My fiend Ellen arrived this morning at 8AM. After she took a bit of a nap, she and I went on another guided walking tour. Our guide, I believe, was Mary, though she said it so quickly and she had such an interesting manner that I kind of missed it. We later figured it out from hints in the brochure. After the tour, one of our tour-mates said to Ellen that Mary was "a bit eccentric." We both figured you had to be to give these tours. Even later, Ellen said I would make a good tour guide. I'm going to take that as a compliment.
Chelsea was founded by Irishman Hans Sloan (thus London's famous Sloan Square in Chelsea), who was a doctor, a botanist and an all-around good guy. His collection of archaeological finds formed the basis for the British Museum. Chelsea itself is both posh and artistic. I've decided I could live there very well, thank you. Thus, a picture of me in front of my future digs.
It's hard not to continue to take pictures of the homes here. They are so beautiful. And for fans, like myself, of Househunters International, we passed by an estate agent's storefront which indicated that a flat here could be gotten for about 2 million pounds (about $3.2 million).
Here's another beautiful street, with a row of Tudor-style houses.
Many famous people lived here, including Oscar Wilde. This was his family home, whose contents were sold by the Crown to pay for his trial for homosexuality. He went to jail for two years. His wife took his two sons to Europe, changed their names and he never saw them again. Just two doors down was the home of Dr. Hayden-Guest, who also got a blue plaque. Mary said he was the father of actor/comedian Christopher Guest (Jamie Lee Curtis' husband), but from the dates, I think he must have been the grandfather or a very vigorous man at a very old age.
I took this picture, to give you an idea of how well they are able to clean the buildings now. These two buildings were made of the same materials and built at the same time. The one of the left has been cleaned recently. It looks almost new. I know I keep going on about this, but it is really remarkable. The city is almost sparkly.
Two things about Chelsea: roses in bloom in mid-March and these people have a garage, which is almost unheard of in Central London.
Another famous early resident of Chelsea was Sir Thomas More, who refused to go along with King Henry VIII's decision to split from the church of Rome, despite being the King's chancellor. He was executed for it and became what Mary referred to as a "Catholic Saint." The way she said it, it sounded like that was opposed to a real saint. She also said he was not as "saintly" as portrayed in the movie A Man for All Seasons and could be very mean to people. A statue of him sits in front of this church in Chelsea. You might be able to tell that part of the church is very old and part is very new. That's because it was bombed heavily in World War II.
This Italianate beauty is adorned with more statues than a park here. Mary says the house is someone's fantasy. If you click on the picture, you get a larger version and you can see how ornate it is. Note the figure of Cupid (I believe) in the front.
When the tour was over, we were chilled to the bone and we stopped at this pub on the King's Road. It was very crowded at 5PM.
A bit on down the King's Road, we stopped in a food store called Partridge's. If the selling of food can be considered an art, they are are Rembrants. Look at these cakes.
And pastries....
We really wished we had bought one of those when we got home. And, of course, they had a little cafe.
,
I really wanted to go to this local pub I had heard about called Prince Arthur's, just a block away from my flat. It was pretty cool, very old-timey, but they did not have any food. The bartender suggested we go to another place called The Old Fountain. I said to Ellen that may be we should have a drink at Arthur's before we went, but the bartender put his hand over mine and said, That's all right (or something like it. He really had a thick accent), meaning no you go on ahead, so we did. I don't know if he was being kind or he just wanted to get rid of us. You know, non-locals stinking up the place. I prefer to think it was the former.
It's hard not to continue to take pictures of the homes here. They are so beautiful. And for fans, like myself, of Househunters International, we passed by an estate agent's storefront which indicated that a flat here could be gotten for about 2 million pounds (about $3.2 million).
Here's another beautiful street, with a row of Tudor-style houses.
Many famous people lived here, including Oscar Wilde. This was his family home, whose contents were sold by the Crown to pay for his trial for homosexuality. He went to jail for two years. His wife took his two sons to Europe, changed their names and he never saw them again. Just two doors down was the home of Dr. Hayden-Guest, who also got a blue plaque. Mary said he was the father of actor/comedian Christopher Guest (Jamie Lee Curtis' husband), but from the dates, I think he must have been the grandfather or a very vigorous man at a very old age.
I took this picture, to give you an idea of how well they are able to clean the buildings now. These two buildings were made of the same materials and built at the same time. The one of the left has been cleaned recently. It looks almost new. I know I keep going on about this, but it is really remarkable. The city is almost sparkly.
Two things about Chelsea: roses in bloom in mid-March and these people have a garage, which is almost unheard of in Central London.
Another famous early resident of Chelsea was Sir Thomas More, who refused to go along with King Henry VIII's decision to split from the church of Rome, despite being the King's chancellor. He was executed for it and became what Mary referred to as a "Catholic Saint." The way she said it, it sounded like that was opposed to a real saint. She also said he was not as "saintly" as portrayed in the movie A Man for All Seasons and could be very mean to people. A statue of him sits in front of this church in Chelsea. You might be able to tell that part of the church is very old and part is very new. That's because it was bombed heavily in World War II.
This Italianate beauty is adorned with more statues than a park here. Mary says the house is someone's fantasy. If you click on the picture, you get a larger version and you can see how ornate it is. Note the figure of Cupid (I believe) in the front.
The irony is that this house sits right next to the very simple and small house that is generally considered to be the oldest in Chelsea, now used as a nursery.
When the tour was over, we were chilled to the bone and we stopped at this pub on the King's Road. It was very crowded at 5PM.
A bit on down the King's Road, we stopped in a food store called Partridge's. If the selling of food can be considered an art, they are are Rembrants. Look at these cakes.
And pastries....
We really wished we had bought one of those when we got home. And, of course, they had a little cafe.,
I really wanted to go to this local pub I had heard about called Prince Arthur's, just a block away from my flat. It was pretty cool, very old-timey, but they did not have any food. The bartender suggested we go to another place called The Old Fountain. I said to Ellen that may be we should have a drink at Arthur's before we went, but the bartender put his hand over mine and said, That's all right (or something like it. He really had a thick accent), meaning no you go on ahead, so we did. I don't know if he was being kind or he just wanted to get rid of us. You know, non-locals stinking up the place. I prefer to think it was the former.In any case, The Old Fountain was packed with what looked like regulars. And darts. No TVs, just darts. It was great, though the food selection was severely limited. Just sandwiches. Now I should tell you that the English version of a sandwich is two very thick pieces of bread with a very thin piece (no, not pieces) of meat in between. Ellen has experience (or previous, as they say here) and made the two halves of the sandwich into one with a bit more meat, so I did the same. Much better!
So we went back to the flat and Ellen stayed up to 10PM. Amazing, considering she had little sleep during her nap in the afternoon. What a trooper!
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