Grosvenor Row, which terminates at the Stone Bridge (as the place is marked in old plans), was built in 1768. At the end is the “Nell Gwynn,” a tavern named after the mistress of Charles II. Its sign-board was originally decorated with her likeness; and the legend, firmly believed by old Chelsea folk, that to her the noble institution adjacent owes its foundation, was painted underneath. Nell’s residence at Sandy End has been doubted by Mr. Cunningham. It is certain that her mother resided near the Neate Houses in Pimlico; and, in the records of Knightsbridge Chapel, there are occasionally entries of the name—connections not improbably of the royal mistress. One of the entries, Jan. 13, 1667, records the marriage of Robert Hands and Mary Gwin, the former being the name of a family long resident freeholders in Pimlico, and to whom Chelsea Bun House, which I am now about to notice, belonged. CHELSEA BUN HOUSE was established early in the eighteenth century, but the exact time is unknown. It had obtained a reputation for its buns as early as 1712; for in that year, Swift, who then resided at Chelsea, mentions buying one of them in his walks. It soon became quite a fashionable resort of a morning: even the Royal Family used familiarly to visit Mrs. Hands, who was a complete living history of all the affairs of the district, and of those who came thither. To her customers her garrulous anecdote was a fund of amusement, and her house and colonnade were continually crowded with loungers. George II., his Queen, and their family, patronised the place, and were frequently to be seen laying siege to its delicacies. George III., too, after he had ascended the throne, did not forget the spot where, in his childhood, he had paid many a pleasant visit; and in his turn, when his family was young, he and Queen Charlotte frequently accompanied it thither. The latter presented Mrs. Hands with a silver half-gallon mug, highly ornamented, and five guineas at its bottom, as a testimony of her appreciation of the attentions bestowed on the royal children. On Good Fridays the concourse of people drawn hither was immense. Business on this day was always commenced at four o’clock in the morning, by which time numbers of customers were waiting; and on some occasions it has been estimated that fifty thousand persons have assembled here for hours before eight o’clock. Occasionally the crowd became unruly, and disturbances ensued, and it was found necessary to close the establishment partially. Handbills of a warning character were issued, and constables stationed to preserve order. When Ranelagh declined from its zenith, the Bun House experienced the reverse of fortune. Parties visiting the former generally called to patronise the latter before they entered; and the success of the one depended more perhaps than would have been easily credited on that of the other, and it gradually dwindled away to complete insignificance.