After strolling about Chelsea one’s mind turns with insistence to the thought of buns, “r-r-rare Chelsea buns,” as Swift wrote to Stella. There is now nothing left but the name of Bunhouse Place, at the corner of Union Street and the Pimlico Road, of the famous shop where 100,000 buns used to be sold of a Good Friday Eve one hundred and forty years ago, and where the Georges and their Queens used to drive to fetch their buns. It was taken down in 1839, but the fasting sightseer—being in Chelsea and not in Bloomsbury or Bayswater—can easily find other places to stay his hunger. If he does not belong to the decorative sex—the phrase is Mr. Wagner’s, not mine—he will doubtless follow that very knowledgeable guide and betake him to the “Six Bells,” 195 King’s Road—a short distance from the Chelsea Town Hall, and there find the comfort that attracts its artist clientèle.
There are other restaurants that are much frequented by the artists of the quarter:—the “Blue Cockatoo,” in Cheyne Walk, near Oakley Street, and the “Good Intent,” 316 King’s Road, and a new and yet more attractive one on the corner of Arthur Street with the enticing name of “The Good Humoured Ladies.”
Chelsea is full of interesting shops. The Chelsea Book Club is on the Embankment by Church Street—its delights must be sampled to be realised—and next door there is a queer handmade toy shop called Pomona—why Pomona?
Across the road is Chelsea Old Church, with its high seventeenth-century tower. To me its interior is the most satisfying in London. The spirit of ancient days dwells there, untouched by modern currents of unrest, and in the tranquil beauty there is no jarring note. Sir Thomas More was one of its celebrated parishioners—you may see his monument and the epitaph he wrote himself.
What a pleasant, kindly, independent spirit had this great Chancellor, who donned the humble surplice of a parish clerk and sang in the choir unperturbed by the remonstrances of even so great a personage as the Duke of Norfolk. I always liked the tale of how the latter came to dine with Sir Thomas in Chelsea and “fortuned to find him at the church in choir with a surplice on his back singing, and as they went home together arm in arm, the duke said, ‘God’s Body, God’s Body, my Lord Chancellor, a parish clerk—a parish clerk! You dishonour the King and his office!’ And Sir Thomas replied mildly that he did not think the duke’s master and his would be offended with him for serving God his Master or thereby count his office dishonoured.”
I love Chelsea Old Church better than any other London church. It has nothing of the heavy solidity that smacks of broadcloth and thick gold watch-chains. The congregation on a summer Sunday evening might be met with in any village in England. The very altar has no pomp of embroidered frontal and massive ornaments; it looks almost like a Jacobean dining-room with its simple oaken table and dignified chairs on either side.
The church is filled with enchanting old treasures—chained Bibles and old monuments to the great dead who worshipped there, but I cannot find it in my heart to catalogue them for you as if it were a museum. Enter those dim walls and see for yourself, and you will love it as did that lover of England from across the sea whose epitaph is not the least among the beautiful things of Chelsea Old Church:
In memory of Henry James, Novelist
Born in New York, 1843. Died in Chelsea, 1916
Lover and interpreter of the fine
amenities of brave decisions and generous
loyalties: resident of this parish, who
renounced a cherished citizenship to give his
allegiance to England in the first
year of the Great War.
In other churches with their solemn balconies and air of chill emptiness, it is difficult to imagine the things that have happened there in other days. But in Chelsea Old Church, which somehow always seems peopled with friendly ghosts and never lonely, one can almost see Henry VIII. being married secretly to Jane Seymour before the public ceremony, and hear the cadence of Dr. John Donne’s voice as he preached the funeral oration of the woman he had immortalised in The Autumnal Beauty.
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.