Chelsea (London, England) -- Description and travel
The King's Road was so named in honour of Charles II., and it was
notorious in its early days for footpads and robbers. In the eighteenth
century the Earl of Peterborough was stopped in it by highwaymen, one of
whom was discovered to be a student of the Temple, who lived "by play,
sharping, and a little on the highway." There was an attempt made at
first to keep the road for the use of the Royal Family, and later on,
those who had the privilege of using it had metal tickets given to them,
and it was not opened for public traffic until 1830.
At no part of its length can King's Road claim to show any fine vista,
and at the west end the buildings are particularly poor and squalid. In
Park Walk stands Park Chapel, an old-fashioned church with a gallery in
no particular style of architecture. It was founded in 1718, and in it
General Gordon received the Holy Communion before he left for Khartoum.
Park Walk is marked on Hamilton's Survey as Lovers' Walk, and forms the
western boundary of the ancient Lord Wharton's Park, which extended from
the King's Road to Fulham Road and contained forty acres. Faulkner says
that it was part of the estate purchased by Sir Thomas More. There was an
attempt made in 1721 to encourage the manufacture of raw silk; for this
purpose the park was planted with mulberry-trees. The scheme, however,
failed. The park is now thickly covered with houses; its eastern side was
bounded by the "Road to the Cross Tree"--in other words, to what was
called the Queen's Elm. This name still survives in a public-house at the
north corner of what is now Church Street. It was derived from a
tradition that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth stood here to shelter from a
shower under a great elm-tree, accompanied by her courtier Lord Burleigh.
The tree is mentioned in the parish books in 1586. At the top of Church
Street, near the Fulham Road, there is a high stone wall enclosing the
Jews' Burial-ground. The graves lie in long rows, but are not divided
according to sex as with the Moravians. Overlooking the burial-ground is
the Hospital for Women founded in 1871. It is a red-brick building with
ornate stone facing. Beyond it is the Consumption Hospital, which is
only an off-shoot of the main building over the road in the borough of
Kensington. Arthur Street (formerly Charles Street), a few yards further
on, leads us into the South Parade, which forms the northern side of
Trafalgar Square. The square is wide, with a garden in the centre. At the
south-western corner it is adjacent to Carlyle Square, which faces the
King's Road.
This is a most picturesque little square with a country-like profusion of
trees in its green garden. On the eastern side the road through Trafalgar
Square runs on under the name of Manresa Road. This is lined with
studios, and abounds in artists and sculptors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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