1874 a Vincent de Groof jumped from a balloon at 500 feet with only very large wings, he was killed landing in Sidney Street, another balloonist snagged the steeple of St. Lukes Church, killing
the pilot.

Returning up Lots Road, opposite is;

Stanley House, 550 Kings Road
Stanley House, by Stanley Bridge, was originally built before 1625 and called Brickhills. It was built by Sir Arthur Georges, a friend of the poet Edmund Spenser and a cousin of Sir Walter Raleigh. He died in 1625 and the property went to his daughter, the wife of Sir Robert Stanley.
It was rebuilt in 1691. It was owned by William Hamilton, British Envoy at the court of Naples and husband of Lady Hamilton of Nelson fame. He accompanied Lord Elgin to Greece and the casts of some of the treasures they brought back could be seen set into the walls of the house. It later became, in 1840, the residence of the principal of St Marks College. This training college for Church of England teachers was visited by Leo Tolstoy on 12 March, 1861. Essays prepared for him by the pupils can be seen in the Tolstoy museum in Moscow.
The house was renovated in 2002 at a cost of £10 million and has a copy of the Elgin Marbles in a frieze around the dinning room walls.

Followed by;

Chelsea College
Originally the College of St. Mark and St. John, established in 1840 by the National Society for the Education of the Poor as one of the first teacher training colleges.
Byzantine in style by Edward Blore and built in 1842-47. The octagon building and neo-Norman chapel on the Fulham Road were built in 1843. Two neo Georgian blocks on the Kings Road were added in 1910 & 1923.
The entire complex is now converted into flats etc.

And then

Stanley Bridge
“That the Lord of the Manor ought to mend Stanbrigge, leading to Fulham Marsh”
From Old Chelsea Place Names by Charles Aldridge in Chelsea Misc. I
The first record of a bridge over Chelsea Creek was in 1448, it was rebuilt in 1717, 1826 and finally in 1908. The creek, also called Counters Creek or Billingwell Ditch, was canalised in 1828 from Counters Bridge on High Street Kensington to the Thames . The scheme was a financial failure and was bought by a railway company, Birmingham, Bristol and Thames Junction, who built the railway along the canal

With, to the south, the site of

Sandford Manor
Was built 1655-60 and reputed to be the dallying place for Nell Gwynne and Charles II, the king could come by boat and avoid the gaze of vulgar citizenry. It later served successively as gunpowder factory, clothing store and canteen for soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars, before becoming a staff house for the gas company in 1824. The gas company named there two small green shunting engines Nell Gwynne and Charles 2 after the legend.

The 22 bus will take one back to Sloane Square, or continue west along the New Kings Road to Putney and the River.

Notes

History of Chelsea, Notes For Antiquarian Enthusiasts

“Every street and corner of Chelsea, almost every foot of ground, is historic”
Alfred Beaver in “Memorials of Old Chelsea”, 1892

Chelsea, Its name
The earliest record of “Chelsea” goes back to Anglo-Saxon times when it was called “Chelcehithe” and “Cealchythe” by Offa, King of the Mercians, at a synodal council in 785. In the Domesday Book the Normans, with their Italian scribes, transcribed this to both “Cerchede” and “Chelched”. Papal letters of 1290 refer to a church at Chelchuthe. Sir Thomas More referred to it as “Chelsith” and by the sixteenth century it became “Chelseye”. Ben Jonson in “The Forest” mentions “the sands of Chelsey fields”. Phonetically it can now sound, in certain quarters, like “Chelseah”.

Etymologically it is thought to derive from “chesel”, or a mixture of sand and pebbles which were found along the foreshore; q.v. Chesil Beach in Dorset and Winchelsea on the coast of Sussex. Others argue that it is derived from the Saxon for wharf or haven, Cals Hythe or Chalk-hyth.

