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Chelsea in Middlesex County England History and GeographyCHELSEA, a parish in the Kensington division of the hundred of OSSULSTONE, county of MIDDLESEX, containing 26,860 inhabitants. This place was anciently called Chelcheth, or Chelchith, probably from the Saxon Ceosl, or Cesol, sand, and Hythe, a harbour, from which its present name is derived. In 785, a synod for the reformation of the religion in England, was assembled here by the legates of Pope Adrian. The beauty of its situation on the Thames, which is wider here than in any part above London bridge, made it, at an early period, the residence of illustrious persons, whose superb mansions procured for it the appellation of the village of palaces. Among these was the residence of the chancellor, Sir Thomas More, at the north end of Beaufort-row, which, after being successively in the occupation of several distinguished characters, was taken down by Sir Hans Sloane in the year 1740. The bishops of Winchester had a palace at the upper end of Cheyne-walk, which, under an act of parliament passed in 1823, enabling the bishop to alienate it from the see, was taken down in 1824. Queen Elizabeth had a palace here; and Sir Robert Walpole resided for some time in a mansion previously belonging to the crown, on the site of which a fine edifice was erected in 1810, by General Gordon. The mansion and gardens of the Earl of Ranelagh were converted into a place of public amusement, which, after having been fashionably attended for a considerable time, was closed in 1805, and the buildings taken down; the site is now occupied by dwellinghouses. Chelsea comprehends the old town on the bank of the river, over which is a bridge of wood leading to Battersea in Surrey, and the new buildings erected since 1777, and called Hans Town, in honour of Sir Hans Sloane, a former lord of the manor. In the old town is Cheyne-walk, containing many handsome and substantial houses commanding an interesting view of the Thames and the scenery on its opposite bank: in the new town are Sloane-street, a regular range of respectable houses, nearly a mile in length, Sloane-square, and Upper and Lower Cadogan-places: the streets are partially paved, and well lighted with gas, under the superintendence of forty commissioners, including the rector and the churchwardens, appointed annually by actof parliament obtained about the year 1820; the inhabitants are supplied with water by the Chelsea Water Works Company, incorporated in 1724. The Botanical Gardens were established in 1673, by the Company of Apothecaries, to whom Sir Hans Sloane granted, at a quit-rent of £5 per annum, four acres of ground on the bank of the river; they contain a great variety of medicinal plants systematically arranged, a hot-house, green-houses, and a library in which are many volumes of natural history: lectures are delivered periodically to the students, by a demonstrator appointed for that purpose: in the centre of the gardens is a fine statue of Sir Hans Sloane, by Rysbrach; and in front of the river are two remarkably fine cedars of Libanus. A second botanic garden, occupying more than six acres, well stocked with plants arranged after the Linn?an system, in seventeen compartments, was established in 1807, near Sloane-street, where lectures are delivered annually in May and June. The Royal Hospital for veteran soldiers, a spacious and handsome structure of brick, ornamented with columns, quoins, and cornices of stone, erected after a design by Sir Christopher Wren, at an expense of £150,000, towards defraying which Sir Stephen Fox, the projector, and grandfather of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox, contributed £13,000, was begun in the reign of Charles II., and completed in that of William III.: the buildings occupy a spacious quadrangle, in the centre of which is a fine statue in bronze of Charles II.; the east and west sides, which are three hundred and sixty feet in length, comprise wards for the pensioners, and the governor's house; in the centre of the north side is a large vestibule, lighted by a handsome dome, with the great hall on one side, in which the pensioners dine, and on the other, the chapel, a neat and lofty edifice containing a handsome altar-piece, in which is a good painting of the Resurrection; the south side of the quadrangle is open to the river, affording a fine view of the extensive gardens, which reach to its margin: there are smaller quadrangles, in which are the infirmaries and various offices, formed by the addition of wings to the extremities of the north side of the large quadrangle: on the north side of the college is an enclosure of thirteen acres, planted with avenues of trees. The establishment consists of a governor, lieutenant-governor, a major, adjutant, deputy adjutant, treasurer, secretary, two chaplains, a physician, surgeon, apothecary, comptroller, steward, clerk of the works, and subordinate officers: the number of in-pensioners is about five hundred, and the number of out-pensioners indefinite; the annual expenditure is from £700,000 to £800,000. York hospital, situated in this parish, is a receptacle for wounded soldiers arriving from foreign stations, who are waiting for a vacancy in the royal college. The Royal