The delightful little houses in Paradise Row with their dormer windows and tiled roofs were pulled down only a few years ago. Pepys said that one of them was “the prettiest contrived house that ever I saw in my life.” Ormonde Court now reigns in their stead, so there is no trace to-day of the little house in Paradise Row that the fair but frail Duchesse de Mazarin, niece of Anne of Austria’s Cardinal Prime Minister, rented from Lord Cheyne when she had fallen on such evil days that her aristocratic guests used to leave money under their plates to pay for their dinner. She was not the only favourite of Charles II. to have a summer home in Chelsea. Nell Gwynne lived at the Sandford Manor House and the route by which the Merry Monarch rode to visit her is still called the King’s Road. I hesitate to tell that Nell Gwynne’s very house is still in existence for fear of taxing too much the ready courtesy of the occupants, two members of the staff of The Imperial Gas Works Co., owners of the property, who divide the house between them. My kindly guide had disquieting doubts as to whether Nell ever really lived there, but he admitted that a thimble, unquestionably hers, and a masonic jewel belonging to the King, were found in the house when it was being repaired. Thimbles are not usually associated with the memory of “pretty witty Nellie,” but the Chelsea air may have moved her to industry. At all events there is the Jacobean house, shorn now of its top story to lessen the weight on the bulging walls, and with its brick carving but faintly seen under successive coats of rough plaster. But not even the Queen Anne door can destroy the picture any lively imagination may summon of the nonchalant Nell tripping up and down the same staircase to be seen to-day, its design of six steps and a door repeated to the top of the house, belying the legend that Charles once rode his pony up the stairs. The walnut trees Nell planted have disappeared, but what is left of the old house stands in a pleasant green hollow, an oasis in the acrid surroundings of a gas factory, the paling of which separates it from the outside world not a stone’s throw from unsuspecting passengers on a No. 11 bus. Joseph Addison lived for a time in the old Manor House, and two of his letters, written to the Lord Warwick whose mother he afterwards married, describe the bird concerts in the neighbouring woods. If anyone wants to know exactly what the place looked like in Nell Gwynne’s day, a very interesting account of it may be found in a book written by a French London-lover, called _Fulham Old and New_. It is now out of print, but may be consulted at the Fulham Public Library, reached by any of the buses travelling westward along the Fulham Road.