
Fernshaw Close is one of the streets of London in the SW10 postal area.
Cremorne Gardens Cremorne Gardens, with a vestige existing today, was in its prime between 1846 and 1877. Kensington Canal The Kensington Canal was a canal, about two miles long, opened in 1828 in London from the River Thames at Chelsea, along the line of Counter’s Creek, to a basin near Warwick Road in Kensington. Edith Grove, SW10 Edith Grove is one of the streets of London in the SW10 postal area. Fulham Road, SW10 Fulham Road is one of the streets of London in the SW10 postal area. Ifield Road, SW10 Ifield Road is one of the streets of London in the SW10 postal area. Kings Road, SW10 Kings Road is one of the streets of London in the SW10 postal area. Lamont Road, SW10 Lamont Road is one of the streets of London in the SW10 postal area. Park Walk, SW10 Park Walk is one of the streets of London in the SW10 postal area. Raasay Street Raasay Street ran from Dartrey Road to Edith Grove. Redcliffe Gardens, SW10 Redcliffe Gardens began life as Walnut Tree Walk, a pathway running through nurseries and market gardens. Seymour Walk, SW10 Seymour Walk was almost entirely built between the 1790s-1820s in an area then known as Little Chelsea. The Plaza, SW10 The Plaza is one of the streets of London in the SW10 postal area. Tregunter Road, SW10 Development began at the east end of Tregunter Road in 1851 and was complete by 1866 at the west end.
Chelsea is an affluent area, bounded to the south by the River Thames.Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above Sloane Square tube station. The modern eastern boundary is Chelsea Bridge Road and the lower half of Sloane Street, including Sloane Square, along with parts of Belgravia. To the north and northwest, the area fades into Knightsbridge and South Kensington, but it is safe to say that the area north of
King’s Road as far northwest as
Fulham Road is part of Chelsea.
The word Chelsea originates from the Old English term for
chalk and
landing place on the river. The first record of the Manor of Chelsea precedes the Domesday Book and records the fact that Thurstan, governor of the King’s Palace during the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066), gave the land to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster. Abbot Gervace subsequently assigned the manor to his mother, and it passed into private ownership. The modern-day Chelsea hosted the Synod of Chelsea in 787 AD.
Chelsea once had a reputation for the manufacture of Chelsea buns (made from a long strip of sweet dough tightly coiled, with currants trapped between the layers, and topped with sugar).
King Henry VIII acquired the manor of Chelsea from Lord Sandys in 1536; Chelsea Manor Street is still extant. Two of King Henry’s wives, Catherine Parr and Anne of Cleves, lived in the Manor House; Princess Elizabeth – the future Queen Elizabeth I – resided there; and Thomas More lived more or less next door at Beaufort House. In 1609 James I established a theological college on the site of the future Chelsea Royal Hospital, which Charles II founded in 1682.
By 1694, Chelsea – always a popular location for the wealthy, and once described as ’a village of palaces’ – had a population of 3000. Even so, Chelsea remained rural and served London to the east as a market garden, a trade that continued until the 19th-century development boom which caused the final absorption of the district into the metropolis.
Chelsea shone, brightly but briefly, in the 1960s Swinging London period and the early 1970s. The Swinging Sixties was defined on
King’s Road, which runs the length of the area. The Western end of Chelsea featured boutiques Granny Takes a Trip and The Sweet Shop, the latter of which sold medieval silk velvet caftans, tabards and floor cushions, with many of the cultural cognoscenti of the time being customers, including Keith Richards, Twiggy and many others.
The exclusivity of Chelsea as a result of its high property prices has historically resulted in the term Sloane Ranger to be used to describe its residents. From 2011, Channel 4 broadcast a reality television show called
Made in Chelsea, documenting the ’glitzy’ lives of several young people living in Chelsea. Moreover, Chelsea is home to one of the largest communities of Americans living outside of the United States, with 6.53% of Chelsea-residents being born in the United States.