Military Asylum was founded in 1801, by His Royal Highness the late Duke of York, for the support and education of the orphan children of soldiers, and of those whose fathers are serving on foreign stations: there are seven hundred boys and three hundred girls, who are instructed on Dr. Bell's plan in reading, writing, and arithmetic, the latter in needlework; the boys, on leaving the asylum, enter the army with their own consent; the girls are placed out apprentices. The premises, which are handsomely built of brick, and ornamented with stone, form three sides of a quadrangle; the west front consists of a centre, with a handsome stone portico of the Doric order, and connected with two wings by an arcade. There are two soap manufactories, a brewery, and an extensive floor-cloth manufactory: a considerable trade is carried on in coal; and in the neighbourhood are large tracts of ground cultivated by market-gardeners. The county magistrates hold a petty session here for the hundred every Tuesday; and four headboroughs, nine constables, and other officers, are appointed at the court held for the manor. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Middlesex, rated in the king's books at £13. 6. 8., and in the patronage of the Earl of Cadogan. The old church, dedicated to St. Luke, is a small edifice, partly in the early and partly in the decorated style of English architecture, with a low tower surmounted by a campanile turret; it is chiefly of brick, and was rebuilt in the early part of the sixteenth century: at the end of the north aisie is a chapel in the decorated style, and at the extremity of the south aisle is a chapel erected by Sir Thomas More, in 1520: the church was enlarged and the tower added about the year 1670. Among the many interesting monuments are those of Sir Thomas More; Dr. Edward Chamberlayne, author of ';The present State of England;' Thomas Shadwell, poetlaureate in the reign of William and Mary; Sir Hans Sloane, and others. A new church, also dedicated to St. Luke, and containing two thousand and five sittings, of which nine hundred and twenty-seven are free, was erected in the year 1824, at an expense of £40,000, of which, the parliamentary commissioners granted £8,785. 12. 4.; it is a magnificent structure in the decorated and later styles of English architecture, with a lofty square tower crowned with dome turrets at the angles; the west front is strikingly beautiful, and the aisles are surmounted by a pierced parapet, continued round the architrave of the east end, which is decorated with minarets: the interior has an impressive grandeur of effect, arising from the loftiness of the nave, which has a triforium and a fine range of clerestory windows, and is separated from the aisles by clustered columns and pointed arches of graceful elevation. The old parish church is now used as a chapel: the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Rector of Chelsea. The chapel in Sloanestreet, containing one thousand four hundred and two sittings, of which, six hundred and fifty are free, was erected in 1830, at an expense of £5849. 17. 4., by grant from the parliamentary commissioners; it is a handsome edifice in the later style of English architecture, with two minaret turrets at the west end: the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Rector of Chelsea. An episcopal chapel, called Park chapel, was built by Sir Richard Manningham, in 1718. There are three places of worship for Independents and one for Wesleyan Methodists. In 1694, John Chamberlayne, Esq. gave £10 per annum, of which £5 was to be paid to a master, for teaching five poor children, and £5 to be paid with one of the children as an apprentice to a waterman; and in 1705, William Petys erected a school-room in the old churchyard, with a dwelling for the master; there are forty scholars, of whom thirty are clothed, and two apprenticed annually by the above legacy, aided by subscription. The National school in connexion with Park chapel; and the Chelsea National school, in which one hundred and fifty boys and eighty girls are instructed, are supported by subscription: for the latter, a handsome range of buildings, comprising two large school-rooms, between which are houses for the master and mistress, has been erected behind the new church, and in a style corresponding with the architecture of that splendid structure, to which they form no inelegant, appendage. The western grammar school, recently established, was opened in 1829: the funds requisite for its erection and maintenance were subscribed in shares of £15, each holder, on the payment of a small sum, being entitled to present one pupil, who receives a classical and liberal education on moderate terms. Mrs. Martha Bromsall, in 1804, gave a house and premises, the proceeds from the sale of which have been vested in the purchase of £315 new four per cents; the dividends are distributed among poor housekeepers: there are some other bequests for charitable purposes. John King, A. M., editor of some of the tragedies of Euripides; and Dr. Thomas Martyn, Regins Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and a distinguished writer on botany, were natives of this parish. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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