Mitton Geraldine Edith
Chelsea
In this part there was a very old inn bearing the name The Magpie and Stump. It was a quaint old structure, and the court-leet and court-baron held sittings in it. In 1886 it was destroyed by a fire, and is now replaced by a very modern structure of the same name. Further on there are immense red-brick mansions called Carlyle Mansions, and then, at right angles, there is Cheyne Row, the home for many years of one of England’s deepest and sincerest thinkers. Carlyle was the loadstar who drew men of renown from all quarters of the civilized globe to this somewhat narrow, dark little street in Chelsea. The houses are extraordinarily dull, of dark brick, monotonously alike; they face a row of small trees on the west side, and Carlyle’s house is about the middle, numbered 24 (formerly 5). A medallion portrait was put up by his admirers on the wall; inscribed beneath it is: “Thomas Carlyle lived at 24, Cheyne Row, 1834-81.” The house has been acquired by trustees, and is open to anyone on the payment of a shilling. It contains various Carlylean relics: letters, scraps of manuscript, furniture, pictures, etc., and attracts visitors from all parts of the world. There is no need to expatiate on the life of the philosopher; it belongs not to Chelsea, but to the English-speaking peoples of all countries. Here came to see him Leigh Hunt, who lived only in the next street, and Emerson from across the Atlantic; such diverse natures as Harriet Martineau and Tennyson, Ruskin and Tyndall, found pleasure in his society.
At the north end of Cheyne Row is a large Roman Catholic church, built 1896. Upper Cheyne Row was for many years the home of Leigh Hunt. A small passage from this leads into Bramerton Street. This was built in 1870 upon part of what were formerly the Rectory grounds, which by a special Act the Rector was empowered to let for the purpose. Parallel to Cheyne Row is Lawrence Street, and at the corner, facing the river, stands the Hospital for Incurable Children. It is a large brick building, with four fluted and carved pilasters running up the front. The house is four stories high and picturesquely built. In 1889 it was ready for use. The charity was established by Mr. and Mrs. Wickham Flower, and had been previously carried on a few doors lower down in Cheyne Walk. Voluntary subscriptions and donations form a large part of the income, and besides this a small payment is required from the parents and friends of the little patients. The hospital inside is bright and airy. The great wide windows run down to the ground, and over one of the cots hangs a large print of Holman Hunt’s “Light of the World,” a gift from the artist himself, who formerly lived in a house on this site and in it painted the original. The ages at which patients are received are between three and ten, and the cases are frequently paralysis, spinal or hip disease.
Lawrence or Monmouth House stood on the north side of Lordship Yard. Here Dr. Smollett once lived and wrote many of his works; one of the scenes of “Humphrey Clinker” is actually laid in Monmouth House. The old parish church stands at the corner of Church Street. The exterior is very quaint, with the ancient brick turned almost purple by age; and the monuments on the walls are exposed to all the winds that sweep up the river. The square tower was formerly surmounted by a cupola, which was taken down in 1808 because it had become unsafe. The different parts of the church have been built and rebuilt at different dates, which makes it difficult to give an idea of its age. Faulkner says: “The upper chancel appears to have been rebuilt in the fifteenth century; the chapel of the Lawrence family at the end of the north aisle appears to have been built early in the fourteenth century, if we may judge from the form of the Gothic windows, now nearly stopped up. The chapel at the west end of the south aisle was built by Sir T. More about the year 1522, soon after he came to reside in Chelsea. The tower was built between the years 1667 and 1679.”
The interior is so filled up with tombs and a great gallery, that the effect is most strange, and the ghosts of the past seem to be whispering from every corner. There are few churches remaining so untouched and containing so miscellaneous a record of the flying centuries as Chelsea Old Church. A great gallery which hid Sir Thomas More’s monument was removed in 1824. Soon after the church was finished it was enlarged by the addition of what is now known as the Lawrence Chapel on the north side. This was built by Robert Hyde, called by Faulkner ‘Robert de Heyle,’ who then owned the manor-house. In 1536 the manor was sold to King Henry VIII., who parted with the old manor-house and the chapel to the family of Lawrence. There are three monuments of the family still existing in the chapel. The best known of these is that against the north wall, representing Thomas Lawrence, the father of Sir John, kneeling with folded hands face to face with his wife in the same attitude. Behind them are respectively their three sons and six daughters. This is the monument which Henry Kingsley refers to through the mouth of Joe Burton in his novel “The Hillyars and the Burtons.”