Chelsea Pre-history.
Evidence of early man has been found through out the Thames valley, which itself dates to around 450,000 when an early ice sheet pushed it down, previously it flowed via the Vale of St .Albans as a tributary of the Rhine.
This evidence includes stone implements from the early, middle and late stone age, during the warm periods between the five ice ages. [ 420,000; 350,000; 250,000; 150,000 and 20,000 BP] Ecologically the land on which Chelsea now rests alternated between tundra and dense wildwood.

Around 3,500 BC evidence of pottery appears together with seasonal meeting places, the inhabitants were still hunter gatherers but by 1500 BC were becoming increasingly settled, with by 900 BC outlines and post holes of round houses, bronze tools and agriculture [ Emmer and Spelt wheat, barley, rye and beans]

During this period the wild cattle, the Auroch became extinct through over hunting. Also there is extensive evidence of drowned forests in the Thames, arising out of sea levels rising and land sinking.

Roman Period
Julius Cesar invaded in 54 BC but it was not until 42 AD that the Romans under Claudius invaded and stayed until 410 AD.

Anglo- Saxons
The first historical reference to Chelsea was in a charter of AD 785 signed by King Offa of Mercia. Egfrith Coenwulf [787-821] is also recorded as living in Chelsea thus it is likely that the Mercian Royal family owned land here. Historians believe that the King had a palace on Cheyne Walk. It is claimed that in 898 King Alfred convened a meeting in Chelsea with, among others, Aethelred of Mercia and his sister Aethelflaed, concerning the refounding of London after the Danish Wars.

The archeologist Michael Webber claims that the timbers, visible on the foreshore of the River Thames at low tide between Battersea Bridge and the houseboats, are from a Saxon fish trap of Offa’s time.

He has found neolithic ax heads and a wooden club, dating from 3540 BC t0 3360 BC, together with traces of a submerged forest,in the mud of the foreshore that dates from 12,000 years ago.

The interesting point is that he has evidence that the level of the River has risen some 22 feet, 7 meters, in this period, thus explaining the importance of the Thames Barrier. The question is whether this is due to a rise in sea level through global warming or a tectonic fall in the height of the land. Incidently the sea level has risen by 30 meters in the last 10,000 years at Winchelsea Beach, and is currently rising at 6 millimetres a year. In Venice the sea is rising at a rate of 2.4 mm a year.

Returning to King Offa his daughter was supposed to marry a son of King Charlemagne but the plans fell through. The start perhaps of England’s tortuous relationship with Europe. If the dynastic marriage had gone ahead history could have been very different, to start with the conquest of 1066 may well not have occurred.

Edward the Confessor, the last English King, granted a manor in “Cealchythe” to the Abbey of Westminster in 1042 which they kept it until at least the reign of Stephen a hundred years later.

Medieval Period
The Normans centered themselves at Westminster and Chelsea reverted to a small village around the church, the rest of the area was known as East Field and West Field separated by Church Lane with the north east part of the parish being called Blacklands.

There are vague indications that nobility and gentry had country estates in Chelsea, these included Edmund, brother of King Edward I and, in 1369, Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. In 1345, during the reign of Edward III, there is a record of Richard de Heyle as lord of “Chelsith”, together with a vineyard. By the reign of Henry VII, the first Tudor king, the Manor was in the possession of Sir Reginald Bray.

In the sixteenth century the area became popular with courtiers and royal officials who needed suitable residences near Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster, some 2.5 miles by river downstream.

Restaurants of the Kings Road

Kings Road Name Year opened

11 Buzzy’s Bistro 1962
33 Don Luigi 1966
74 Chelsea Kitchen 1966-2007
91 The Unity Restaurant 1950’s
95 Marco Polo 1961
124 Magic Carpet Inn 1950’s
128 Fantasie Coffee bar 1955
138a Alexanders Restaurant 1955
172 Choys 1956- today
235 235 1965
Picasso 1958-today
257 Café Jazz Hot 1961
312 Chelsea Grill 1962
355 Orrery 1958

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