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Cheyne Walk

{{Short description|Street in Chelsea, London}}

{{Use British English|date=June 2015}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2022}}

File:Cheyne Walk - geograph.org.uk - 1380761.jpg

Cheyne Walk is a historic road in Chelsea, London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It runs parallel with the River Thames. Before the construction of Chelsea Embankment reduced the width of the Thames here, it fronted the river along its whole length.

Location

At its western end, Cheyne Walk meets Cremorne Road end-on at the junction with Lots Road.{{cite web |url=https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/51.48056,-0.17788,18 |title=OS Maps Online |publisher=Ordnance Survey |access-date=7 October 2017}} The Walk runs alongside the River Thames until Battersea Bridge where, for a short distance, it is replaced by Chelsea Embankment with part of its former alignment being occupied by Ropers Gardens. East of Old Church Street and Chelsea Old Church, the Walk runs along the north side of Albert Bridge Gardens and Chelsea Embankment Gardens parallel with Chelsea Embankment. At the north end of Albert Bridge, the Walk merges with Chelsea Embankment. The Walk ends at Royal Hospital Road.

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At the western end between Lots Road and Battersea Bridge is a collection of residential houseboats that have been in situ since the 1930s. At the eastern end is the Chelsea Physic Garden with its cedars. It marks the boundary of the, now withdrawn, extended London Congestion Charge Zone. The section west of Battersea Bridge forms part of the A3220 road.

History

File:Cheyne Walk, London, c late 18th-early 19th century. People strolling by the banks of the River Thames in the distance is Chelsea Old Church MoL.jpg

File:Maunders Fish Shop, Cheyne Walk, 1887 by Philip Norman.jpg]]

File:Turners House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 1887 by Philip Norman.jpg]]

Cheyne Walk takes its name from William Cheyne, Viscount Newhaven who owned the manor of Chelsea until 1712.{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QbDPAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Cheyne+Walk%22+Viscount+Newhaven&pg=PA207 |title=The Gentleman's Magazine |work=google.com|year=1810 }} Most of the houses were built in the early 18th century. Before the construction in the 19th century of the busy Chelsea Embankment, which now runs in front of it, the houses fronted the River Thames. The most prominent building is Carlyle Mansions. Chelsea Old Church dates from 1157 and Crosby Hall is a reconstructed medieval merchant's house relocated from the City of London in 1910.

File:Back of old houses Cheyne Walk 1907 by Philip Norman.jpg]]

In 1951, the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea planned to construct a new river wall straightening the river bank west of Battersea Bridge. On the reclaimed land behind the wall a new arterial road and public gardens were to be constructed. Cheyne Walk was to remain unchanged to the north of the new public gardens. The works would have reduced the foreshore and required the removal of the house boat berths.{{cite journal |url=http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=kccl&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100358819&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 |title=What is to Happen to Chelsea's Famous Cheyne Walk River Front |journal=Illustrated London News |date=7 July 1951 |page=23 |issue=5855 |access-date= 8 October 2017}} The works did not take place. In the 1960s, plans for the Greater London Council's London Motorway Box project would have seen the West Cross Route, a motorway standard elevated road, constructed from Battersea to Harlesden through Earl's Court. A spur road would have been constructed from the motorway to the junction of Cheyne Walk and Lots Road.{{cn|date=September 2024}} The plans were abandoned because of the cost and opposition from local communities.

Brunel House at 105-106 Cheyne Walk was designed by Frederick MacManus and Partners Architects in the 1950s and was awarded the RIBA London Architecture Bronze Medal for 1957.Frederick MacManus at the Irish Architectural Archive

In 1972, number 96 Cheyne Walk, the then home of Philip Woodfield, a British civil servant, was the site of a top secret meeting between the British government and the leadership of the Provisional IRA aimed at ending the violence in Northern Ireland. The talks were inconclusive and the violence soon started again.

Notable residents

{{more citations needed|section|date=March 2018}}

Many famous people have lived (and continue to live) in the Walk:

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No. 1:

  • Samuel Prout Newcombe (b. 1824) entrepreneur, leased the property from the ground landlord, the Earl Cadogan,[https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol2/pt1/pp31-33 Survey of London, Vol. 2: Chelsea, Pt I (London County Council, 1909).] in 1891 shortly after it had been rebuilt. Newcombe had made his money in the 1850s from 'The London School of Photography', a photographic portrait studio that soon had branches across London and beyond, exploiting the public's appetite for carte de visite portraits.{{Cite web|title=Hastings Photographers|url=https://www.photohistory-sussex.co.uk/Hastings_Newcombe.htm|access-date=21 April 2021|website=www.photohistory-sussex.co.uk}} His daughter Bertha Newcombe (1857–1947), who lived in the house until her father's death in 1912, was an artist, illustrator and suffragist. She had a relationship with George Bernard Shaw, who sat for a portrait in her studio within the house.

