Chelsea distractions - welcome to my world

Here is a glimpse into my head which might help to explain why I am often asking for multiple parallel universes. One to walk and wander, one to write and research, one to read all the books and watch all the old movies, one to sit and just be. 

I take a lot of photos as I wander London's streets and you only get to see a teeny tiny selection of them. I wander and wonder. When I wander I discover things that intrigue me. I wonder what/why. I take a few snaps to remind me to look into it later. I turn a corner and find something else of interest. I take more photos. I turn a third corner and notice some unusual railings or coal hole covers with designs I haven't seen before, or an unusually impressive building, or a faded sign or a bizarre sculpture... and my phone becomes filled with 100s of 'ideas' that hardly ever bubble to the surface because there aren't enough hours in the day, days in the week etc. 

The photos take a matter of seconds to snap but the re-naming, filing, tagging takes ages. Add to that, the time taken doing research to find out more about what I have just seen or discovered, such that one quick photograph can end up taking me down a vortex and what I thought would be 5-minutes of goggling becomes a 2-day investigation. It's often the case that my most recent discoveries take precedent over the half-completed stuff which then gets swamped in one of my ever-expanding 'To Do' folders. 

Welcome to my world

To give an example of how this happens, this whole blog post/article/whatever you want to call it has taken me over 5hrs to pull together, and it doesn't even contain any decent research, just observations and musings, and a couple of links. Read on...

Last Friday 6th Feb I attended a talk at The Army Museum. I travelled there by tube to Sloane Square and managed to keep my phone in my pocket until I reached the hexagonal acanthus leafed post box near Bram Stoker's blue plaque on Leonard's Terrace. I took this quick snap with the intention to check if I'd already added a red dot on my wall map at home.   

At the museum I used the facilities, and took a pic of the saluting figures on the signs so as to add them to the interesting toilet signs I've spotted that might one day appear as a collections (a subfolder in To Do). Despite a voice in my head saying telling me to go home and get things done, that I could be back by 2pm and have three good hours at my desk, I let myself wander about the exhibits. I love the quality of uniforms and all the hand stitching on the older pieces. I find it amazing how they spent so much time and effort making such lovely items of clothing for people to die in. An hour flew by. My tummy rumbled. I went to the nearby Tesco and got a 3-part snack deal.

Wandering along Smith Street munching on my crisps, I noticed that two of the coal hole covers bore addresses in nearby Kings Road. I took snaps just I case I hadn't already added these to my A-Z database of ironmongers.

On the other side of the road, I glanced across at 17-18 Smith Street and wondered why/how this was rebuilt taller than everything else in the terrace. It looks to be residential. Note that this is a portrait shaped photo here to get the whole thing in. I prefer to take square shape. 

Just before King's Road there is a gated court yard called Court Yard. Cool huh. 

Opposite is a blue plaque to PL Travers, the lady that have us Mary Poppins. It says she lived here until 1962 and I wondered if she ever associated with Agatha Christie who lived a stone's throw away during the same era.

On the other side of King's Road a plaque for Mary Quant, the pic taken from the below the cow's head that protrudes form the corner of what was once Wright's Dairy when this was a genteel Victorian suburb.

From the same viewpoint, there's the old Markham Arms with its curved street level windows and, on the southern side, the bizarre bit of bonkers Egyptianesque PoMo that sits above Holland & Barratt

On the diagonally opposite corner to Wright's there is a 1960s building containing a shop at street level that offers bland beige and grey clothing. Many other shops along Kings Rd today also sell similar stuff – it's a far cry from the colourful world of Mary Quant. 

I stood there for a while drinking in the patchwork of architecture all around me and, raher than head towards the station, I crossed over to check on the sculpture at the corner to see if anyone has seen fit to add any kind of information plaque since I last wrote about it back in 2015. 

Nope. Nada. Nothing. FYI, as per the info in that link above the pics, This is 'Bronze man and Eagle' by Richard Bentley Claughton for Barclays Bank, unveiled in April 1966.

I wandered past the bronze man and around Markham Square, a cul-de-sac. At the far left corner I noticed a stump of churchiness, possibly a gate post. Hmmm. The houses must abut or replace a churchyard, hence a road to nowhere. However, the houses at the end could have been built at a later date in the same style. More below.

I found nothing similar in the other corner, so I look a pic of the entrance to the private gardens and headed back to Kings Road. Paul's patisserie at the corner of of Bywater Street retains some lovely brass ventilation grilles at low level. I wondered what type of shop this was originally. 

I let myself be tempted around exterior of the shop into what is yet another cul-de-sac. 

Pretty pastel coloured houses on three sides. The two at the end are surely as old as the rest of the street and I guess that this development must have also backed onto the churchyard, but today there's a huge C20th construction looming over their back gardens.

Turning back towards King's Rd I was amazed to discover an Art Deco style property in the middle of the west terrace. 

