CHEYNE WALK.
“Everything is in keeping, even to the old rickety timber bridge, which crosses the Thames, ascending steeply, and resting on what seems a series of birdcages, but which is now disappearing piecemeal. Beyond the bridge there is a charming bit of the river; and on some summer’s evening after a sultry day, when the water has a glassy, lazy, brimming look, and a faint haze is over the low-lying banks on the other side, and the houses and the church slope up in pyramid shape, it has all the air of a continental scene. Here the Chelsea watermen cluster and lounge, leaning over the wooden paling, and as they talk looking down into the glassy water, which is as languid as they are. Some old Manor House behind us, revealed by its French Mansard windows in the roof, by its projecting eaves, and its two great wings, has now been plainly cut up into four houses; and the centre one, overgrown with ivy and creepers, has all the windows open, its balconies filled with the family reading or chatting, the maids sitting working on the top balcony; while through its door we see the cool, shady hall and the green trees of the garden beyond.
“The ‘watermen’ flourish here, gradually driven from the other ‘stairs.’ So do their boats, which are in vast numbers; and indeed here is rowed the annual watermen’s race for the coat and badge left by the Irish actor, Dogget, with money added by some of the London Companies. In the windows was the bill of the Royal Chelsea Theatre, where, on this special night, Mr. Welkinghorn takes his benefit in the Moor of Venice; with, for a second piece, the appropriate Tom Tug; and on which occasion ‘the Chelsea watermen have kindly consented to attend in their coats and badges.’ All this was primitive enough and welcome, and scarcely to be expected in a London suburb. Here was once Saltero’s coffee-house, familiar to readers of Coleridge and Lamb, a river inn very popular once—indeed popular up to a late date. Salter was body servant to the great Sir Hans, and came with him from Ireland, and then formed one of those queer, good-for-nothing ‘museums,’ which captains of vessels often get together and bequeath to some country town, where they are shown with pride.”
This little picture is—if I may say it—a very faithful one of Chelsea as it used to be.
The headlong rapidity with which everything that is pretty or interesting in London is being swept off is truly extraordinary. It seems but yesterday—it is little over ten years ago—when London had its two charming al fresco gardens, the Surrey and Cremorne. The latter was a most original place, lying as it did by the tranquil river. So pretty a garden did not exist near London, and there was a quaint air of old fashion somehow preserved, suggesting Ranelagh and Vauxhall. Of a summer’s evening it was pleasant to glide down by steamer, touch at the crazy pier, now passed away, walk by the river’s edge to where the old trees rose high, thick, and stately—you expected to hear and see the rooks—through which came the muffled sounds of music and glittering, flitting lights. Even the gate was old and stately, and its ironwork good. Within, there was the blaze of light at the dancing platform; the old-fashioned hotel—nobody surely ever boarded or lodged there, or could—with bowed wings all ablaze with lamps; the “boxes” running round for suppers; the not unpicturesque bars; the capital theatres, for there were several dispersed about here and there and everywhere; and the sort of procession headed by an illuminated placard announcing the name of the next show. Then would the band strike up a stirring march, the drums clattering, the brass braying, and in military array lead the way, attended by all the rout and crowd, who fell in behind and tramped on cheerfully to renewed enjoyments. The dancing was always an amusing spectacle, from the rude honesty with which it was carried out; not the least amusing portion the dignity of the M.C.’s. The people sitting under the good old trees—the glaring booths—even the fortune-teller in his dark retirement, as in a deep grove, all this made up a curious entertainment never likely to be revived. We cannot go back to these things. The Surrey Gardens went before, as these have gone, long since. Now these elements are gathered up into aquariums, great halls, perhaps “hugely to the detriment” of the public. So peace be with the manes of Cremorne!
Turning out of Cheyne Walk, we find ourselves in Cheyne Row, which seems still and old-fashioned as some by-street in a cathedral close. Here are small, sound, old red-brick houses of the Queen Anne period, or so-called Queen Anne period. And here, at No. 24, lived Thomas Carlyle, in whom neighbours and neighbourhood might well take pride. A compact dwelling, next to the one with a verandah and substantial porch. Its neighbour on the other side boasts the good old eaves which it has lost—but en revanche it has its “jalousies.” Within, there is a strange air of old fashion, and the furniture as antique. The inhabitants, or vestry perhaps, have honoured him. For close by is a rather imposing square—yclept Carlyle Square—a nice and unusual shape of compliment. They point out his house, and at the photographers’ and print shops, during his life, you could buy photographs of house and owner.
Once, and not long before his death, the writer found himself sitting with the philosopher, who in his kindly fashion had allowed himself to be modelled by very inexperienced hands. This “bust”—if it is entitled to the dignity—is beside me now, in the old, broad, felt hat, the grizzled beard below, and the heavy coat up about his ears, for he seemed to feel the cold. That was a pleasant hour, for he talked in his pleasantest vein. There have been occasions when I have smoked a “churchwarden” with him, but these were on rare festivals. Now the old house seems fast going to decay, and is unlet, strange to say, though a tenant is sought. There is over it that curious sense of blight which seemed to settle on the sage himself in his later days, when even the visitor was struck by the chill, forlorn look of the rooms and furniture.
The lower end of the “walk” is closed by the Church. There is nothing more picturesque in London than old Chelsea Church, with its grimed old red-brick or brown-brick tower, and its tablets and tombstones fixed outside, high on the walls of the church, up and down, like framed pictures—an unusual adornment; the effect, as may be conceived, is the quaintest. So, too, with the little appendix, or round house, attached to it, with the odd figures, and the Hans Sloane altar-tomb under a sort of shed or canopy. The tower, however, is the attraction, suggesting something Dutch, and rising sad, solemn, and grizzled. Indeed, the view here is quaint and pretty, and recalls a bit of the Scheldt; especially in the time of the old wooden bridge, kept together with clamps and bits of framing, with the high hunchback look we see on the bridges over the Rhine.