21, Comely Bank Edinburgh
see page [14]
Craigenputtock
see page [19]
Carlyle’s house at 5 (now 24), Cheyne Row, Chelsea
see page [21]
For eighteen months after their marriage the Carlyles lived at 21, Comely Bank, the “trim little cottage, far from all the uproar and putrescence (material and spiritual) of the reeky town, the sound of which we hear not, and only see over the knowe the reflection of its gaslights against the dusky sky.” It was during this time that Carlyle contributed essays to the Edinburgh and Foreign Quarterly Reviews. In 1828 a removal was made to Mr. Welsh’s manor at Craigenputtock, where in the solitude “almost druidical” Sartor Resartus was written. “Poor Puttock!” he exclaims in one of his letters, “Castle of many chagrins; peatbog castle, where the devil never slumbers nor sleeps! very touching art thou to me when I look on thy image here.” In this lonely spot, cut off from all social intercourse, the Carlyles remained until 1834, when, after “six years’ imprisonment on the Dumfriesshire moor,” they moved to Chelsea and took up their residence at No. 5, Cheyne Row, in the house which was to be their home until death.
After a week’s wearisome house-hunting in London under the guidance of Leigh Hunt, Carlyle sent a long description of the proposed new residence to his wife, of which the following is an extract:—“We are called ‘Cheyne Row’ proper (pronounced Chainie Row) and are a ‘genteel neighbourhood,’ two old ladies on the one side, unknown character on the other, but with ‘pianos’ as Hunt said. The street is flag-pathed, sunk-storied, iron-railed, all old-fashioned and tightly done up.... The house itself is eminent, antique, wainscoted to the very ceiling, and has been all new painted and repaired.... On the whole a most massive, roomy, sufficient old house, with places, for example, to hang, say, three dozen hats or cloaks on, and as many crevices and queer old presses and shelved closets as would gratify the most covetous Goody—rent £35! I confess I am strongly tempted.”
Corner in Drawing-room at 5, Cheyne Row
see page [22]