A new book points out some of the architectural gems of the rarified neighbourhood.
Elvis Costello, famously, didn't want to go to Chelsea. He might revise that position were he to pick up a copy of Lucy McMurdo's Chelsea in 50 Buildings.
The book, from Amberley publishing, points out many storied and storey-ed buildings that you might have missed, from a dislocated medieval hall to a celebrity wombat-retreat.
Lucy, whose previous books include a similar look at Islington, has picked out some of her favourite locations from the book below:
1. King’s Road started life as King Charles II’s private road – to allow him safe passage from London to Hampton Court. This fashionable monarch began the street’s association with all things stylish, leading it to become one of London’s best-known fashion, music and arts hubs in the Swinging Sixties, and it is still the place to come for deluxe designer clothing today.
2. Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII’s Chancellor and right-hand man, lived beside the Thames on a vast estate (now the area around Beaufort Street) in the 16th century. He regularly worshipped at St Luke’s Church, today’s Chelsea Old Church, where he had a tomb built for himself. The tomb is still in the church sanctuary, but it is without More’s body. Following his fall from power and subsequent execution, his remains were buried in the Tower of London and at St Dunstan’s Church in Canterbury.
3. The pretty Albert Bridge, like the Millennium Bridge when it opened, vibrated when large numbers of pedestrians walked across it. Consequently it earned itself the nickname ‘The Trembling Lady’. There is still a notice on the bridge that reminds troops ‘to break step when crossing the bridge’.
4. Overlooking the Thames, the Royal Hospital Chelsea is the setting for the annual RHS Chelsea Flower Show and was established in 1692 as a home for wounded soldiers – in effect, a care home. Its residents, bedecked in bright red uniforms, are regularly seen on Chelsea’s streets and are known as Chelsea Pensioners. They are all distinguished veterans of the British Army and today the hospital provides a home to both men and women.
5. Two famous fictional spies – Ian Fleming’s James Bond and John le Carré’s George Smiley – were purported to have lived just off King’s Road, the former supposedly in Wellington Square, and the latter just a stone’s throw away in Bywater Street.
6. Close to Battersea Bridge on Cheyne Walk is a hidden treasure of the area – Crosby Moran Hall. The original 15th century Crosby Hall, to prevent its demolition, was moved brick by brick from the City of London to its riverside site in 1910. In the 1980s the hall and the land around it (once owned by Thomas More) were purchased by Dr Christopher Moran, the noted businessman and president of Co-Operation Ireland who has a great passion for architectural heritage especially that of the Tudor era . Over a 30-year period he has lovingly restored the hall and created an entirely new Tudor estate, employing skilled heritage craftsmen using the construction methods of the 16th century. The result is awesome and undoubtedly unique within central London.
7. No. 16 Cheyne Walk – home in the mid-19th century to the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti – was famous for its stream of literary and artistic visitors and was where the Pre-Raphaelite artists and their muses met in the 1860s. It was more notorious for Rossetti’s exotic and unusual garden menagerie which included a wombat, kangaroo, armadillo and several noisy peacocks that annoyed the neighbours!
8. Since the early days of motoring Chelsea has been associated with cars and the car trade. Interestingly, several of the garage premises have survived but all have since been put to other uses. The Bluebird Garage, once Europe’s greatest motorcar complex on the King’s Road is nowadays home to a very popular diner, the Bluebird Restaurant. The Arts and Crafts styled motor-car repair and service garage on Flood Street is now the rear section of Anthropologie’s King’s Road store. And the former Headquarters of the Michelin Tyre Company, Michelin House on the Fulham Road, now functions as a restaurant, an oyster bar and office space.
9. The Cadogan Hotel on Sloane Street, nowadays part of the Belmond group of luxury hotels, is where the writer and flamboyant wit Oscar Wilde was arrested in April 1895 on a charge of gross indecency – for which he later served two years’ hard labour in Reading Gaol. The hotel is also where Lillie Langtry, actress and mistress of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) lived and socialised and where, it is said, she had clandestine meetings with the Prince in the 1890s.
10. Two major female fashion designers, Mary Quant and Vivienne Westwood, have left their mark on Chelsea through their boutiques at either end of the King’s Road. Mary Quant’s store ‘Bazaar’ provided women with an entirely new look; the miniskirt, hot pants and high boots. A whole generation of young women were influenced by Quant’s designs, which allowed them to acknowledge their own individuality, possibly for the first time. Vivienne Westwood’s ‘Let it Rock’ at the World’s End brought punk and all its paraphernalia to Chelsea and inspired a whole new generation.
All images by Alex McMurdo.
Chelsea in 50 Buildings by Lucy McMurdo is out now from Amberley Publishing. Buy direct from the publisher, or via Bookshop.org (which sources from independent bookshops and gives us a small commission)