Not far from this is a large and striking monument to the memory of Sarah Colvile, daughter of Thomas Lawrence. She is represented as springing from the tomb clothed in a winding-sheet. The figure is larger than life and of white marble, which is discoloured and stained by time. Overhead there was once a dove, of which only the wings remain, and the canopy is carved to represent clouds. The third Lawrence monument is a large tablet of black marble set in a frame of white marble, exquisitely and richly carved. This hangs against the eastern wall, and is inscribed to the memory of Sir John Lawrence. A hagioscope opens from this chapel into the chancel, and was discovered accidentally when an arch was being cut on the north wall of the chancel to contain the tomb of Lord Bray. This tomb formerly stood in the “myddest of the hyghe channcel,” but being both inconvenient and unsightly, it was removed to its present position in 1857. It possessed formerly two or three brasses, which have now disappeared. This is the oldest tomb in the church, dated 1539.
The Lawrence Chapel was private property, and could be sold or given away independently of the church. Between it and the nave – or, more accurately, over the north aisle, at its entrance into the nave – is a great arch which breaks the continuity of line in the arch of the pillars. This is the Gervoise monument, and may have originally enclosed a tomb. Of this, however, there is no evidence. In the chancel opposite to the Bray tomb stands the monument of Sir Thomas More, prepared by himself before his death, and memorable for the connection of the word “heretics” with thieves and murderers, which word Erasmus afterwards omitted from the inscription. More’s crest, a Moor’s head, is in the centre of the upper cornice, and the coats-of-arms of himself and his two wives are below. The inscription is on a slab of black marble, and is very fresh, as it was restored in 1833. The question whether the body of Sir Thomas More lies in the family vault will probably never be definitely answered. Weever in his “Funeral Monuments” strongly inclines to the belief that it is so. “Yet it is certain,” he says, “that Margaret, wife of Master Roper and daughter of the said Sir Thomas More, removed her father’s corpse not long after to Chelsea.”
Sir Thomas More’s chapel is on the south side of the chancel. It was to his seat here that More himself came after service, in place of his manservant, on the day when the King had taken his high office from him, and, bowing to his wife, remarked with double meaning, “Madam, the Chancellor has gone.” The chapel contains the monuments and tombs of the Duchess of Northumberland and Sir Robert Stanley. The latter is at the east end, and stands up against a window. It is surmounted by three urns standing on pedestals. The centre one of these has an eagle on the summit, and is flanked by two female figures representing Justice and Solitude in flowing draperies. The one holds a shield and crown, the other a shield. In the centre pedestal is a man’s head in alto-relievo, with Puritan collar and habit. On the side-pedestals are carved the heads of children. The whole stands on a tomb of veined marble with carved edges, and slabs of black marble bear the inscriptions of Sir Robert Stanley and two of his children. The tomb of the Duchess of Northumberland which stands next, against the south wall, has been compared to that of Chaucer in Westminster Abbey. This has a Gothic canopy, and formerly contained two brasses, representing her eight sons and five daughters kneeling, one behind the other, in the favourite style of the time. The brass commemorating the sons has disappeared.
A little further south, in the aisle, formerly stood the tomb of A. Gorges, son of Sir A. Gorges, who was possessor of the chapel for many years. This blocked up the aisle and was taken to pieces. The black slab which was on the top is set in the floor, and the brasses containing an epitaph in doggerel rhyme, attributing all the merits in the universe to the deceased, hang on the wall on the north side. The date of the chapel, 1528, is on the capital of one of the pillars supporting the arch which divides the chapel from the nave. The capitals are beautifully executed, though the design is grotesque. In one of them the rough end of stone is left unfinished, as if the builder had been called hastily away and had never been able to complete his task. The chapel was recently bought by the church on the death of its owner, and is now inalienably possessed by the parish.
