Chelsea is an area of
south-west London, England, 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 is Chelsea Bridge
Road
and the lower half of Sloane Street
, including Sloane Square
. To the north and northwest, the area fades
into Knightsbridge
and South Kensington
, but it is safe to say that the area north of
King's
Road
as far northwest as Fulham Road
is part of Chelsea.
The
district is now part of the Royal
Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
. From 1900, and until the creation of the
Greater
London
in 1965, it formed the Metropolitan
Borough of Chelsea
in the County of
London.
Chelsea Football Club has its grounds at
Stamford
Bridge
, and so is in neighbouring Fulham
, not in
Chelsea.
History
The word
Chelsea means "landing place [on the river] for
chalk or limestone" (Old English).
Anglo-Saxon Cealc-hyð =
"
chalk wharf". 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. Modern-day Chelsea was the site of the
Synod of Chelsea in 787 AD. In the ancient
records, it is written as
Chelchith, which Norden, a
writer of considerable note, derives from the Saxon words
ceale or
cele, meaning "coldness", and
hyd, meaning "port" or "haven".
King Henry VIII acquired the
manor of Chelsea from Lord Sandys in 1536; Chelsea Manor Street is
still extant. Two of his
wives,
Catherine Parr and
Anne of Cleves, lived in the Manor House;
Princess Elizabeth – the future
Queen Elizabeth I – was a resident;
and
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 later founded by Charles II.
Figure Court of Royal Hospital
Chelsea
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 which caused the
district to finally absorb into the metropolis. The street crossing
what was known as "Little Chelsea", Park Walk, linked Fulham Road
to King's Road and continued to the Thames and Local Ferry down
Lover's Lane, renamed "Milmans Street" in the 18th century.
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. One of the
more important buildings in King's Road is Chelsea Town Hall, a
fine
neo-classical building
containing important
frescos. Part of the
building contains the Chelsea Public Library. Almost opposite is
the former
Odeon Cinema, now
Habitat, with its iconic façade which
carries high upon it a large sculptured medallion of the now
almost-forgotten
William
Friese-Greene, who claimed to have invented celluloid film and
cameras before any subsequent patents.
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, although Housing trusts and Council property do
remain. The areas to the west also attract very high prices.
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 can also be found
there.
Chelsea was once famous for the manufacture of
Chelsea buns (made from a long strip of sweet
dough tightly coiled, with
currant trapped between the layers, and topped
with sugar).
The area 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
Christopher Wren stands
in extensive grounds, where the Chelsea Flower show is held
annually.
The former Duke of
York's Barracks
(built 1801-3) off King's Road is now part of Duke
of York Square, a redevelopment including shops and cafes and the
site of the weekly farmers' market. The Saatchi Gallery
opened in the main building in 2008.
Chelsea
Barracks
, at the end of Lower Sloane Street, was also in use
until recently, primarily by ceremonial troops of the Household Division. Situated on
the Westminster side of Chelsea Bridge Road, it was bought by a
property group for re-development.
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
became prominent once again as one of the centres of 1960s
"
Swinging London".
The borough of artists
Chelsea once had a reputation as London's
bohemian quarter, the haunt of artists,
radicals, painters and poets. Little of this seems to survive now –
the comfortable squares off King's Road are homes to the English
military establishment, investment bankers and film stars, and more
recently the pop singer
Kylie Minogue.
The
Chelsea Arts Club continues in
situ; however, the Chelsea College of Art and
Design
, originally founded in 1895 as the Chelsea School
of Art, moved from Manresa Road to Pimlico in 2005.
Its 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 all lived and worked
here.
There was a particularly large concentration
of artists in the area around Cheyne Walk and Cheyne Row, where the Pre-Raphaelite movement had its
heart.
Chelsea was also home to writers such as
George Meredith,
Algernon Swinburne,
Leigh Hunt, and
Thomas
Carlyle.
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.
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".
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. The library now occupies
part of the Chelsea Old Town Hall on the Kings Road.
