FROM 1680 TO 1865
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The building of the Royal Hospital from 1682 in the
south-eastern fields of Chelsea marked a significant
point in the parish's history, as it generated a wave of
speculative building on formerly unbuilt land, on a scale
which was new to Chelsea. The Hospital's presence
seems to have attracted aristocratic and eminent residents to the area because of the grandeur of its buildings
and its setting and the neighbours who from the 1690s
had built mansions on land leased from the Crown. The
few speculative houses built in Paradise Row in the
1690s, quickly increased to rows of houses lining the
roads either side of the Hospital and leading down to the
river at Chelsea village. So much building was taking
place that in 1694 a complaint was made that trade at the
White Horse near Chelsea church had declined disastrously because of the number of houses being built near
'Chelsea College'. (fn. 8)
The old village, too, shared in the desire to build. In
the year he died, 1698, Charles Cheyne wrote to the
rector about the growing population in Chelsea and the
need for a new gallery in the church to accommodate
them, saying he would be glad to help by building
himself, or getting others to, and would be glad to let
land for that purpose and in particular pull down a
tavern and a bowling green for the designs of better and
more sober purpose. (fn. 9) Since building more houses would
increase the possible number of churchgoers, he
presumably meant that using pleasure grounds to house
more sober middle-class residents would augment the
contributions to the church rate, and he also presumably
had in mind the bowling green attached to the Three
Tuns, though it was left to his son to lease that for
building in 1708. (fn. 10) The growth in Chelsea from this
period was demonstrated by the average number of
recorded baptisms in the parish church: in the 1560s
there were about 5 a year, and 8 in the first decade of the
17th century; in the 1630s it was 16, but by the 1680s it
had risen to an average of 43, and by the 1730s had
become 108. By the 1780s it was 158, and it continued to
climb steeply thereafter. (fn. 11) The number of houses rose
from about 172 in 1674, to 350 in 1717, 741 in 1777,
and 1,350 in 1795. (fn. 12) At the beginning of the 18th
century Chelsea was praised for its situation on rising
ground which sloped gently down to the Thames, to
which it had a four-mile frontage, adorned with a handsome church and several stately buildings, especially the
Royal Hospital; it was noted as the residence of many of
the nobility. (fn. 1) Most of its buildings were concentrated
close to the river: the body of the town lay near the
church, with two rows of buildings extending northwards in Church Lane, and rows reaching to either side
of the church, facing the river, from the duke of Beaufort's in the west to the Royal Hospital in the east; west
beyond Beaufort House lay many scattered houses and
good seats, and beyond the Hospital a row of houses
stretched a considerable way towards London. The
writer emphasized that it had always been the resort of
'persons of good fashion: Henry VIII, the marquess of
Winchester, Sir Thomas More, Princess Elizabeth'. The
'sweetness of its air and pleasant situation' attracted the
eminent and it was filled with worthy families. In addition there were many schools with a great number of
boarders, and in the 20-30 years before 1705 Chelsea
had grown from a small straggling village into 'a large,
beautiful and populous town', with c. 300 houses and
more than 300 families, about three times the number in
1664. Its growth was attributed to its proximity to
London with easy access by water or coach to the Court,
the City, or place of business. Good conversation was
available at the coffee house (Don Saltero's) near the
church; rare plants grew there and nowhere else, and the
Apothecaries' Garden was proof of good soil. (fn. 2) The
author lived in Chelsea and, like many resident writers
who succeeded him, could not praise his local village
enough. The many large seats and houses that had grown
up during the 16th and 17th centuries were also emphasized: the Royal Hospital, Beaufort House, Lindsey
House, Shaftesbury House, Chelsea Manor House,
Blacklands House, Winchester House, Gorges House,
and several others, but even in 1705 many of these were
let as boarding schools; the number of aristocrats living
in Chelsea was by then declining, while the more urban
rows of red brick houses in Church Lane and in Paradise
Row near the Hospital were the residences of MPs and
government officials.
