The next turning out of the Embankment after 46 Church Street is Danvers Street, and an inscribed stone on the corner house tells that it was begun in 1696. Danvers House, occupied, (some authorities say built,) by Sir John Danvers in the first half of the seventeenth century, seems, with its grounds, to have occupied almost the whole space from the King’s Road to the Embankment. Thus Paulton’s Square and Danvers Street must both be partly on its site. The gardens were laid out in the Italian style, and attracted much notice. Sir John Danvers was knighted by James I. After he had been left a widower twice and was past middle age, he began to take an active part in the affairs of his time. He several times protested against Stuart exactions, and during the Civil War took the side of the Parliament. He was one of those who signed Charles I.’s death-warrant. He married a third time at Chelsea, and died there in April, 1655. His house was demolished in 1696. The house has gained some additional celebrity from its having been one of the four supposed by different writers to have been the dwelling of Sir Thomas More. This idea, however, has been repeatedly shown to be erroneous. More’s house was near Beaufort Street.
The next opening from the Embankment to the King’s Road is Beaufort Street. There is no view of More’s house known to be in existence, and, as stated above, four houses have contended for the 47 honour—Danvers, Beaufort, Alston, and that once belonging to Sir Reginald Bray. Dr. King went very carefully into the subject, and one of his manuscripts preserved at the British Museum is “A letter designed for Mr. Hearn respecting Sir Thos. More’s House at Chelsea.” His reasons cannot be given better than in his own words:
“First, his grandson, Mr. Thomas More, who wrote his life ... says that Sir Thomas More’s house in Chelsea was the same which my lord of Lincoln bought of Sir Robert Cecil. Now, it appears pretty plainly that Sir Robert Cecil’s house was the same which is now the Duke of Beaufort’s, for in divers places [are] these letters R.C., and also R.c.E., with the date of the year, viz., 1597, which letters were the initials of his name and his lady’s, and the year 1597, when he new built, or at least new fronted, it. From the Earl of Lincoln that house was conveyed to Sir Arthur Gorges; from him to Lionel Cranford, Earl of Middlesex; from him to King Charles I.; from the King to the Duke of Buckingham; from his son, since the Restoration, to Plummer, a citizen, for debts; from the said Plummer to the Earl of Bristol; and from his heirs to the Duke of Beaufort, so that we can trace all the Mesne assignments from Sir Robert Cecil to the present possessor.”
He goes on to add that More built the south 48 chancel (otherwise the chapel) in the church, and that this belonged to Beaufort House until Sir Arthur Gorges sold the house but retained the chapel. When Sir Thomas More came to Chelsea he was already a famous man, high in the King’s favour. The house he lived in is supposed to have stood right across the site of Beaufort Street, not very far from the river. It is unnecessary here to sketch that life, already so well known and so often written, but we can picture that numerous and united household which even the second Lady More’s mean and acrid temper was unable to disturb. Here royal and notable visitors frequently came. The King himself, strolling in the well-kept garden with his arm round his Chancellor’s neck, would jest pleasantly, and Holbein, in the dawn of his fame, would work for his patron, unfolding day by day the promise of his genius. Bishops from Canterbury, London, and Rochester came to confer with More. Dukes and Lords were honoured by Sir Thomas’s friendship before his fall. The barge which so often carried its owner to pleasure or business lay moored on the river ready to carry him that last sad journey to the Tower; and sadder still, to bring back the devoted daughter when the execution was accomplished, and later also when she bore her gruesome burden of a father’s head, said to have been buried with her in Chelsea Church. 49
After his death, More’s estates were confiscated and granted to Sir William Paulet, who with his wife occupied the house for about fifty years. It then passed through the possession of the Winchesters and the Dacres, the same whose tomb is such an ornament in the church, and by will Lady Dacre bequeathed it to Sir Robert Cecil, who sold it (1597) to the Earl of Lincoln, from which time we have the pedigree quoted from Dr. King. On the death of the Duke of Beaufort, Sir Hans Sloane bought it for £2,500 and pulled it down (1740).
