The best of Chelsea by the people who know - Cadogan

6 | HISTORY | A short history of Chelsea
Royal Borough of Kensingon & Chelsea, Family & Children’s Service
the lives of the residents in that period.
The first mention of Chelsea – ‘cealchythe’
– appears in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle’s AD 785 record as the place
where a ‘litigious synod was holden’. The
Old English word ‘cealc’ can mean
chalk, stone or lime, and ‘hythe’ translates
as ‘landing place’. It is possible that
Chelsea was a stopping point for boats
shipping building materials or lime for
fertiliser.
Whatever its original purpose, Chelsea
became a place of religious and political
significance. Between AD 785 and
AD 816, at least ten religious synods
were held in the area. It is thought that
the Mercian kings, who largely ruled what
is now the Midlands, kept a residence
at Chelsea to in order to deal with the
Church and London. The etymology of
the nearby hamlet of Kensal – derived
from cyning holt meaning ‘king’s wood’
– also suggests there was a strong
royal link.
The political importance of Chelsea
was still in evidence at the end of the
The synod of AD785 as played
out at the Chelsea Pageant
in 1908
ninth century. Viking attacks had plagued
London and the surrounding area from
AD 830 onwards. According to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there was “great
slaughter” in London in AD 839 – 850
Viking ships entered the mouth of the
Thames in AD 851 and stormed London
and Canterbury, and in AD 871 a “large
heathen army”, which had been in
England since AD 866, captured London
and wintered there.
By AD 898, King Alfred the Great had
suppressed the threat from Denmark with
a series of victories, concluding the
‘Danish War’. He then met with religious
and political leaders at Chelsea to discuss
the refounding of London.
Norman conquest
In AD 1086, 20 years after the Norman
conquest which brought Anglo-Saxon
dominance in England to an end, the
Domesday Book recorded that the
Manor of Chelsea – covering 780 acres of
meadow, pastureland and woodland, and
with 60 pigs – was valued at nine pounds.
In the centuries after the Norman
conquest, Chelsea remained largely
unchanged. The Anglo-Saxon settlement
by the river continued to be the focus of
the area, and was surrounded by fields of
arable land. The Thames retained its
importance to the village. Travelling by
river was faster and safer than by land,
and Chelsea’s position on its banks, two
and a half miles upriver from Westminster,
meant that a boat owner could travel
there quickly. This convenience became a
draw for the rich and powerful, and from
the 13th century onwards, court officials,
nobles and kings are said to have used
the area.
The Black Death
Even though the Manor of Chelsea
was quite secluded during this period,
its proximity to London meant that it was
vulnerable to the plague. In the mid-14th
Henry VIII and
Sir Thomas More
By the time Pepys was setting off on his
unfortunate journey, Chelsea had already
undergone major transformation.
In the 16th century, great mansions began
to appear and a significant royal endorsement
boosted the appeal of the village and its
surrounding area.
Henry VIII apparently wanted to have a nursery
for his children at Chelsea and was said to have
wanted to live there following visits to the house
of his friend and advisor, Thomas More. When
More was executed in 1535, the king received
More’s house. He neglected it – his only recorded
visit was in 1538, when he stayed for two days.
Henry had built his own manor house on the
site of today’s Cheyne Walk in 1536, where
Princess Elizabeth, Lady Jane Grey and Anne of
Cleves lived at various times. Sir Hans Sloane
bought the Manor of Chelsea in 1712 (see Sir
Hans Sloane).
The royal connection meant that Crown properties
in Chelsea could be used as residences for
members of the royal family and other notables.
Henry granted a French Ambassador residence
at the house of the late Sir Thomas More for the
summer of 1538 so that he could take refuge
from the plague, and Thomas Cromwell, the
king’s closest minister, was in Chelsea at the
same time.
While the wealthy continued to be drawn
to Chelsea, more humble settlers came too.
By the mid-17th century, housing demand was
predominantly for smaller dwellings, rather than
impressive mansions.
The statue of Sir Thomas More
outside Chelsea Old Church
century, the Black Death ravaged London,
and the manor of Chelsea along with it.
Richard de Heyle, who inhabited the
manor house at this time, saw his three
children taken by the plague and, destitute,
was forced to lease his property to
Westminster Abbey for the duration of
his life.
Later, in 1630, the plague was still
a threat to the area, as can be seen in
a draft proclamation warning residents
not to entertain strangers and risk the
spread of the pestilence. On April 9,
1666, Samuel Pepys, “thinking to have
been merry at Chelsey,” found himself
and his companions confronted with a
house that was shut due to the plague,
and turned back to Kensington “with
great affright”.
Growth and change
Another flashpoint in the development
of Chelsea came in the late 1600s.
Charles II authorised the construction of
the Royal Hospital on December 22,
1681. It was designed by Sir Christopher
Wren and admitted its first ‘in-pensioners’
in 1692.
The Royal Hospital brought with it a
sudden increase in interest in the area,
and construction rapidly increased. The
population rose along with the new
buildings – baptisms in the parish more
than doubled between the 1680s and
the 1730s. This boom came alongside
change in the social make-up of the area.
By the early 18th century, the aristocratic
presence in Chelsea was declining.
While Chelsea could be called a ‘town of
palaces’ in 1724, many of these great
seats and houses were being let as
boarding schools, and MPs and government
officials rather than aristocrats were
occupying the new developments
around the Royal Hospital.
Chelsea Embankment
The construction of the Chelsea