A Walk from London to Fulham

by Thomas Crofton Croker

Walpole, in his ‘Catalogue of Engravers,’ tells us that James Christopher Le Blon, a Fleming by birth, and a mezzotint-engraver by profession, some time subsequent to 1732, “set up a project for copying the cartoons in tapestry, and made some very fine drawings for that purpose. Houses were built and looms erected in the Mulberry Ground at Chelsea; but either the expense was precipitated too fast, or contributions did not arrive fast enough. The bubble burst, several suffered, and Le Blon was heard of no more.” Walpole adds, “It is said he died in an hospital at Paris in 1740:” and observes that Le Blon was “very far from young when he knew him, but of surprising vivacity and volubility, and with a head admirably mechanic, but an universal projector, and with at least one of the qualities that attend that vocation, either a dupe or a

cheat; I think,” he continues, “the former, though, as most of his projects ended in air, the sufferers believed the latter. As he was much an enthusiast, perhaps like most enthusiasts he was both one and t’ other.”

The present mansion was built upon a portion of Chelsea Park by Mr. William Broomfield, an eminent surgeon, who resided in it for several years. The late possessor was Sir Henry Wright Wilson, Bart., to whose wife, Lady Frances Wilson (daughter of the Earl of Aylesbury), was left a valuable estate in Hampshire, [92] said to be worth about £3,000 a year, under the following very singular circumstances. Her ladyship was informed one morning in February, 1814, while at breakfast, that an eccentric person named Wright, who had died a few days previously at an obscure lodging in Pimlico, had appointed her and Mr. Charles Abbott his executors, and after some legacies had bequeathed to Lady Frances the residue of his property by a will dated so far back as August, 1800. As Lady Frances declared herself to be unacquainted even with the name of the testator, she at first concluded that there was some mistake in the matter. After further explanation, the person of Mr. Wright was described to her, and Lady Frances at last recollected that the description answered that of a gentleman she had remembered as a constant frequenter of the Opera some years previously and considered

to be a foreigner, and who had annoyed her extremely there by constantly staring at her box. To satisfy herself of the identity, she went to the lodgings of the late Mr. Wright, and saw him in his coffin, when she recognized the features perfectly as those of the person whose eyes had so often persecuted her when she was Lady Frances Bruce, but who had never spoken to her, and of whom she had no other knowledge whatever.

Mr. Wright left legacies of £4,000 to the Countess of Rosslyn, £4,000 to the Speaker of the House of Commons, £1,000 to the lord-chancellor, and the same sum to Archdeacon Pott, the rector of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, which church Mr. Wright had been in the habit of frequenting, having as little acquaintance with any of these parties as he had with Lady Frances Wilson. It may be supposed from these facts that Lady Frances Wilson was exceedingly beautiful, and that an admiration of her charms might have influenced Mr. Wright to make this extraordinary bequest in her favour; but those who knew Lady Frances well assert that such could not possibly have been the case, as she was far from beautiful at any period of her life; and the oddity of the story is, and it seemed to be the general opinion, that Mr. Wright’s legacy was intended for a lady who usually occupied a box next to that in which Lady Frances sat, and who, at the period, was regarded as the belle of the Opera.

Thistle Grove, on the opposite side of the road from Chelsea Park, leads, by what had been a garden pathway, to the Old Brompton Road. At each side of “the Grove,” now occupying the sites of trees, are detached villas,

houses, lodges, and cottages, named, or not named, after the taste of their respective proprietors; one of which, on the left hand, some fourteen houses distant from the main Fulham Road, was for many years the residence of Mr. John Burke, whose laborious heraldic and genealogical inquiries induced him to arrange and publish various important collections relative to the peerage and family history of the United Kingdom, in which may be found, condensed for immediate reference, an immense mass of important information.

In Thistle Grove Mr. J. P. Warde, the well-known actor, died in 1840.

Immediately beyond Chelsea Park the village of Little Chelsea commences, about the centre of which, and on the same side of the way, at the corner of the road leading to Battersea Bridge, stands the Goat in Boots public-house.