The best of Chelsea by the people who know - Cadogan

12 | STREETS & SIGHTS |
Stellar streets
Streets
and sights
There’s history around every corner in
Chelsea, and you can still stroll past the
houses where personalities including Karl
Marx, Oscar Wilde and Mick Jagger lived,
worked and – in Mick’s case – partied.
Here we explore some of Chelsea’s notable
streets and sights. For a general overview,
see History, page 5
Royal Borough of Kensingon & Chelsea, Family & Children’s Service
Anderson Street
• Karl Marx (1818-1883) lived with his
wife and children at 4 Anderson Street in
1849, but was evicted for not paying the
rent and moved to the German Hotel in
Leicester Square, and later Dean Street
in Soho.
Beaufort Street
• Sir Thomas More, advisor to Henry VIII,
bought more than 20 acres of land on
the site of what is now Beaufort Street in
the 1520s and built a house there. He
was the first of several prominent figures
to build large properties in the area,
including Henry himself, who decided
Chelsea would be a fitting place for his
children to grow up (see Cheyne Walk).
Left: Beaufort House. Below: Thomas More
More became Henry's Lord Chancellor
in 1529. He initially supported the king’s
annulment of his marriage to his first wife,
Catherine of Aragon, but when Henry
moved to declare himself Supreme Head
of the Church in England and dissolve
the monasteries, he resigned.
More’s downfall came when he
refused to take an oath swearing
allegiance to the Act of Succession in
1534, which named Henry’s daughter
Elizabeth (by Anne Boleyn) the legitimate
heir to the throne and declared Mary,
his daughter from his first marriage,
illegitimate. It acknowledged the break
from the Pope’s authority over the
Church of England, which More refused
to accept.
More was arrested, charged with
high treason and was executed in 1535.
Five years later, More's Chelsea home
was demolished and, in 1566, Beaufort
Street was built on part of the site. (See
Chelsea Old Church for more about Sir
Thomas More).
Bywater Street
• John Le Carré’s fictional spy, George
Smiley, lived at 9 Bywater Street, a little
cul-de-sac off the King’s Road, with
houses painted in lovely pastel colours.
Cadogan Place
• William Wilberforce (1759-1833), the
politician, philanthropist and leader of
the movement to abolish slavery, died at
44 Cadogan Place.
• Actress Dorothy Bland (1761-1816),
also known as Mrs Jordan, lived at 30
Cadogan Place. She never married, so
‘Mrs Jordan’ was a name she took to
seem more respectable on stage. She
became the mistress of William, Duke