Figure 10:
Chelsea c. 1700
Figure 11:
A depiction of Beaufort House and grounds c. 1708, with Lindsey House (extreme left), Gorges House (behind), gardens of former Danvers House (extreme right), and Little Chelsea showing the 4-storeyed Shaftesbury House (top left)
In 1724 Daniel Defoe's Tour was published in which
he described 'Chelsea, a Town of Palaces', a remark
apparently provoked by the Royal Hospital, and which,
he presciently says, by its new extended buildings
seemed 'to promise itself to be made one time or another
a part of London'. He described the Royal Hospital and
'a little Palace' formerly the home of the earl of Ranelagh,
describing the house and the charm of its situation and
prospect. He then had to cease describing private houses
and gardens as there were so many around London in
the county of Middlesex. (fn. 1) He may not even have seen the
Tudor manor house which later writers considered a
palace because of its link with Henry VIII, or Winchester
House, the palace of the bishops of Winchester, but his
phrase has subsequently been echoed in almost every
book written about Chelsea, though since Chelsea has
become part of London, as Defoe thought it might, the
'town' has been changed to a 'village of palaces'. (fn. 2)
Like other villages separated from London by fields,
Chelsea had problems with robberies on the highways
leading through the parish, mentioned from the 16th
century. In 1613 three yeomen had allegedly robbed a
man in the highway at Chelsea; in 1692 one Parson
Smith, reader or lecturer of Chelsea, stood accused of
assisting highwaymen; John Verney found journeys from
Little Chelsea to the City tedious in 1680, partly because
'rogues' made the road unsafe. (fn. 3) In the 18th century
robberies by footpads and highwaymen were common.
The Five Fields, just outside Chelsea's eastern boundary,
were particularly notorious, although the situation
improved by the early 19th century. The area around the
Royal Hospital was also considered dangerous. (fn. 1) In 1761
the parishioners opposed the closure of the Hospital's
grounds in the evening, necessitating a detour attended
with dangers including frequent robberies. (fn. 2) In 1816 the
vestry's application to have a road for carriages, rather
than only allowing people to walk through Burton's
Court after dark, (fn. 3) was unsuccessful. (fn. 4)
Though Chelsea had been one of the villages around
London and Westminster which housed eminent residents in the 17th century, it developed a more particular
role and gained more fame as an 18th-century riverside
pleasure resort, where people could come for the day or
take lodgings for the summer. The main focus of this was
Ranelagh Gardens, opened in 1742 and for about 40
years the height of fashion for entertainments, but visits
by boat to Chelsea to dine at a riverside tavern were a
quiet but pleasant way to escape from the crowds, noise
and smells of London. The main street in the village
along the river was lined with inns, while some isolated
taverns in the fields and along the highways, like World's
End, provided more rural surroundings. (fn. 5) The new
houses of Cheyne Walk included at least two taverns. (fn. 6) By
the second half of the 18th century Chelsea was attracting
greater artistic attention as well, its riverside, picturesque
old buildings, and stately mansions and grounds by the
river all being favoured subjects for paintings and
engravings. (fn. 7)
In 1693 the Crown made a payment towards building
a road between Kensington and Chelsea, (fn. 8) presumably
for Royal Avenue from the Royal Hospital to King's
Road, thought to be the only section actually built of a
grand route planned by William III to run between the
Royal Hospital and Kensington Palace. (fn. 9) In 1717 just
four roads connected Fulham Road with King's Road
and five routes ran south from King's Road to the river, (fn. 10)
but from the 18th century building gradually opened up
further north-south routes through the parish. In 1778
George III granted permission for Sloane Street and
Lower Sloane Street to be opened up into the king's
private road. (fn. 11) There were already many houses built
along King's Road from the late 17th century, such as on
freeholds south of Chelsea common, and on the glebe
near the rectory, though many also had some kind of
access from other directions. Local use must already
have been heavy by the time the road passed into public
ownership in 1830 and was open to all. This was a
pivotal moment in Chelsea's history: Chelsea already
had a new parish church north of King's Road and
several public facilities around it; the convenient
highway into and through the middle of the parish inevitably became the focus for commercial life and also for
new building, and diminished the role of the old centre
by the former parish church on the riverside.
