part, a labyrinth of courts and passages of small and two-roomed houses. It was called Jews’ Row, bounded by White Lion Street on the east, Turk’s Row on the north, and Franklin’s Row on the west, and was inhabited by the very lowest and most depraved and criminal class both male and female, many low lodging houses and thieves’ kitchens, and the roadway was at least one foot six inches lower than the path, and all along the curb the low, loose women would sit and insult and rob the passers by. It was quite impossible to arrest them as they escaped down the labyrinth of courts and alleys, and it was so well-known as a dangerous locality that very few people would venture through it, while the district lying to the east between White Lion Street and the boundary of the parish, and Chelsea Market, where Sloane Gardens now stand, was nearly as bad, with courts and alleys and crime and depravity. As a market it had long been disused. I can just recollect a few poor miserable stalls on the large open space enclosed by posts and rails in front of the shops in Lower Sloane Street, where Sloane Gardens now stand. This district is now nearly all swept away and made one of the best and most fashionable residential districts of the west of London.
Dear old Chelsea, the land-marks fast fading away,
Where the warrior, the statesmen, the grave, and the gay,
Came to rest and to play.
Where fair maids and grand dames spent their fortune and fame,
Then flirted away where grand lords and gay courtiers came
For their wooing by the silent highway.
Where men of learning high in the state,
Passed from their hearths to the dungeons and died for their Faith.
Brave to the last,
Dear old Chelsea will soon be but a page of the past.
Footnotes:
[32] It marks the parish boundary, and is carried across Sloane Square Station in great iron cylinders.—J. H. Quinn.