No.2:

  • John Barrymore American actor, lived for a short time at No.2, on the corner with Flood Street.
  • Vera Brittain, novelist and pacifist, and her husband, George Catlin, lived at number 2 before and during the Second World War.{{cite web|url=https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/165293-did-haig-have-a-london-residence/e/ |title=Did Haig have a London residence - Great War Forum |date=22 June 2011 |publisher=greatwarforum.org |access-date=24 September 2018}}

No.3:

No.4:

  • George Eliot spent the last three weeks of her life at number 4.{{Cite web|title=George Eliot's home on Cheyne Walk, Chelsea|url=https://victorianweb.org/authors/eliot/1.html|access-date=21 April 2021|website=victorianweb.org}}
  • William Sandys Wright Vaux, antiquarian.
  • William Dyce, Scottish painter and arts tutor.
  • Daniel Maclise, painter.
  • Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, acquired number 4 in 2015.{{Cite news|last=Grynbaum|first=Michael M.|date=27 July 2015|title=Former Mayor Bloomberg Buys London Mansion for $25 Million|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/nyregion/former-mayor-bloomberg-buys-london-mansion-for-25-million.html|access-date=21 April 2021|issn=0362-4331}}

No.5:

No.6:

No.10:

  • David Lloyd George lived at number 10.{{cite web|date=18 May 2006|title=Chelsea Walk - Cheyne Walk 1-30|url=https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/vmtours/chelseawalk/vm_cw_cheynewalk30_1.asp|access-date=6 July 2017|publisher=Rbkc.gov.uk}}

No.11:

No. 12:

  • Sir John Scott Lillie, JP, decorated Peninsular War veteran, Deputy Lieutenant of Middlesex, inventor and political activist lived at no. 12 (previously, no. 13) Cheyne Walk and added a floor to it. The building was demolished in 1887, but elements from it were later used in the reconstruction of 1 Cheyne Walk.{{cite web|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol2/pt1/pp31-33 |title=Cheyne Walk: No. 1 |publisher=British-history.ac.uk |access-date=6 July 2017}}  

No.13:

No.14:

  • Bertrand Russell lived at number 14 in 1902.Frege, Gottlob. 1980. Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondence. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 147–155. {{ISBN|0 631 19620 X}}

No.15:

No.16:

  • Dante Gabriel Rossetti lived at number 16 (where he was banned from keeping peacocks due to the noise) from 1862 to 1882.Pamela Todd, Pre-Raphaelites at Home, Watson-Giptill Publications, {{ISBN|0-8230-4285-5}}
  • Hall Caine, novelist, as Rossetti's housemate.{{cite book|last1=Caine|first1=Hall|title=Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924105428357|date=1882|publisher=Elliot Stock|location=London|page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924105428357/page/n135 114]}}
  • Frederick Sandys, painter, as Rossetti's housemate 1866–67.
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne.
  • Florence Kate Upton, English illustrator, creator of the Golliwog character.
  • John Paul Getty II lived here from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.[https://web.archive.org/web/20100222175032/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/john-paul-getty-ii-a-very-english-billionaire-673885.html Obituary], The Independent, 14 June 2001
  • Jacques Blumenthal, German pianist and composer.

No.17:

  • Thomas Attwood (composer) (1765–1838) lived at number 17 for some years up to his death in 1838. He was organist at St Paul's Cathedral from 1796, and of the Chapel Royal from 1836. He was a pupil of Mozart. Thomas Attwood is buried in the crypt of St Paul's underneath the organ.

No.18:

  • Number 18 was renowned for being the home of the curious museum (knackatory) and tavern known as Don Saltero's Coffee House. The proprietor was James Salter, who was for many years the servant of Sir Hans Sloane.

No.19:

File:Old and new London - a narrative of its history, its people, and its places (1873) (14778355285).jpg]]

  • No 19 was site of the horrific 1973 killing of elderly widow Isabella Griffith, by the serial killer Patrick Mackay.
  • Sir Hans Sloane's manor house, demolished in 1760, stood at numbers 19–26.

No.21:

  • James McNeill Whistler lived at numbers 21 (1890–92), 72 (? to his death there in 1903), 96 (1866–1878) and 101 (1863) at different times.{{cite web|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=74618|title=No. 72, Cheyne Walk|work=british-history.ac.uk}}
  • Mortimer Menpes, the watercolourist and etcher, shared a flat with Whistler.
  • Edward Arthur Walton lived here.{{cite web|url=http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/resultsn.cfm?NID%3D6124%26RID%3D%26Y1%3D%26Y2%3D |title=Manuscripts - Collections relating to Edward Arthur Walton |access-date=2 February 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111120132605/http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/resultsn.cfm?NID=6124&RID=&Y1=&Y2= |archive-date=20 November 2011 }}

No.22:

  • Dame Elizabeth Taylor, English actress, rented this house during the 1982 West End run of her Broadway play, The Little Foxes.

