The volumes themselves are splendidly bound, printed, and illustrated, but during a careless or too confiding period, when the oak book-case was open to all comers, several illustrations and some of the brass clasps and hinges were carried off as souvenirs, and the case is now strictly locked. It, and the chains, are comparatively modern.
I knew an old Chelsea lady who told me that her grandmother was in the habit of repairing to the church every Tuesday and reading aloud from the Bible to as many hearers as cared to listen for an hour, and that the school children regularly attended the reading. While this links us curiously with a past when the Bible was still a rarity, not to be found in everybody’s hands, it makes a suggestion of supplementary education from which our own century might profitably learn a lesson.
The font dates from about 1673; the gilding on the cover is the original work. The ship’s bucket in oak standing beside it was presented by members of the choir in 1910. The organ, a very sweet-toned instrument, has been recently beautifully repaired and enlarged by the Rev. Malcolm and Mrs. Farmer.
The Colours of the Chelsea Volunteers are the only two flags remaining of a considerable number which adorned the church in 1814. The King’s Colour is said to have been worked by Queen Charlotte and her daughters, and an old print depicts her presenting it to the regiment of the “Queen’s Royal Volunteers”; the picture is chiefly remarkable for the immense amount of cumbrous clothing worn by the Volunteers, and the very scanty draperies of Queen Charlotte and her ladies. The corps was raised in 1804, when Bonaparte threatened invasion, and the Regimental Colour bears a medallion portrait of St. Luke, and the inscription, “St. Luke, Chelsea.” A board in the porch chronicles this presentation, but beyond a loyal willingness to serve, I do not know that the Chelsea Volunteers were ever called upon to show further fight. Opposite this board the Ashburnham Bell reposes, a witness to the legend of 1679, when the Hon. William Ashburnham, swamped in the mud of Chelsea Reach, regained his bearings by hearing the church clock strike nine, and made for the shore by the sound, instead of plunging further into the tideway.
In gratitude, he presented this bell to be rung at nine every night from Michaelmas to Lady Day, and left a sum of money to endow it The bell-ringing ceased in 1822, when the peal of the old church was broken up to provide new bells for St. Luke’s in Sydney Street, but in memory of the Ashburnham deliverance and bequest the clock is illuminated every evening at sunset, and by oil lantern, by candle, by gas, and now by electricity, tells the story of the rescue to all who pass by.
I have, for want of space, omitted many smaller tablets and inscriptions, which, curious enough in their way, and important in the mosaic of our parish history, are yet little interesting to the passing visitor, unless he is bent on following up some special clue of family or local weight. Should such be his study, I would counsel him to refer to Mr. Reginald’s Blunt’s Historical Handbook, to Mr. Randall Davies’ splendid History of the Old Church, or to the Rev. S. P. T. Prideaux’s Short Account of Chelsea Old Church, to all of which I am infinitely beholden.
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