"No doubt the Embankment at Chelsea was needed; no doubt the broad margin of mud which used to fringe old Cheyne Walk was very unhealthy in summer-time; yet no one who cares for what is quaint and picturesque, and who clings to relics of the old days of which we shall soon have no traces left, can recall the river strand at Chelsea, with its wharfs and its water-stairs, its barges and its altogether indescribable but most picturesque aspect, and not feel as he looks at the trim even wall of the Embankment, and the broad monotonous pavement above it, even if he does not say in words, 'Oh, the difference to me!'" On the site of the ancient tavern is now built "Old Swan House," a modern-antique mansion designed in a charming style by Mr. Norman Shaw. A few paces westward from Old Swan House, the modern red-brick Tite Street, full of artists' studios and of the elect, runs up towards Queen's Road. Tite Street is, so far as its externals go, somewhat dark and shut in by its tall houses; but it more than atones for any outside dulness by the excessive light and learning of its interiors. "The White House," near the lower end of the street on the right, was built for Mr. Whistler. Further up the street--also on the right--is "Gough House," a fine old mansion of Charles II.'s time, now most happily adapted to the needs of the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children. Close to the site of the old "Rotunda" of Ranelagh, is the famous "Royal Military Hospital," usually called "Chelsea Hospital," and made familiar to all the world outside London by Herkomer's great pictures, "The Last Muster" and "Chelsea Pensioners." It was John Evelyn who first gained Charles II.'s consent to the erection of a Royal Hospital for veteran soldiers on this site,--though local tradition, apparently without any reason at all, persists in attributing its foundation to Nell Gwynne, who, with all her frailties, was ever the people's darling, and especially a Chelsea darling. The Hospital building--an open quadrangle with wings,--was designed by Wren. In colour as well as form, it is solid and reposeful--a noble example of Wren's style and taste. The gardens, open to the public during the day, have something of the calm regularity of old Dutch palaces. But then Chelsea, in building as in horticulture, had always a tendency to the neat Dutch formalism of William and Mary. A little north of Chelsea Hospital, between the modern Union Street and Westbourne Street, stood, in the days of the Georges, the "Old Original Chelsea Bun-House," that was for so long the resort of eighteenth-century fashion. Hither used to drive George I. and his consort, Caroline of Anspach; George III. and Queen Charlotte also came here in person to fetch their buns home, which, of course, set the fashion. The old house had a picturesque colonnade; but in 1839 new proprietors rebuilt it; which rash proceeding, however, killed the custom.