Just above the place where the Cromwell Road cuts Gloucester Road, about the site of the National Provincial Branch Bank, once stood a rather important house. It had been the Florida Tea-gardens, and having gained a bad reputation was closed, and the place sold to Sophia, Duchess of Gloucester, who built there a house on her own account, and called it Orford Lodge, in honour of her own family, the Walpoles. She had married privately William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III. The marriage, which took place in 1766, was not revealed to King George II. until six years had passed, and when it was the Duke and Duchess fell under the displeasure of His Majesty. They travelled abroad for some time, but in 1780 were reinstated in royal favour. The Duke died in 1805, and the Duchess two years later. After her death her daughter, Princess Sophia, sold the house to the great statesman George Canning, who renamed it Gloucester Lodge, and lived in it until his death eighteen years later. It was to this house he was brought after his duel with Lord Castlereagh, when he was badly wounded in the thigh. Crabbe, the poet, visited him at Gloucester Lodge, and records the fact in his journal, commenting on the gardens, and remarking that the place was much secluded. Canning also received here the unhappy Queen Caroline, whose cause he had warmly espoused. The house was pulled down about the middle of last century, but its memory is kept alive in Gloucester Road. Thistle Grove Lane is one of those quaint survivals which enable us to reconstruct the past topographically, in the same way as the silent letters in a word, apparently meaningless, enable us to reconstruct the philological past. It is no longer a lane, but a narrow passage, and about midway down is crossed by a little street called Priory Grove. Faulkner makes mention of Friars' Grove in this position, and the two names are probably identical. Brompton Heath lay east of this lane, and westward was Little Chelsea, a small hamlet in fields, situated by itself, quite detached from London, separated from it by the dreary heath, that no man might cross with impunity after dark. The Boltons is an oval piece of ground with St. Mary's Church in the middle. The church was opened in 1851, and the interior is surprisingly small in comparison with the exterior. It was fully restored about twenty years after it had been built. The land had been for many years the property of the Bolton family, whose name impressed itself on the place.