What on earth is going on here?! Perhaps this was originally a gap between the houses that was later infilled? However, the satellite view does not appear to back up that theory. But why employ such a modern style so different to the rest of the houses here? Is it just the façade or the whole building? Whilst it's a delight to me now, many of the residents in this street must surely have been furious at the time of construction.

Back to King's Rd. Almost opposite, on the south side, is Wellington Square, another cul-de-sac: 

 

Belts and braces. Metal bollards and stone bollards too. I headed up the right side and came back down the left side and found a few coal holes covers of interest.

I am often confused and bemused why circles contain seven segments. I mean, why make it so difficult when 360 is easily divisible by every other number 2-12 excluding seven. Eh? (I did say welcome to my world!)

There are a few more King’s Road ironmongers plates along here, set within lovely York stone and looking good in the rain. I also found a design I have never seen before where rings of ellipses form a nice concentric pattern.

Now where? Should I head to the station and home or investigate the streets beyond Markham Square and Bywater Street to check out the church hunch? A no brainer! 

I headed down cute little Tryon Street and turned left into Elstan Place. Passing Ranelagh House (wowzer – a development that needs a separate investigation) and the 1950's elegance of Thackery House and a cottage named after one of history's most oft-mentioned characters.

Only last week, a friend and I were debating who has more places named after them, Ms Gwynne or Mr Dickens? Many of the connections are spurious or vague.

Between some cottages, very similar in design to those in Markham Square and Bywater Street, there's the remains of a gateway to the church. 

Aha!  OK, so I've googled... here's a pic that shows that the church's entrance was at the end of Markham Square, demolished in 1953. 

At Markham Street there is a tall bollard that surely is an original upcycled cannon but there is so much paint on it that the information panel is impossible to read.

Nearby, on the western end of the triangle, another cannon-shaped bollard is dated 1820

I took a quick snap of the oil jars on the exterior of the dry cleaners at the corner of Godfrey Street and, managing to resist the temptation to wander around the large blocks that comprise Sutton Dwellings, I instead headed up Whitehead's Grove, passing one of the entrances to The Gateways a gorgeous 1934 red brick development that has that out of town vibe.  

As I approached the larger 1930s buildings along Sloane Avenue it occurred to me that years ago I had promised to offer an Art Deco Chelsea walking tour of this area. Whoops! I'd started the idea but had realised the route needed more R&D. I will return to this. I will. I will. I will...!

Here's young Nell again – see her above the entrance, here paired with Sloane Avenue Mansions.

Into Draycott Avenue, passing a Guinness social housing building and well-to do mansions block, and into the little streets that connect Draycott St to King's Rd.

 

A house in Coulson Street is painted a shocking pink. Yes, quite shocking. As Loyd Grossman would have said, who lives in a house like this?

And so to Sloane Square – note Nell Gwynne on the fountain. A couple of snaps of the old public conveniences to update another sub-folder in the To Dos. I wonder if there are plans to turn this subterranean space into anything as per  other repurposed sites (a blog post collection on lost and converted loos is still in the making). A mini paddling pool on the roof.

Then Sloane Square station to Finsbury Park, exiting onto Goodwin Street, wondering what will become of the Post Office building and surrounding site that has been saved from demolition but has sat empty for a long time.

People are often heard saying "you should get out more" LOL! 

Back in 2020 when most people were 'trapped' and bored' I was outdoors in my element, wandering the empty streets and investigating alleyways, taking thousands more photos when, perhaps I could have been using the time to chip away at an already huge backlog. Instead, I added to the problem! 

Until mind-melding becomes a thing such that we can think a thought into our hand-held devices and it will research and write all up for us, I'm going to be playing catch-up for a long time yet!

How long did writing this take? 

A couple of hours of wandering about, following my nose, taking photos, making notes, then an hour of picture editing the ones I wanted to use here. Note that these are only approx 40% of the total pics I took on this particular day, a day when I was actually being frugal with the idea to write this thing as a stream of succinct consciousness (well, that didn't happen!). 

Other pics taken on the same day will, hopefully, rise to the top at some point as separate blog posts in their own right. 

I started writing at 10.05am. It never ceases to amaze me how long these things take me to produce and, as mentioned above, I have not on this occasion done any proper research into the things mentioned, except to refer to an A-Z at my left elbow, a bit of google streetviewing, and to decipher the scribbled notes I made on the day. 

I actually set myself a deadline for this – when I sat down I said spend two hours max on it. At 1.29pm I decided I was finished and gave the whole thing a read-through and made some text edits. It is now 2.06pm and I am still sat here. Aaargh! I will stop now. I'm done. I'm hungry. I need to get out and about before the sun goes down!

I'm not sure how I can work any faster. Special mention to two people who never cease to amaze me – David who produces A London Inheritance and M@ Londonist – they each compile weekly missives packed to the gills with facts. These men, I conclude, simply do not sleep or they have access to the parallel universes that I so dearly require.