Just below the south aisle is the Dacre tomb, the richest and most striking in the church. It contains two life-size effigies of Lord and Lady Dacre lying under a canopy which is supported by two pillars with gilded capitals; above is a semicircular arch. The whole interior of the arch and the background is most richly carved and gilded. Above the arch are the Dacre coat-of-arms and two shields, while two smaller pillars, wedge-shaped like Cleopatra’s Needles, rise at each corner. At the feet of the figures lie two dogs, and the effigy of a small child lies on a marble slab below the level of its parents. By Lady Dacre’s will certain presentations to some almshouses in Westminster are left to the parish on condition of the tombs being kept in good repair. The tomb was redecorated and restored in 1868.
The south and west walls are covered with monuments, and careless feet tread on inscribed stones in the aisle. On the northern wall below the north aisle is a monument which immediately attracts attention from its great size and striking design. It is that of Lady Jane Cheyne, daughter of William, Duke of Newcastle. It is an effigy of Lady Jane in white marble, larger than life-size; she lies in a half-raised position. Below is a black marble tomb with lighter marble pillars. Overhead is a canopy supported by two Corinthian columns. The inscription, which states it was with her money her husband bought the Manor of Chelsea, is on a black marble slab at the back. The monument is by Bernini.
All these tombs, with their wealth of carving and bold design, give a rich and furnished look to the dark old church, an effect enhanced by the tattered colours hanging overhead. The principal one of these colours was executed by Queen Victoria and her daughters for the volunteers at Chelsea when an invasion was expected. The shelf of chained books by a southern window is interesting. These formerly stood against the west wall, but were removed here for better preservation. They include a “Vinegar” Bible, date 1717, a desk Prayer-Book, and Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs.” The Communion-rails and pulpit are of oak, and the font of white marble of a peculiarly graceful design. Outside in the south-east corner of the churchyard is Sir Hans Sloane’s monument. It is a funeral urn of white marble, standing under a canopy supported by pillars of Portland stone. Four serpents twine round the urn, and the whole forms a striking, though not a beautiful, group.
The church has been the scene of some magnificent ceremonies, of which the funeral of Lord Bray was notable. It was in this church that Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour the day after the execution of Anne Boleyn.
Church Lane, near at hand, is very narrow. Dean Swift, who lodged here, is perhaps one of the best-known names, and his friend Atterbury, who first had a house facing the Embankment, afterwards came and lived opposite to him. Thomas Shadwell, Poet Laureate, was associated with the place, and also Bowack, whose “Antiquities of Middlesex,” incomplete though it is, remains a valuable book of reference. Bowack lived near the Rectory, and not far from him was the Old White Horse Inn, famous for the beauty of its decorative carving.
Petyt’s school was next to the church. The name was derived from its founder, who built it at his own expense for the education of poor children in the beginning of the eighteenth century. William Petyt was a Bencher of the Inner Temple, Keeper of the Records in the Tower, and a prolific author. A tablet inscribed with quaint English, recording Petyt’s charity, still stands on the dull little block building of the present century, which replaced the old school.
Dr. Chamberlayne was another famous inhabitant of Church Street. His epitaph is on the exterior church wall beside those of his wife, three sons, and daughter, the latter of whom fought on board ship against the French disguised in male attire. Chamberlayne wrote and translated many historical tracts, and his best-known work is the “Present State of England” (1669). He was tutor to the Duke of Grafton, and later to Prince George of Denmark, and was one of the original members of the Royal Society.
The Rectory was built by the Marquis of Winchester. It was first used as a Rectory in 1566. It is picturesque, having been added to from time to time, and has a large old garden. The list of Rectors includes many well-known men. Dr. Littleton, author of a Latin dictionary, was presented to the living in 1669, and held it for twenty-five years. He was succeeded by Dr. John King, whose manuscript account of Chelsea is still extant. Reginald Heber, the father of the celebrated Bishop Heber, came in 1766. Later on the Hon. and Rev. Dr. Wellesley, brother to the first Duke of Wellington, was Rector from 1805, and still more recently the Rev. Charles Kingsley, father of the two brothers who have made the name of Kingsley a household word by the power of their literary talent.
