Scarsdale House stands—perhaps one should now say stood—a little back, at the north-east corner of Wright's Lane, within a stone's throw of the Kensington High Street railway station. Of its early history little is known, but the main part of the building must have been at least coeval with Kensington Square; that is, it must have existed for more than 200 years. It is stated by one of his descendants that this property first belonged to John Curzon, who is perhaps best remembered in the family as having owned a horse of Eastern blood, one of the progenitors of the modern racehorse. For a short time Lord Barnard occupied the house; in 1721 William Curzon was living here, and was one of the largest contributors to the parish poor-rate. Early in the nineteenth century it was a ladies' boarding school, but many years ago it became the residence of the Hon. Edward Curzon (second son of Mr. Robert Curzon and Lady de la Zouche), who bought it from his cousin, Lord Scarsdale. The pair of Jacobean mantelpieces in the drawing-room once graced a wing, now destroyed, of the historic mansion of Loseley. The old house in Wright's Lane, with its delightful garden, is immortalized in Miss Thackeray's novel, "Old Kensington." This was Lady Sarah's home, "with its many windows dazzling, as the sun travelled across the old-fashioned housetops," and here was the room with the blue tiles which Lady Sarah's husband brought from the Hague the year before he died. The garden is now partly a coalyard, and part is absorbed by the widening of the roads. The house, wholly transformed and dismantled, is converted into an annexe of a draper's establishment in High Street, Kensington.
(7 × 934) (614 × 934) D. 68 A, B-1896.
83. Turner's House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 1880 (Water-colour).
On the river front beyond Lindsey House, no great distance from the site of Cremorne Gardens and next but one to a tavern called the Aquatic Stores, stands a small cottage, one of a pair now joined together and numbered 118, Cheyne Walk, to which in his old age J. M. W. Turner, the great artist, used to retire from his house in Queen Anne Street. He must have loved the Thames, for he had previously resided first at West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, and afterwards, from time to time, at Sandycombe Lodge, Twickenham. He, no doubt, selected the humble dwelling at Chelsea chiefly because, from its low roof, still protected by a wrought-iron railing which he caused to be placed there, he could get a fine view of Chelsea reach, now obscured by the modern house next door, which projects in front. For the sake of privacy he took the name of the landlady, and was known in the neighbourhood as Mr. Booth, Admiral Booth, or "Puggy" Booth. The cottage is now somewhat below the level of the roadway; an old inhabitant, formerly a waterman, told the writer that in his youth it was only separated from the Thames by a raised path. Turner died here December 19th, 1851, in a room the window of which may be seen immediately below the railing or balcony whence he is believed to have studied the view. Afterwards, for many years, the place remained outwardly in much the same condition as when he left it. By degrees it became dilapidated, the little trees in front disappeared, and in 1895 there was an ominous announcement that the property was to be sold for building purposes. The late Mrs. Haweis made efforts to save it; and there was a correspondence on the subject in the "Times." After remaining empty and dilapidated during many months, the pair of cottages were bought and judiciously restored by one who valued the memory of our illustrious landscape painter. A large studio was then built at the back, where there were formerly other tenements.
(812 × 6) D. 83-1896.
84. Old Fish Shop, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 1887 (Water-colour).
This quaint little house, one of the oldest in the parish, stood in what used to be known as Lombard Street, but now forms part of Cheyne Walk. It was four doors west of a tavern called the Rising Sun, and in old days had been a freehold, with the right of pasturage on Chelsea Common. In front of the gable was a plaster or terra cotta medallion, with a head in relief which might have been copied from a classical coin. This, though a humble specimen of its class, belonged to a style of decoration common in the seventeenth century. The writer has before him a view, dated 1792, of a building then on Tower Hill, with similar medallions. Sometimes the heads of Roman Emperors were thus placed, sometimes the Cardinal virtues and other emblematic figures. The fish shop in Cheyne Walk, long kept by Mrs. Elizabeth Maunder, was pulled down in November, 1892. Mr. Percy Thomas etched it, and there is a famous lithograph of the lower part, by Whistler, who for years lived hard by. The medallion is now in the Chelsea Free Library. After the destruction of the old fish shop Mr. C. R. Ashbee built a house on this and the adjoining site, numbered 72 to 74, Cheyne Walk, and in that house Whistler died, July 17, 1903.
(11 × 678) D. 69-1896.
85. Old Thatched Cottage, near Paddington Green, 1895. (Water-colour).
This was considered to be the last thatched cottage in London, though at the time of writing one in Camberwell still survives. It stood on the west side of the old burial ground of St. Mary's Church (now a public garden), and behind No. 12, St. Mary's Terrace, Paddington Green, and in 1895 was occupied by Welsh-speaking people connected with a temporary Welsh chapel which stood hard by. The walls of this cottage were composed of pebbles and broken flint plastered over, and its rural look was enhanced by the surrounding ground with trees growing thereon. The date of its erection was not known. In the "Bayswater Annual" for 1885 there was a statement that in 1820 the cottage belonged to a Mr. Chambers, "a banker of Bond Street." In those days the occupants commanded an uninterrupted view of the Harrow Road as it turned northward. Claremont House, within a short distance of Chambers's Cottage, was remarkable for the "Claremont Caverns" about which many uncanny tales were told. They were the work of a Mr. Southgate Stevens who here carried on in secret processes for extracting gold from quartz and other minerals. He was said to have spent some £30,000 in this fruitless quest. A drawing and short account of Chambers's Cottage will be found in the "Builder" for May 18th and June 8th, 1895; it was demolished a year or two afterwards, to make room for St. David's Welsh Church.