Literary Associations in Chelsea: London #47

Chelsea is steeped in literary history and literary associations, and the images below represent just some choice ones, but are by no means meant to be fully comprehensive.

104 Cheyne Walk:

 

'HILAIRE

BELLOC

1870–1953

Poet, essayist

and historian

lived here

1900–1905'

 

Paulton's House, Paulton's Square, where this plaque was unveiled at around the same time as the Elizabeth Bowen plaque in Clarendon Terrace, Regents Park in March 2012:

 

'JEAN RHYS

1890–1979

Writer

lived here

[with her literary agent]

in Flat 22

1936–1938'

 

28 Mallord Street:

 

'This house

was built for

AUGUSTUS

JOHN

1878–1961

Painter'

13 Mallord Street:

 

'A. A.

MILNE

1882–1956

Author

lived here'

 

53 Old Church Street. I half expected to find a blue plaque saying John Betjeman had lived here, but things seem to have taken over.

 

24 Cheyne Row, now owned by the National Trust:

 

'THOMAS CARLYLE

LIVED AT 24 CHEYNE ROW 1834–1881

THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY THE CARLYLE SOCIETY'

 

This house was originally No 5. The plaque was sculpted by Benjamin Creswick in 1885 after a design by C. F. A Voysey.

 

 22 Upper Cheyne Row:

 

'LEIGH HUNT

1784–1859

Essayist & Poet

Lived Here'

 

On, then, to Dr John Samuel Phene, who published a few obscure books: On Prehistoric Traditions and Customs in Connection with Sun and Serpent Worship, and On an Age of Colossi. The British Library has several manuscripts that he wrote to the Committee of the Literary Fund under the (more correct) surname John S. Phené.

 

I also find it interesting that the Bibliothèque nationale de France has a five-page paper of his about the behaviour of cave men in western Europe:

'Auteur(s) : Phené, John S. (Dr)
Titre(s) : Association française pour l'avancement des sciences. Le Dr John S. Phené,... Sur les coutumes des hommes des cavernes dans l'Europe occidentale. Séance du 21 août 1875 [Texte imprimé]
Publication : Paris : au Secrétariat de l'Association, 1875
Description matérielle : In-8° , 5 p.'

 

Dr Phene built a house on the corner of Oakley Street and Upper Cheyne Row apparently modelled on his French family's home, the Chateau de Savenay. The front of the building is said to have had 'writhing' gods and godesses, busts of royalty, etc, and was painted red and yellow with bits of gold. Parts of that description (but not the colours) can, I think, be seen in photos here, although unless there's some joke I don't understand, I think Dickens's Miss Havisham has been confused with a Miss Faversham in the link here:  The Library Time Machine.

 

Sad to say, Dr Phene's house was bulldozed away long ago, although the pub he built, the Phene Arms, is preserved.

 

33 Oakley Gardens is diagonally opposite the Phene:

 

'GEORGE

GISSING

1857–1903

Novelist

lived here

1882–1884'

 

87 Oakley Street:

 

'JANE

FRANCESCA,

LADY WILDE

"SPERANZA"

1821–1896

Poet and Essayist

lived here

1887–1896'

 

'DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI'

 

In Chelsea Embankment Gardens, in front of his home at 16 Cheyne Walk where he lived from 1862 until his death in 1882, is the Rossetti Fountain: designed by John Pollard Seddon, sculpted by Ford Maddox Brown, and unveiled by William Holman Hunt.

 

His hands rest on his Dante and his Circle and Ballads and Sonnets.

 

4 Cheyne Walk:

 

'GEORGE

ELIOT

1819–1880

NOVELIST

died here'

 

34 Tite Street:

 

'OSCAR

WILDE

1854–1900

wit and

dramatist

lived here'

 

And this seems like the right time to include this image. I'm thinking, of course, of the famous occasion when Wilde said he wished he'd said something James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) had said, and Whistler replied 'You will, Oscar, you will.'

 

Whistler's statue is on Cheyne Walk, on the corner of Battersea Bridge Road, and although intended to commemorate the centenary of his death, wasn't in fact erected here until 2005.

 

23 Tedworth Square:

 

SAMUEL L.

CLEMENS

"MARK TWAIN"

1835–1910

American Writer

lived here in

1896–7'.

The Vale of Health: Literary London #25

The Vale of Health must be one of the best kept secrets in London. A kind of hamlet without any retail outlets, it stands in the south-west corner of Hampstead Heath and just outside Hampstead proper. Once a bog known as Hatch's Bottom, it was drained in 1777 by Hampstead Water Company, and a few cottages were erected for poor people. The picture is very different now, although to walk around this very quiet, very small cul-de-sac is like being in a different time.

In 1915 D. H. Lawrence lived with his wife Frieda at 1 Byron Villas, although the plaque is on another house. While here, Lawrence began the literary magazine The Signature with John Middleton Murry, for which Murry's wife Katherine Mansfield contributed under the pseudonym Matilda Berry. It was against the patriotic spirit of the time, and lasted only three issues. The Lawrences left for Cornwall on 1 December 1915, and persuaded the Middleton Murrys to join them shortly afterwards.

The poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) lived at 3 Villas-on-the-Heath in 1912.

After two years' imprisonment for insulting the Prince Regent, Leigh Hunt then took up residence at Vale Lodge from 1815-1821. During his stay here, he wrote five sonnets in praise of Hampstead, and introduced Keats to Shelley. He is perhaps most noted for Dickens's depiction of him as Harold Skimpole.

Stella Gibbons lived in Vale Cottage from 1927 to 1930, a few years before she became the noted author of Cold Comfort farm (1932).

Compton Mackenzie lived at Woodbine Cottage from 1937 to 1943, during which time he wrote the six volumes of The Four Winds of Love. He noted that village life was only a half hour away from Piccadilly Circus.