The shift from an 18th-century village resort to a
19th-century metropolitan suburb sometimes moved
faster than the vestry and parish officers could deal with.
The vestry were reluctant to incur expense in connection
with highways and footpaths: they refused to take on the
recently-constructed Sloane Street in 1782, (fn. 12) and roads
at Queen's Elm used for some years were only adopted as
parish highways in 1799 after proprietors had
constructed drainage and paved the footpaths. Riley
Street was taken on following drainage work in 1800. (fn. 13)
The parish feared the expense of taking on roads
requiring work, for example in 1828-9 when a road
across Chelsea Common which required drainage had
been adopted. (fn. 14)
Paving also assumed importance when from 1774 the
vestry submitted names for the appointment of two
surveyors by magistrates. Piecemeal improvements
included paving crossways at Swan Walk and Bull Walk
near the river in 1781, like those in Manor (later Chelsea
Manor) Street and Lawrence Street already done. In
1788 the vestry acted to keep Justice Walk open and in
1789 ordered that the enclosure of part of Millman Row
be reversed. (fn. 15) In 1801 the parish was responsible for 3½
miles of road and three-quarters of a mile of footways;
the turnpike roads totalled 3¼ miles. (fn. 16) In 1815-16 the
vestry sought exclusion from a Bill for paving metropolitan streets, as the extent of Chelsea's foot-and carriageways would make paving expensive, and also resisted a
local scheme for paving outside Hans Town. In 1816 the
vestry made a paved crossing near the King's Road burial
ground. (fn. 17) Following an Act of 1821 to improve collection of the highway composition, administrative
improvements were attempted in 1822 and the streets
were better regulated by 1829. (fn. 18) In 1823-4 drainage was
improved and paving was in progress in the late 1820s,
funded partly by private contributions. (fn. 1) In 1829 the
vestry thought few districts had better roads and footpaths, although surveyors were urged to continue
curbing footpaths. (fn. 2) In 1833 expenditure on paving was
controversial, (fn. 3) and in 1834, despite opposition, a highways board was appointed to avoid partiality and the
continual reversal of work by succeeding surveyors. (fn. 4) The
old system was revived in 1836-7, only to return to the
board system in 1838. (fn. 5)
In 1792 Chelsea inhabitants formed an association to
aid the magistrates in preserving order, which directed
the constables and watchmen to suppress inflammatory
writings, and tried to prevent seditious assemblies.
Patrolmen from Bow Street attended when a riot was
feared; journeymen at a manufactory in Church Lane
(later Old Church Street) were discouraged from
burning an effigy of Tom Paine. (fn. 6) That year John Martin
and others, indicted for seditious talk and assault and
said to belong to the Free and Easy or Arthurian Society,
a political club, were suspected of being behind a
planned riot which was prevented by the Chelsea association. (fn. 7)
As a measure of its new urban status, the London
Building Act of 1774 added Chelsea and three other
parishes to the cities of London and Westminster and
parishes in the bills of mortality, to regulating building
there. (fn. 8) Chelsea also acquired some other urban features,
such as hackney coaches which plied at the Royal
Hospital in 1771. (fn. 9)
In 1825 three private Acts received royal assent
allowing the Cadogan trustees to grant building leases
on the Cadogan settled estates, and to demolish
Winchester House and grant building leases of the site,
and allowing the rector to grant building leases for 33
acres of glebe. (fn. 10) Despite new building steadily taking
place, however, in the 1830s much of Chelsea was
perceived as a rather down-at-heel locality. In 1834
Carlyle wrote of his affection for his 'excellent old
house': Chelsea was unfashionable and had numbers of
old houses, 'at once cheap and excellent'. (fn. 11) Another
writer contrasted Chelsea's 'barbarism' with the 'aristocratic pavements' of neighbouring Belgravia in 1839. (fn. 12)
In 1839 the highway board was ordered to water the
roads in summer to keep the dust down; not only
comfort but the value of property was thought to depend
on the quality of the roads. Considered a success,
summer watering was ordered to be extended in 1841,
and was carried out again in 1843-4, despite doubts