Beaufort Street has not the width of Oakley Street, but it is by no means narrow, and many of the houses, which are irregularly built, have gardens and trees in front. A few yards further westward is Milman Street, so called after Sir W. Milman, who died in 1713. The site of his house is not definitely known, but the street marks it with sufficient accuracy. It is interesting to reflect that these great houses, described in detail, stood in their own grounds, which reached down to the water’s edge, whence their owners could go to that great London, of which Chelsea was by no means an integral part, to transact their business or pleasure. The water highway was by far the safest and most convenient in those days of robbery and bad roads. “The Village of Palaces,” as Chelsea has been called by Mr. L’Estrange, is no purely fanciful title. 50
Milman Street at present does not look very imposing. The houses and shops are squalid and mean. Near the King’s Road end is the Moravian burial-ground, which is cut off from the street by a door, over which are the words “Park Chapel National School, Church of England.” The burial-ground is small in extent, and is a square enclosure surrounded by wooden palings, and cut into four equal divisions by two bisecting paths. One of its walls is supposed to be the identical one bounding Sir T. More’s garden. At one end it is overshadowed by a row of fine elms, but in the plot itself there are no trees. What was formerly the chapel, at the north end, is now used as a school-house. Now and then the Moravians hold meetings there. The gravestones, laid horizontally in regular rows, are very small, and almost hidden by the long grass. The married men are in one quarter, and the bachelors in another, and the married and single women are separated in the same way. On the side of the chapel is a slab to the memory of Count Zinzendorf, who died in 1760.
Not far from the corner (eastward), as we turn on to the Embankment, is the famous Lindsey House, which claims to be the second oldest house in Chelsea, the first being Stanley House (see p. [55]). The original house was built by Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, some time before the middle 51 of the seventeenth century. De Mayerne was Court physician to Henry IV. and Louis XIII. of France. About twenty years later it was bought by Montague Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey, whose son rebuilt or altered it largely. It remained in the Lindsey family until 1750. The family of the Windsors leased it for some time, and one of them was married in the parish church to the widow of the unjust Judge Jeffreys. In 1750 the Earl of Lindsey, created Duke of Ancaster, sold it to the Count Zinzendorf mentioned above, who intended to make it the nucleus for a Moravian settlement in Chelsea. Ten years later he died, and some time after his death the Moravians sold Lindsey House. It is now divided into five houses, and the different portions have been so much altered, by the renovations of various owners, that it is difficult to see the unity of design, but one of the divisions retains the old name on its gateway. It is supposed that Wren was the architect. Amongst other notable residents who lived here were Isambard Brunel, the engineer; Bramah, of lock fame; Martin, the painter, who was visited by Prince Albert; and Whistler, the artist. Close by Lindsey Row the river takes an abrupt turn, making a little bay, and here, below the level of the street, is a little creeper-covered house where the great colourist Turner lived for many years, gaining gorgeous sky effects from the red sunsets 52 reflected in the water. The house is numbered 118, and has high green wooden pailings. It is next to a public-house named The Aquatic, and so will be easily seen. The turning beyond is Blantyre Street. Turner’s real house was in Queen Anne Street, and he used to slip away to Chelsea on the sly, keeping his whereabouts private, even from his nearest friends. He was found here, under the assumed name of Admiral Booth, the day before his death, December 19, 1851. The World’s End Passage is a remembrance of the time when the western end of Chelsea was indeed the end of the world to the folks of London. Beyond World’s End Passage were formerly two houses of note—Chelsea Farm, afterwards Cremorne Villa, and Ashburnham House. The first of these lay near what is now Seaton Street. If we pass down Blantyre Street, which for part of the distance runs parallel to World’s End Passage, we find three streets running into it at an obtuse angle. The first of these, from the King’s Road end, is Seaton Street. It was just beyond this that the Earl of Huntingdon, about the middle of the eighteenth century, built Chelsea Farm. His widow, who lived there after his death, was connected with the Methodist movement, and built many chapels. She left the farm in 1748. It was then sold, and passed through various hands, until it came into the possession of Baron 53 Dartrey, afterwards Viscount Cremorne, from whom it gained its later name. Lady Cremorne was frequently visited by Queen Charlotte. This Lady Cremorne was a descendant of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. After her death the villa and grounds were sold. In 1845 the place was opened as Cremorne pleasure-gardens. These gardens, though famous, never rivalled successfully those of Ranelagh, at the eastern extremity of Chelsea. They were only open for thirty-two years, but during that time acquired the reputation for being the resort of all the rowdies in the neighbourhood. The noise made by the rabble passing along the river side after the closing at nights caused great annoyance to the respectable inhabitants, and finally led to the suppression of the gardens. L’Estrange says that the site extended over the grounds of Ashburnham as well as Cremorne House.
Cremorne Road is an offshoot of Ashburnham Road. Ashburnham House was built in 1747 by Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, son of the Bishop of that name, and author of “The Suspicious Husband.” However, the house is remembered, not by his name, but by that of its second purchaser, the Earl of Ashburnham, who had here a collection of costly paintings. The grounds were very well laid out, and adorned with statues.
Lots Road, running parallel to the river, retains 54 in its name a memory of the “lots” of ground belonging to the manor, over which the parishioners had Lammas rights.