No.23:

No.24:

  • Amanda Eliasch, photographer and documentary filmmaker{{cite web |title=AMANDA ELIASCH, NICKY HASLAM |url=https://donfeatures.photoshelter.com/image/I0000.d4bKhdEfNM |website=photoshelter.com |access-date=11 July 2021}}

No.25

No.27:

No.37:

  • Nicolaus Ludwig, Imperial Count von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf, and the Brethren of the Moravian Church renovated Lindsey House at numbers 99–100 in Cheyne Walk in the mid-18th century; it was for a number of years the headquarters of their worldwide missionary activity. Moravian Close nearby is still the London God's Acre, where many famous Moravians are buried.

No.41:

  • James Clerk Maxwell lived at number 41 while lecturing at King's College London in the early 1860s. He used the iron railings outside his home in two experiments on electro-magnetic fields, much to the dismay of friends and foreigners.

No.42, Shrewsbury House:

  • Guy Liddell, British Intelligence officer, lived in a flat in the present Shrewsbury House, No.42 Cheyne Walk.
  • James Grant, doctor, adventurer and shark attack survivor.

No.48:

  • Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull lived at number 48 in 1968.{{cite book|last=Faithfull|first=Marianne|title=Faithfull|publisher=Penguin|year=1995|isbn=0-14-024653-3|page=223}}

No. 74: 0815607318

  • Architect C. R. Ashbee designed number 74 and lived there off and on until 1917. Ashbee, Felicity. Janet Ashbee: Love, Marriage, and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002. p. 36.{{ISBN|0815607318}} He also designed number 38, 39.Gere, Charlotte, & Michael Whiteway. (1993) Nineteenth-century Design: From Pugin to Mackintosh. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 253. {{ISBN|0297830686}}

No.89:

  • Charles Edward Mudie, English publisher and founder of Mudie's Lending Library, was born 1818 in Cheyne Walk, where his father owned a circulating library, stationery and bookbinding business at number 89.London and Country Directory, 1811Article titled "Mudie's" in the 'London Echo'

No.91:

  • Artist Charles Conder lived at 91 Cheyne Walk, 1904–1906"Charles Conder" by Ann Galbally and Barry Pearce, Art Gallery of NSW., 2003, p.200, {{ISBN|978-0-7347-6343-3}}

No.92 (Belle Vue):

No.93:

No.95:

  • Anna Lea Merritt, after the death of her husband, Henry Merritt in 1877, Anna moved to No.95 where she set up her art studio, the earliest known date of her being registered at this address was in January 1879.American Register, Saturday 11 January 1879 - https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003338/18790111/080/0006

No. 96–101 (Lindsey House, presently known as No. 100)

No.104:

No. 107

No. 108

No. 109:

No. 113

No.116:

No.119:

No.120:

No.122:

  • Peter Warlock, English composer, lived at number 122 in 1921.
  • George Melly, jazz musician, lived in a flat sublet by Whidborne.
  • Bridget Keir, English landscape painter.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aVA7qLbLvf8C&dq=122+cheyne+walk+london&pg=PT56|isbn = 9781446453902|title = Love in Cyberia|date = 31 May 2011|publisher = Penguin Random House Children's UK}}
  • Gabriel Atkin (1897–1937), English landscape painter and architect, who was a lover of the poet Siegfried Sassoon, lived here.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LO9KDzIYSZoC&q=gabriel+atkin+122+cheyne+walk+london|isbn = 9780415967136|title = Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey from the Trenches : A Biography (1918-1967)|year = 2003|publisher = Psychology Press}}
  • Also Timothy Whidborne, English portrait painter.
  • Edith Cheesman, watercolour artist, lived at number 127 in 1911, since demolished and now covered by the World's End Estate, where The Clash frontman Joe Strummer lived.
  • George Weidenfeld, publisher, who became Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea, lived here from the 1960s until his death on 20 January 2016.
  • George Best once had a flat here.
  • Laurence Olivier and Jill Esmond lived here in the 1930s.
  • Mary Sidney lived at Crosby Hall from 1609 to 1615.
  • In July 1972, during a short-lived ceasefire, an IRA delegation that included Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness held talks in a house in Cheyne Walk with a British government team led by Northern Ireland Secretary William Whitelaw.
  • The Old Cheyneans – former pupils of Sloane Grammar School, Hortensia Road, Chelsea – take their name from the association with Cheyne Walk and Sir Hans Sloane who lived there.
  • Colin Colahan, Australian painter and sculptor, lived in Cheyne Walk.
  • Augustus Pugin, English architect, known for his work on the Palace of Westminster, lived briefly on Cheyne Walk in 1841.
  • Susan Fleetwood, British actress, lived on Cheyne Walk.{{when|date=September 2022}} Her brother is Mick Fleetwood, a member of the British-American rock group Fleetwood Mac.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}

Fictional residents

{{more citations needed|section|date=March 2018}}

See also

References and sources

;References

{{reflist|2}}

;Sources

  • {{cite book | last = Stourton | first = James | title = Great Houses of London | location = London | publisher = Frances Lincoln | year = 2012| type = Hardback | isbn=978-0-7112-3366-9}}

External links

{{commons category-inline|Cheyne Walk}}

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Category:Streets in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Category:Buildings and structures on the River Thames

Category:Chelsea, London