Chelsea, London
Chelsea | |
---|---|
King's Road in late June 2006 | |
Location within Greater London | |
Population | 41,440 [1] |
OS grid reference | TQ275775 |
London borough | |
Ceremonial county | Greater London |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | LONDON |
Postcode district | SW1, SW3, SW10 |
Dialling code | 020 |
Police | Metropolitan |
Fire | London |
Ambulance | London |
UK Parliament | |
London Assembly | |
Chelsea is an affluent area in West London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area.
Chelsea historically formed a manor and parish in the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex, which became the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea in 1900. It merged with the Metropolitan Borough of Kensington, forming the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea upon the creation of Greater London in 1965.
The exclusivity of Chelsea as a result of its high property prices historically resulted in the coining of the term "Sloane Ranger" in the 1970s to describe some of its residents, and some of those of nearby areas. Chelsea is home to one of the largest communities of Americans living outside the United States, with 6.53% of Chelsea residents having been born in the U.S.[2]
History
Early history
The word Chelsea (also formerly Chelceth, Chelchith, or Chelsey,
Abbot Gervace subsequently assigned the manor to his mother, and it passed into private ownership. By 1086 the Domesday Book records that Chelsea was in the hundred of Ossulstone in Middlesex, with Edward of Salisbury as tenant-in-chief.[5]
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 final absorption of the district into the metropolis. The street crossing that 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.
The memorials in the churchyard of
In 1718, the Raw Silk Company was established in Chelsea Park, with mulberry trees and a hothouse for raising silkworms. At its height in 1723, it supplied silk to Caroline of Ansbach, then Princess of Wales.[6]
Chelsea once had a reputation for the manufacture of Chelsea buns, made from a long strip of sweet dough tightly coiled, with currants trapped between the layers, and topped with sugar. The Chelsea Bun House sold these during the 18th century and was patronised by the Georgian royalty. At Easter, great crowds would assemble on the open spaces of the Five Fields – subsequently developed as Belgravia. The Bun House would then do a great trade in hot cross buns and sold about quarter of a million on its final Good Friday in 1839.[7][8]
The area was also 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
Dring the mid-1800s,
Chelsea's modern reputation as a centre of innovation and influence originated in a period during the 19th century, when the area became a Victorian artists' colony (see
The borough of artists
Chelsea once had a reputation as London's
The Chelsea Book Club, at no. 65 Cheyne Walk (Lombard Terrace), a bookshop that also presented exhibitions and lectures, held the first exhibition of African art in London (sculpture from Ivory Coast and Congo) in 1920, and was the first bookshop to stock Joyce's Ulysses in 1922. Sold in 1928 owing to financial problems, it became the Lombard Restaurant.[11]
Its reputation stems from a period in the 19th century when it became a sort of Victorian artists' colony: painters such as
The architect John Samuel Phene lived at No. 2 Upper Cheyne Row between 1903 and his death in 1912. He installed numerous artefacts and objets d'art around the house and gardens and it was known locally as the "Gingerbread Castle". It was demolished in 1924.[12]
Chelsea was also home to writers such as
In a 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. In 1980, the building was purchased by
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
The "Chelsea girl" was a symbol, media critic
Incidents
On 27 November 1974, the London unit of the
Administrative history
The area covered by the civil parish became the
In 1965 the area merged with the
Geography
The parish and borough of Chelsea, which now forms the southern part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, was bounded by rivers on three sides with Fulham Road forming part of its northern boundary with Kensington.
The eastern boundary with Westminster was formed by the River Westbourne, but was adjusted to follow Chelsea Bridge Road after the river was culverted.
The short western boundary with
The southern Thames frontages runs west from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment past Albert Bridge and Battersea Bridge to Chelsea Creek. Lots Road is a major landmark on the Chelsea side of the confluence of Chelsea Creek and the Thames.
Chelsea also gives its name to nearby locations, such as Chelsea Harbour in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and Chelsea Barracks in the City of Westminster. Chelsea includes large parts of the SW3 and SW10 postal districts, and a small section of SW1.
This former fashionable village was absorbed into London during the eighteenth century. Many notable people of 18th-century London, such as the bookseller Andrew Millar, were both married and buried in the district.[18]
King's Road is one of the district's major thoroughfares, a street which despite its continuing reputation as a shopping mecca, is now home to many of the same shops found on other British
As well as a number of garden squares, Chelsea has several open spaces including Albert Bridge Gardens, Battersea Bridge Gardens, Chelsea Embankment Gardens, the Royal Hospital Chelsea (the grounds of which are used by the annual Chelsea Flower Show) and Chelsea Physic Garden.[19]
Sport
In the 18th century,
Chelsea Football Club is located at Stamford Bridge in neighbouring Fulham, adjacent to the border with Chelsea. As a result of Chelsea's expensive location and wealthy residents, Chelsea F.C. has the wealthiest local supporters in England.[23]
Transport
Buses
Chelsea is served by many Transport for London bus services.
