Photo by Miss Muriel Johnston.
THOMAS CARLYLE.
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The date 1708 on the side wall above Cheyne Cottage fixes the building of Cheyne Row and the west end of Upper Cheyne Row; a beautiful old house which was cleared away in 1894 to make room for the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Redeemer was called Orange House, in political compliment, and its next-door neighbour, York House, was named after James II. These two were probably older than the others, and Lord Cheyne, who formed the Row, built his newer houses into line with those already existing. Some of the iron work of the balconies, etc., and the porticoes, are worth noting.
Carlyle’s House (now No. 24) can be visited every week-day, between the hours of 10 a.m. and sunset—admission 1s., Saturdays 6d.—and it speaks for itself. I will only add a reference to Mrs. N., the old servant who spent years in Carlyle’s service, and finished her honoured days in ours—her descriptions of “the Master” writing his Frederick the Great were about the most intimate revelations that have yet been made of the Carlyle ménage!
The Master would be so immersed in his subject—maps and books being spread all over the floor of his room “in his wrestle with Frederick”—that his lunch would remain unheeded until, stretching up a vague hand, he plunged it into the dish of hashed mutton or rice pudding, as the case might be—regardless of plate, spoon, or decorum. “It was no cook’s credit to cook for him,” was Mrs. N.’s verdict, “a cook that respected herself simply couldn’t do it,” and though she adored Mrs. Carlyle, she left her service to restore her own self-respect.
Cheyne Cottage was once the Toll Gate for entering Chelsea Parish at the south-west angle—there was another Toll Gate, I think, at the Fulham end of Church Street, but it was probably to this one on the river bank that James Duke of York, afterwards James II., came one winter night a few minutes later than the recognised closing time, eight o’clock. James was unpopular, and the old woman who kept the gate a staunch Protestant, so that to the outriders’ challenge, “Open to the Duke of York!” she shrilled back defiance from her bedroom window, “Be ye Duke or devil, ye don’t enter by this gate after eight of the clock!” and so left James and his coach to lumber on to Whitehall through the bankside mud, as best he might.
When I first knew Chelsea, the old board with the toll prices and distances under the Royal arms of Charles II. was preserved at the cottage, but this has, I believe, been surrendered to the London Museum.