TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES —Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. —Bold text has been rendered as =bold text=. A ROAD-BOOK TO OLD CHELSEA [Illustration: _SIFTON PRAED & Cᵒ Lᵗᵈ._ THE ROADS THAT LEAD TO CHELSEA. _Frontispiece._] A ROAD-BOOK TO OLD CHELSEA BY G. B. STUART “By what means the time is so well-abbreviated I know not, except weeks be shorter in Chelsey, than in other places!” KATHERYN THE QUEENE. Extract from a letter of Queen Katharine Parr to the Lord High Admiral Seymour, written from Chelsea, 1547 WITH SKETCH MAP AND FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON HUGH REES, LTD. 5 REGENT STREET, PALL MALL, S.W. 1914 PREFACE OF the making of books about Chelsea, may there never be an end, so rich and unexhausted is our history, so inspiring to those who labour in its service! Every year, as fresh records become accessible, Chelsea is presented to us from some different standpoint, historical, architectural, or frankly human, and there is ever a welcome and a place for each volume as it appears. They are books full of research and of suggestion, illustrated by portraits and maps from rare sources, and clinching hitherto unsolved problems. They quickly become our library friends and companions, because, though some of their matter may be familiar, each has, for its own individual charm, that personal outlook of its author which expresses, with wider and more resourceful knowledge than ours, the love we all bear to our home by the river. It is because in love of our subject we and the greater writers are equal, that I dare to put forth a new Guide to Chelsea; a little foot-page, a link-boy, a caddy if you will, just to show the way to strangers, to disembarrass them of unnecessary impedimenta, to point out special places of interest which may be visited in a summer afternoon, within that charmed circle of our parish, where every inch is enchanted ground. G. B. S. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE ROAD TO THE CHURCH 9 II. THE OLD CHURCH: NORTH SIDE AND CHANCEL 15 III. THE OLD CHURCH: SOUTH SIDE AND THE MORE CHAPEL 23 IV. THE OLD CHURCH: THE NAVE AND ITS MONUMENTS 31 V. CHURCH STREET TO QUEEN’S ELM 39 VI. CHEYNE WALK FROM EAST TO WEST 47 VII. SIDE STREETS AND BACK GARDENS 57 VIII. THE ROAD TO THE ROYAL HOSPITAL 65 L’ENVOI 73 A ROAD-BOOK TO OLD CHELSEA CHAPTER I