London Neighbourhoods
Chelsea
Chelsea is an affluent area in West London, bounded to the south by the River Thames. The exclusivity of Chelsea as a result of its high property prices has historically resulted in the term Sloane Ranger being used to describe its residents. Chelsea once had a reputation as London's bohemian quarter, the haunt of artists, radicals, painters and poets. Little of this seems to survive now - the comfortable squares off King's Road are homes to, amongst others, investment bankers and film stars.
Chelsea shone brightly but briefly in the 1960s Swinging London period, and the early 1970s. The Swinging Sixties was defined on King's Road, which runs the length of the area. The Western end of Chelsea featured boutiques Granny Takes a Trip and The Sweet Shop, the latter of which sold medieval silk velvet caftans, tabards and floor cushions, with many of the fashion models of the time like Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton and Patti Boyd, being customers. They epitomised "The Chelsea Girl".
Jean Shrimpton
John Crosby, an American journalist living in London, was the first to use the phrase 'Swinging London' and named it 'the most exciting city in the world'. He also coined the phrase "Chelsea girl", declaring them a symbol of what "men (found) utterly captivating, with a 'life is fabulous' philosophy". Chelsea at this time was home to the Beatles and to Rolling Stones members Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards.
Patti Boyd
In the 1970s, the World's End area of King's Road was home to Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's boutique "SEX", and saw the birth of the British punk movement. By the late 1970s, the growing bohemian and punk population moved from Chelsea into nearby Notting Hill and further north to Camden Town, with the rapid gentrification of the two areas, both of which remain places with a significant population of artists, musicians and those who work in other creative industries, particularly Camden Town.
Chelsea Flower Show
Online Walks
Things To See and Do
King's Road is the major artery through Chelsea and a busy road, and despite its continuing reputation as a shopping mecca, is now home to many of the same shops found on other British high streets, such as Gap, and McDonald's. Sloane Street is quickly catching up with Bond Street as one of London's premier shopping destinations, housing a variety of high-end fashion or jewellery boutiques such as Cartier, Tiffany & Co, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Gucci, Harrods, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Giorgio Armani, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Valentino, Bvlgari, Gianni Versace and Graff.
Chelsea is synonymous with the world's most famous flower show, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Every year the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea are transformed into show gardens, inspirational small gardens and vibrant horticultural displays. Around the same time local businesses get into the festival spirit by decorating their windows for Chelsea in Bloom.
Brompton Garden Cemetery, Chelsea
One of London's largest Victorian burial grounds, Brompton is also one of the Seven Garden Cemeteries that sit on the peripherals of the capital. It is a huge area of conservation, recently awarded funding to renovate and maintain its magnificent headstones, chapel, lodges and wildlife, so that it can continue to be a beautiful and interesting visiting place for future generations.
There are almost 35,000 monuments here, with 205,000 resting places, including vaults, catacombs and colonnades. Opened in 1840, it now has 39-acres of parks and gardens, all listed as Grade I English Heritage. On the western border of Kensington and Chelsea, many old residents are laid to rest here, including suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and the founders of Chelsea Football Club.
Chelsea Address Book
Chelsea's reputation stems from a period in the 19th century when it became a sort of Victorian artists' colony: painters such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, J. M. W. Turner, James McNeill Whistler, William Holman Hunt, and John Singer Sargent all lived and worked here. There was a particularly large concentration of artists in the area around Cheyne Walk and Cheyne Row, where the Pre-Raphaelite movement had its heart. The artist Prunella Clough was born in Chelsea in 1919.
Chelsea was also home to writers such as George Meredith, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Leigh Hunt and Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle. Jonathan Swift lived in Church Lane, Richard Steele and Tobias Smollett in Monmouth House. Carlyle lived for 47 years at No. 5 (now 24) Cheyne Row. After his death, the house was bought and turned into a shrine and literary museum by the Carlyle Memorial Trust, a group formed by Leslie Stephen, father of Virginia Woolf. Virginia Woolf set her 1919 novel Night and Day in Chelsea, where Mrs. Hilbery has a Cheyne Walk home.
The painter and etcher James Abbott McNeill
Whistler was one of Chelsea's most flamboyant
characters. He is honoured with an elaborate glazed-ware plaque at 96
Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. An American by birth, Whistler came to London
in 1859 and lived in the capital for much of the remainder of his life.
Of his various addresses - several in Chelsea - number 96 (formerly 2 Lindsey Row) was the most
significant: it was his home from late 1866 until October 1878 and was
where he held his Sunday 'breakfasts', attended by fellow artists.
Keith Richards lived here with Anita Pallenberg from August 1969, this former home of Tory government minister Anthony Nutting was where Keith and Anita had their new born son Marlon. The house was just a hundred yards away from another house on Cheyne Walk that was occupied by Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull. It was hoped that Keith living so near to Mick would help facilitate their song writing.
The Rolling Stones' Sir Mick Jagger owns this Chelsea mansion overlooking the River Thames. It has a history which dates back to 1674. At least one of its previous owners also had a knighthood, Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849); his next door neighbours are Lord and Lady Guinness. Mick has fond memories of this house from the late sixties. It was built on the site of Sir Thomas More's farm. Mick had previously bought No. 48 Cheyne Walk in the very same month as Keith Richards bought No.3 Cheyne Walk in May 1968. Mick hired designer Christopher Gibbs to redecorate it. During the course of his work, Gibbs also came up with the title for the Stones' next album, Beggars Banquet. Gibbs also designed No. 98 and Gibbs himself lived at No.100.
Mick's house at No.48 was infamously raided by the Chelsea Drugs Squad in 1969. Mick lived there with Marianne Faithfull and then wife Bianca. Keith Richards sold 3 Cheyne Walk in 1978 - the same year Mick sold No. 48. Originally part of Lindsay House, built in 1645, Gibbsapartment (No. 100 Cheyne Walk) was the epicentre of London bohemian Chelsea set during the 1960s. Mick and Paul McCartney were regular visitors here alongside poets and mystics, artists and musicians, courtesans, hustlers and hangers-on. Director Michaelangelo Antonioni used Gibbs' house as the setting for the famous party scene in his Sixties thriller, Blow-Up.
Before they rose to fame, The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards and Mick Jagger rented and lived in a bedsit at 102 Edith Grove, Chelsea. It has a reputation of being 'legendarily squalid'. They shared the flat with Brian Jones, who had coerced them into forming a rock band, living in poverty and turning down day-jobs to try to break through the London blues and jazz scene. Also living in the flat was Brian's mate James Phelge. Wthin 5 years, they had each purchased quality townhouses in the area.
The great American writer Samuel L Clemens (1835-1910) is known internationally as Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This was his home. Between 1891 and 1900 Twain went on an extended lecture tour of
Europe, and was in London for a good part of that period. Distressed at the death of his daughter Susy in August 1896, Twain maintained 'complete seclusion' at 23 Tedworth Square, where he lived with his
wife Olivia from autumn 1896 until June 1897.
Dramatist and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) lived here.
Percy Grainger (1882-1961), Australian Composer Folklorist and Pianist, lived here. Between 1901 and 1914 he was based in London, where he established himself first as a society pianist and later as a concert performer, composer and collector of original folk melodies.
Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) lived here.
Bram Stoker (1847-1912), Irish born author of Dracula, lived here for a number of years. After marrying in 1878, the Stokers moved to London, where Stoker became acting manager and then business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, London, a post he held for 27 years. During a visit to the English coastal town of Whitby in 1890, Stoker drew inspiration for writing Dracula. After suffering a number of strokes, Stoker died at No. 26 St George's Square, London on 20 April 1912.
Actors Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh lived here for a while.