Tube and rail
Chelsea has no Underground station, but there are two stations close to its boundary;
A
There is a proposal to construct a
Notable residents
References
- ^ "Cremorne, Stanley, Royal Hospital, Redcliffe and Hans town wards 2011". Archived from the original on 16 June 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
- ^ "BBC Born Abroad Data". BBC News.
- ^
Lysons, Daniel (1811) [⏯]. The Environs of London: Being an Historical Account of the Towns, Villages, and Hamlets, Within Twelve Miles of that Capital: Interspersed with Biographical Anecdotes. Vol. 2 (2 ed.). London. p. 45. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
[...] the most common mode of spelling for some centuries after the Conquest, was Chelceth or Chelchith; in the 16th century it began to be written Chelsey; the modern way of spelling seems to have been first used about a century ago.
- ^ The London Encyclopaedia, Weinreb and Hibbert, p 633
- ^ Open Domesday Online: Chelsea, accessed April 2017
- ^ Patricia E.C. Croot, ed. (2004). "Economic history: Trade and industry". A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12: Chelsea. Institute of Historical Research.
- ISBN 9781405049252
- ^ George Bryan (1869), "The Original Chelsea Bunhouse", Chelsea, in the Olden & Present Times, London, pp. 200–202
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Second London General Hospital". Lost Hospitals of London. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
- ^ Grant, Phoebe. "A historic former church in the heart of Chelsea". Town & Country.
- ^ "Social history: Social and cultural activites [sic]". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 22 August 2022.[title missing]
- ISBN 978-1-405-04924-5.
- ^ Seebohm, Caroline (19 July 1971). "English Girls in New York: They Don't Go Home Again". New York. p. 34. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
- ^ "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1974".
- ^ This is based on the typical formation date of English parishes and that boundaries were very difficult to change; Churches in the landscape, Richard Morris, (1989) ISBN 9780460045094, pp. 169-171.
- ^ The London Encyclopaedia, Weinreb and Hibbert, p 633
- ^ Official Club website https://www.chelseafc.com/en/about-chelsea/history/stadium-history?pageTab=Why%20%22Stamford%20Bridge%22%3F
- ^ "The manuscripts, Letter from Andrew Millar to Andrew Mitchell, 26 August, 1766. Andrew Millar Project. University of Edinburgh". www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
- ^ "Private Gynaecologist". Retrieved 28 November 2014.
- ^ "Chelsea Common". www.rbkc.gov.uk.
- ^ H. T. Waghorn (1906) The Dawn of Cricket, p.9. Electric Press.
- ^ G. B. Buckley (1937) Fresh Light on pre-Victorian Cricket, p.8. Cotterell.
- ^ Premiership clubs by fans' wealth. Talktalk.co.uk.
- ^ "Chelsea & Fulham". Disused Stations. Subterranea Britannica. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
- ^ "Regional route". Projects and Schemes – Crossrail 2. Transport for London. Archived from the original on 29 July 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
- ^ "Crossrail 2 safeguarding directions plan part 1 (Wimbledon to Chelsea) - sheet 16" (PDF). March 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 May 2015. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
- ^ "What the future holds for Crossrail 2 as plans to improve links between Broxbourne, Waltham Cross, Cheshunt and London are shelved". Hertfordshire Mercury. 14 November 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
Further reading
- Daniel Lysons (1792), "Chelsea", Environs of London, vol. 2: County of Middlesex, London: T. Cadell
- "Chelsea". Chambers's Encyclopaedia. London. 1901.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Findlay Muirhead, ed. (1922), "Chelsea", London and its Environs (2nd ed.), London: Macmillan & Co., OCLC 365061
- "Chelsea". London. OL 24256167M.
- Mary Cathcart Borer, Two Villages: The Story of Chelsea and Kensington. London: W. H. Allen, 1973.
External links
- Chelsea, The Fascination of London by G. E. Mitton
- LivingBorough – Chelsea via articles, images and videos
- Digital Public Library of America. Works related to Chelsea, London, various dates
- Chelsea Independent College Archived 29 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine