The best of Chelsea by the people who know - Cadogan

7 | HISTORY | A short history of Chelsea
A place of pleasure
In the 18th century, Chelsea reached its
heyday as a riverside pleasure resort.
There were many inns and coffee
houses, the most popular of which were
dotted along the riverbank. A painting by
Walter Greaves of the Cross Keys pub
shows its proximity to the river. Don
Saltero’s Museum and Coffee House,
famous for its ‘good conversation’,
would have looked much the same.
In 1742, Ranelagh Gardens opened to
the public to much fanfare. The politician
and author Horace Walpole commented
on the gardens' centrepiece, a rotunda
amphitheatre with a circumference of
555 feet and a diameter of 150 feet:
'Everybody that loves eating, drinking,
staring or crowding, is admitted for
twelvepence.’ Concerts were played
there – the child prodigy, Mozart,
performed there in 1764 – and there
were fireworks, dancing and balloon
ascents. Visitors could wander the
gardens while the garden-orchestra
provided a soundtrack.
By the 1770s, Ranelagh was losing its
allure, and despite attempts to revive it,
the gardens were eventually closed to
the public in 1826. Although many inns
and coffee houses remained, and the
The ‘Chinese House’ and the
Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens,
by Thomas Bowles, 1754
Royal Borough of Kensingon & Chelsea, Family & Children’s Service
A tournment at Cremorne Gardens
famous Bun House was said to have
sold 250,000 buns on Good Friday
1829, by 1833 a journalist could write
that Chelsea ‘though now proverbial for
its dullness, was formerly a place of
great gaiety’.
The opening of Cremorne Gardens to
the public in 1846 signalled a revival for
the resort, and the crowds began to
return to see pony-riding monkeys or to
parachute from hot air balloons. But
Cremorne gained a reputation as a place
where reputable women would not travel
alone and men went looking for fistfights,
and it never reached the heights of
fashion that Ranelagh had.
Embankment in 1874 signalled the
end for the riverside resort. It was an
important protection against flooding and
improved sanitation, but the embankment
also contributed to the steady
northward shift of the village, away from
the Old Church Street area where it had
begun as an Anglo-Saxon fishing village.
A new parish church, St. Luke’s, had
already been built on Sydney Street
in 1824 and King’s Road, which had
officially become a public road in 1830
– it had previously been ‘the King’s
Private Road’ – became the new heart
of Chelsea. The construction of the
embankment effectively closed the most
famous of Chelsea’s riverside inns and
coffee houses, and ruined the vistas
beloved of artists such as Turner and the
Greaves brothers.
At the heart of art
In the second half of the 19th century,
Chelsea gained a reputation as an
artistic and bohemian haven. While in
previous years artists had been drawn
to Chelsea for its picturesque houses
and riverside views, its proximity to the
West End and the affordability of spaces
for artists' studios attracted their descendants,
particularly after the construction
of the Chelsea Embankment.
Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, with his extensive
menagerie of exotic animals, helped
establish Chelsea’s bohemian culture.
Artistic Chelsea was a theme that
continued to run into the 20th century.
Mass-produced artists’ studios, which
started to appear in the area towards the
end of the 19th century and continued
being built at the start of the 20th century,
allowed a more diverse range of artists
on a wider range of incomes to take up
residence in the area.
By 1921 a census showed that
Chelsea had the highest concentration
of male artists in London.
Working class at the World’s
End
Many Chelsea residents during the first
half of the 20th century, however, were
neither artists nor wealthy pleasure-seekers,
but the lower and working classes,
who lived in poverty in decaying properties.
Many of these residents lived in the
World’s End area, and it was not until
after the Second World War – and the
Blitz – that the housing situation there
began to improve.
Cheyne Walk, by T H Shepherd, 1850
The Blitz
Because of its central location, Chelsea
did not escape Luftwaffe bombardments
during the war. The worst attack happened
in 1944, when a wing of the
Guinness Estate in west Chelsea was
destroyed, leaving 86 dead and 111
injured.
Sloane Square Underground station
was destroyed in November 1940, and
five months later Chelsea Old Church
was also razed to the ground.
But on the whole, Chelsea was left
relatively unscathed by German bombs
and was described as ‘neither blitzed nor
blighted’.