CHELSEA CHAPEL.
This Chapel was erected in 1865, and is situated on a part of the site we have just described, adjoining Lower Sloane Street. The Church worshipping within its sacred walls formerly occupied Paradise Chapel, Queen’s Road West, which still remains, and which was originally a school room belonging to a scholastic establishment, which occupied for many years the site of Calthorpe Place. It is still retained by the members of the above Church as a Ragged School.
The Chapel is a plain white brick building, without any particular attempt at architectural display. Mr. James Cubitt was the architect. It will seat probably 1000 persons. There is a schoolroom underneath the Chapel, which will contain about 600 adults, in which there is a Day School for Girls and Infants in the week, and the Sunday School is also held in it, which numbers about 200. The Rev. Frank H. White, who resides in Hemus Terrace, is the Minister, and is much esteemed not only by the members of the church, but by all with whom he is associated in life.
I must now proceed to Sloane Street, where first “I drew the breath of life,” and which is consequently endeared to me by recollections of the very earliest events of my life.
Mr. Holland, in the year 1777, took a lease of one hundred acres of land, called in old records Blacklands, of Charles, Lord Cadogan, which now consists of Sloane Street, Cadogan Place, Hans Place, Exeter Street, Ellis Street, D’Oyley Street, Sloane Square, George Street, &c. The buildings were begun just at the commencement of the American war, owing to which their progress was much impeded.
A very great improvement has at last been made at Grosvenor Bridge, in ancient times called Blandel Bridge. Its name was probably corrupted to “Bloody Bridge,” in consequence of the numbers of robberies and murders formerly committed on this spot. The entrance here into the parish, at the eastern end of Sloane Square, has been after years of delay considerably widened, and some spacious shops erected. There is also now an Underground Railway Station, and the West London Commercial Bank has likewise extensive premises in Sloane Square, both of which will confer very great advantages on the inhabitants of Chelsea, and the public in general.