Chelsea (London, England) -- Description and travel
No. 4 has had a series of notable inmates. William Dyce, R.A., was the
occupant in 1846, and later on Daniel Maclise, R.A. Then came George
Eliot, with Mr. Cross, intending to stay in Chelsea for the winter, but
three weeks after she caught cold and died in this house. Local
historians have mentioned a strange shoot which ran from the top to the
bottom of this house; this has disappeared, but on the front-staircase
still remain some fresco paintings executed by Sir J. Thornhill, and
altered by Maclise. In 1792 a retired jeweller named Neild came to No. 5.
The condition of prisoners incarcerated for small debts occupied his
thoughts and energies, and he worked to ameliorate it. He left his son
James Neild an immense fortune. This eccentric individual, however, was
a miser, who scrimped and scraped all his life, and at his death left all
his money to Queen Victoria. The gate-piers before this house are very
fine, tall, and square, of mellowed red brick, surmounted by vases. These
vases superseded the stone balls in fashion at the end of the Jacobean
period. Hogarth is said to have been a frequent visitor to this house. In
the sixth house Dr. Weedon Butler, father of the Headmaster of Harrow,
kept a school, which was very well known for about thirty years. In the
next block we have the famous Queen's House, marked by the little
statuette of Mercury on the parapet. It is supposed to have been named
after Catherine of Braganza, but beyond some initials--C. R. (Catherine
Regina)--in the ironwork of the gate, there seems no fact in support of
this. The two Rossettis, Meredith, and Swinburne came here in 1862, but
soon parted company, and D. G. Rossetti alone remained. He decorated some
of the fireplaces with tiles himself; that in the drawing-room is still
inlaid with glazed blue and white Persian tiles of old design. In his
time it was called Tudor House, but when the Rev. H. R. Haweis (d. 1901)
came to live here, he resumed the older name of Queen's House. It is
supposed to have been built by Wren, and the rooms are beautifully
proportioned, panelled, and of great height.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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