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.
The
Chelsea Society, formed in 1927,
remains an active amenity society concerned with preserving and
advising on changes in Chelsea's built environment.
Chelsea Village and
Chelsea
Harbour are new developments outside of Chelsea
itself.
Swinging Chelsea
Chelsea shone again, brightly but briefly, in the 1960s
Swinging London period and the early 1970s.
The
Swinging Sixties was defined on
King's Road, which runs the length of the area, and both
the Beatles and
Rolling Stones members
Brian Jones,
Mick
Jagger, and
Keith Richards lived
here at one time.
In the 1970s, the World's
End
of King's Road was home to Vivienne Westwood's boutique "SEX", and saw the birth of the British
punk movement. Elvis Costello even sang "I don't want to go
to Chelsea".
Then Youth
culture decamped: the Goths
moved to the newly fashionable quarter of Camden Town
, while the hippies left for
Notting
Hill
.
In 2008, commentators have noted a resurgence taking place in the
area with the interest taken by Princes William and Harry and
numerous "new Sloane" youth in Chelsea night-life.
King's Road remains the major artery through Chelsea and a very
busy road, and despite its continuing reputation as a shopping
mecca, it is now home to many of the same shops found on any other
UK
high streets, such as
Gap,
Virgin Megastore, and
McDonald's.
Sloane Street and Knightsbridge are overtaking Bond Street
as London's premier shopping destinations, housing
a variety of high-end fashion or jewellery like Cartier, Gucci and Graff.
Geography
Notable residents
Property
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 equally 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 Moore Park
Estate in SW6 is also considered to be part of the Fulham/Chelsea
border.
The vast majority of Chelsea is SW3. The far west of Chelsea is
SW10 and SW5 but due to the absence of tube coverage in large parts
of the Borough, most people in SW10 use Earls Court or Fulham
Broadway tube stations.
The most
desirable part of Chelsea is around Sloane Square and Knightsbridge tube. Around here, Chelsea meets Knightsbridge. This property market attracts considerable
(international) attention, and is a very complex market as it
consists mainly of short leases under
Earl Cadogan
as
freeholder. Much of Chelsea is now
viewed as a "Global Ultra Prime Residential Area".
Much of
Chelsea (SW3) and Knightsbridge (SW1X) is still owned by Earl Cadogan, through the Cadogan Estates. Most of the property
owned is in and around Cadogan Square. This has a major influence
on the markets as the Earl is the
freeholder and generally has no desire to sell;
although changes in legislation now mean the
freeholder is obliged to sell lease extensions to
a
leaseholder at prices which are
determined by the
Leasehold
valuation tribunal.
Lord Cadogan is generally regarded as an
effective and successful property developer/landlord being
responsible, together with his management team, for bringing all of
the fashion labels to Sloane Street, and also forward thinking developments on his own
account at Duke of York Square on Kings Road
, at Peter Jones
and on Sloane Street. The Cadogan Estate has a considerable
portfolio of retail property throughout Chelsea but notably on
Fulham
Road, Kings
Road, and Sloane Street including Peter Jones, Harvey Nichols, and
12 hotels including the Cadogan
Hotel. The Estate maintains many of the garden squares,
(to which local residents can gain access by subscribing for an
annual fee – and optionally the
tennis courts
where applicable).
The area is home to several open spaces
including Albert Bridge Gardens, Battersea Bridge Gardens, Chelsea
Embankment Gardens, Royal Hospital Chelsea
: the grounds of which are used by the annual
Chelsea
Flower Show
and Chelsea Physic Garden
.
Nearest places
Transport
Imperial Wharf Overground station
(opened 2009)
The area is served by a number of peripheral
London Underground stations:
There is
a proposal to construct a Chelsea tube station
as part of the Chelsea-Hackney line project, but this
remains unfunded.
The Chelsea area is also served on its southern side by:
References
External links
, 16 Tite Street in Wilde's lifetime)
(south of the river)
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