The next turning out of the Embankment after Church Street is Danvers Street, and an inscribed stone on the corner house tells that it was begun in 1696. Danvers House, occupied, (some authorities say built,) by Sir John Danvers in the first half of the seventeenth century, seems, with its grounds, to have occupied almost the whole space from the King’s Road to the Embankment. Thus Paulton’s Square and Danvers Street must both be partly on its site. The gardens were laid out in the Italian style, and attracted much notice. Sir John Danvers was knighted by James I. After he had been left a widower twice and was past middle age, he began to take an active part in the affairs of his time. He several times protested against Stuart exactions, and during the Civil War took the side of the Parliament. He was one of those who signed Charles I.’s death-warrant. He married a third time at Chelsea, and died there in April, 1655. His house was demolished in 1696. The house has gained some additional celebrity from its having been one of the four supposed by different writers to have been the dwelling of Sir Thomas More. This idea, however, has been repeatedly shown to be erroneous. More’s house was near Beaufort Street.
The next opening from the Embankment to the King’s Road is Beaufort Street. There is no view of More’s house known to be in existence, and, as stated above, four houses have contended for the honour – Danvers, Beaufort, Alston, and that once belonging to Sir Reginald Bray. Dr. King went very carefully into the subject, and one of his manuscripts preserved at the British Museum is “A letter designed for Mr. Hearn respecting Sir Thos. More’s House at Chelsea.” His reasons cannot be given better than in his own words:
“First, his grandson, Mr. Thomas More, who wrote his life … says that Sir Thomas More’s house in Chelsea was the same which my lord of Lincoln bought of Sir Robert Cecil. Now, it appears pretty plainly that Sir Robert Cecil’s house was the same which is now the Duke of Beaufort’s, for in divers places [are] these letters R.C., and also R.c.E., with the date of the year, viz., 1597, which letters were the initials of his name and his lady’s, and the year 1597, when he new built, or at least new fronted, it. From the Earl of Lincoln that house was conveyed to Sir Arthur Gorges; from him to Lionel Cranford, Earl of Middlesex; from him to King Charles I.; from the King to the Duke of Buckingham; from his son, since the Restoration, to Plummer, a citizen, for debts; from the said Plummer to the Earl of Bristol; and from his heirs to the Duke of Beaufort, so that we can trace all the Mesne assignments from Sir Robert Cecil to the present possessor.”
He goes on to add that More built the south chancel (otherwise the chapel) in the church, and that this belonged to Beaufort House until Sir Arthur Gorges sold the house but retained the chapel. When Sir Thomas More came to Chelsea he was already a famous man, high in the King’s favour. The house he lived in is supposed to have stood right across the site of Beaufort Street, not very far from the river. It is unnecessary here to sketch that life, already so well known and so often written, but we can picture that numerous and united household which even the second Lady More’s mean and acrid temper was unable to disturb. Here royal and notable visitors frequently came. The King himself, strolling in the well-kept garden with his arm round his Chancellor’s neck, would jest pleasantly, and Holbein, in the dawn of his fame, would work for his patron, unfolding day by day the promise of his genius. Bishops from Canterbury, London, and Rochester came to confer with More. Dukes and Lords were honoured by Sir Thomas’s friendship before his fall. The barge which so often carried its owner to pleasure or business lay moored on the river ready to carry him that last sad journey to the Tower; and sadder still, to bring back the devoted daughter when the execution was accomplished, and later also when she bore her gruesome burden of a father’s head, said to have been buried with her in Chelsea Church.
After his death, More’s estates were confiscated and granted to Sir William Paulet, who with his wife occupied the house for about fifty years. It then passed through the possession of the Winchesters and the Dacres, the same whose tomb is such an ornament in the church, and by will Lady Dacre bequeathed it to Sir Robert Cecil, who sold it (1597) to the Earl of Lincoln, from which time we have the pedigree quoted from Dr. King. On the death of the Duke of Beaufort, Sir Hans Sloane bought it for £2,500 and pulled it down (1740).
Beaufort Street has not the width of Oakley Street, but it is by no means narrow, and many of the houses, which are irregularly built, have gardens and trees in front. A few yards further westward is Milman Street, so called after Sir W. Milman, who died in 1713. The site of his house is not definitely known, but the street marks it with sufficient accuracy. It is interesting to reflect that these great houses, described in detail, stood in their own grounds, which reached down to the water’s edge, whence their owners could go to that great London, of which Chelsea was by no means an integral part, to transact their business or pleasure. The water highway was by far the safest and most convenient in those days of robbery and bad roads. “The Village of Palaces,” as Chelsea has been called by Mr. L’Estrange, is no purely fanciful title.