about the legality of using the highway rate for this. By
1843 the highway board had improved footpaths and
made stone crossings on principal streets, but in 1844-5
paving was partly financed by private contributions. (fn. 13) A
complaint of 1844 from a King's Road business about
new pavements which narrowed the carriage road
revealed tensions between tradesmen sympathetic to
parishioners' interests and those more interested in
wheeled traffic from farther afield. (fn. 14)
The prospect of an embankment along the Thames
was a stimulus to the Chelsea Improvement Act (1845)
for maintaining the parish's streets and footways
(excepting Hans Town and Fulham Road). (fn. 15) Under the
Act a board of 50 commissioners replaced the existing
boards of highway surveyors and lighting inspectors and
were given extra powers to make, pave, clean, water, and
drain streets, collect waste, and deal with nuisances, and
to levy rates for the purpose. (fn. 16) Its implementation was
contentious. An improvement society argued that the
commission would regenerate Chelsea by paving
throughout, removing obstructions, and, above all, by
creating new thoroughfares, particularly around the
Royal Hospital and in southern Chelsea west of Church
Street. A ratepayers' association, however, feared that
rates would be squandered. (fn. 17) The commissioners, first
elected in August 1845, began work energetically that
autumn, meeting far more often than the monthly
minimum. (fn. 18) By November it was reported that the
results of the rate levied on local householders could be
seen: tollgates had been removed, allowing buses to serve
Little Chelsea, and many footways, especially in King's
and Fulham roads, had been paved. (fn. 19) The commission
maintained, cleansed, watered, and improved roads;
paving was laid down, sometimes in response to
complaints about particular streets; (fn. 20) a uniformed
street-keeper was appointed whose duties included
dealing with obstructions. (fn. 21)
Meanwhile sewage was causing concern as medieval
ditches struggled to cope with the effluent from the
many new houses discharging into the natural watercourses. In 1854 50 householders and residents in the
neighbourhood of Sloane Square complained that the
petition which they with local incumbents and surgeons
had presented to the Metropolitan Commissioners of
Sewers regarding the Westbourne or Ranelagh Sewer
had been ignored. The sewer had been covered as far as
Sloane Square, but thereafter was open down to the
Thames, and by 1854 each side was lined with dwellings
densely crowded by the poorest classes, who had
suffered great sickness the previous year, presumably
because of the filthy stream. The petitioners wanted it
covered the whole way, since cholera and fever had
again appeared. (fn. 1)
The parish also resisted a proposal in 1863 to build
new barracks in Chelsea on Quailfield (later the site of
Lennox Gardens) to replace Knightsbridge Barracks:
residents and the rector of Upper Chelsea strongly
opposed the barracks, as the parish would be deprived of
a large number of ratepayers if barracks were built
instead of houses, and the parish already had three great
military establishments. (fn. 2)
The number of new houses built in Chelsea between
1831 and 1842 averaged nearly 91 a year, despite a
slump in the mid 1830s. Well over half were 4th class,
the mid point in the range. (fn. 3) As building increased more
streets were taken over by the parish, for example
William Street in 1837, (fn. 4) and others declared public by
the improvement commission between 1846 and 1853, (fn. 5)
although it still wished to ensure that the promoters, not
the commission, paid for making up new roads. (fn. 6) In 1847
when it proposed a new road between Marlborough
Road (later Draycott Avenue) and Hans Place to
improve communications to Hans Town, a minority in
the vestry felt that the road should be made by the
proprietors. (fn. 7) In 1854 Chelsea improvement commission had over 19 miles of roads; Hans Town commission
had four miles. (fn. 8) From 1864 the parish took over responsibility for the one mile of turnpike road still running
through Chelsea, included in its 22 miles in 1872. The
vestry continued to pave and improve streets, in
1856-72 flagging over 420,000 ft of footways. In 1872
all the roads were watered. (fn. 9) The vestry still considered
that the embankment through Chelsea to Fulham was
necessary, and calls for its extension continued. (fn. 10)