Milman Street at present does not look very imposing. The houses and shops are squalid and mean. Near the King’s Road end is the Moravian burial-ground, which is cut off from the street by a door, over which are the words “Park Chapel National School, Church of England.” The burial-ground is small in extent, and is a square enclosure surrounded by wooden palings, and cut into four equal divisions by two bisecting paths. One of its walls is supposed to be the identical one bounding Sir T. More’s garden. At one end it is overshadowed by a row of fine elms, but in the plot itself there are no trees. What was formerly the chapel, at the north end, is now used as a school-house. Now and then the Moravians hold meetings there. The gravestones, laid horizontally in regular rows, are very small, and almost hidden by the long grass. The married men are in one quarter, and the bachelors in another, and the married and single women are separated in the same way. On the side of the chapel is a slab to the memory of Count Zinzendorf, who died in 1760.
Not far from the corner (eastward), as we turn on to the Embankment, is the famous Lindsey House, which claims to be the second oldest house in Chelsea, the first being Stanley House (see p. ). The original house was built by Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, some time before the middle of the seventeenth century. De Mayerne was Court physician to Henry IV. and Louis XIII. of France. About twenty years later it was bought by Montague Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey, whose son rebuilt or altered it largely. It remained in the Lindsey family until 1750. The family of the Windsors leased it for some time, and one of them was married in the parish church to the widow of the unjust Judge Jeffreys. In 1750 the Earl of Lindsey, created Duke of Ancaster, sold it to the Count Zinzendorf mentioned above, who intended to make it the nucleus for a Moravian settlement in Chelsea. Ten years later he died, and some time after his death the Moravians sold Lindsey House. It is now divided into five houses, and the different portions have been so much altered, by the renovations of various owners, that it is difficult to see the unity of design, but one of the divisions retains the old name on its gateway. It is supposed that Wren was the architect. Amongst other notable residents who lived here were Isambard Brunel, the engineer; Bramah, of lock fame; Martin, the painter, who was visited by Prince Albert; and Whistler, the artist. Close by Lindsey Row the river takes an abrupt turn, making a little bay, and here, below the level of the street, is a little creeper-covered house where the great colourist Turner lived for many years, gaining gorgeous sky effects from the red sunsets reflected in the water. The house is numbered 118, and has high green wooden pailings. It is next to a public-house named The Aquatic, and so will be easily seen. The turning beyond is Blantyre Street. Turner’s real house was in Queen Anne Street, and he used to slip away to Chelsea on the sly, keeping his whereabouts private, even from his nearest friends. He was found here, under the assumed name of Admiral Booth, the day before his death, December 19, 1851. The World’s End Passage is a remembrance of the time when the western end of Chelsea was indeed the end of the world to the folks of London. Beyond World’s End Passage were formerly two houses of note – Chelsea Farm, afterwards Cremorne Villa, and Ashburnham House. The first of these lay near what is now Seaton Street. If we pass down Blantyre Street, which for part of the distance runs parallel to World’s End Passage, we find three streets running into it at an obtuse angle. The first of these, from the King’s Road end, is Seaton Street. It was just beyond this that the Earl of Huntingdon, about the middle of the eighteenth century, built Chelsea Farm. His widow, who lived there after his death, was connected with the Methodist movement, and built many chapels. She left the farm in 1748. It was then sold, and passed through various hands, until it came into the possession of Baron Dartrey, afterwards Viscount Cremorne, from whom it gained its later name. Lady Cremorne was frequently visited by Queen Charlotte. This Lady Cremorne was a descendant of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. After her death the villa and grounds were sold. In 1845 the place was opened as Cremorne pleasure-gardens. These gardens, though famous, never rivalled successfully those of Ranelagh, at the eastern extremity of Chelsea. They were only open for thirty-two years, but during that time acquired the reputation for being the resort of all the rowdies in the neighbourhood. The noise made by the rabble passing along the river side after the closing at nights caused great annoyance to the respectable inhabitants, and finally led to the suppression of the gardens. L’Estrange says that the site extended over the grounds of Ashburnham as well as Cremorne House.
