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Meetings with remarkable people in Venice (Italy) and Chelsea (London)

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Every year until I was 17, I used to accompany my parents to Venice. There, we stayed at the Pensione La Calcina in the Zattere district. This accommodation, where the nineteenth century cultural guru John Ruskin (1819-1900) used to stay, was next to the large Giudecca Canal. And each time we stayed there, we met other regular visitors, whom we got to know quite well …

We always took demi-pension at the Calcina – room, breakfast (such as it was), and one main meal. Usually, we ate lunch there and had our evening meals elsewhere. The dining room was L-shaped. Most of the clientele sat in the long and larger part of the dining room but regular guests, such as us, sat in the shorter section at right angles to its longer section. There were 5 tables in this part. Our family occupied a table at the end of it and next to a window that looked out towards the Giudecca Canal from which we could watch its gently undulating waves glistening and glinting in the bright midday sun.

Every summer, we dined with the same guests who, like us, stayed at the Calcina year after year. Each party occupied the same table each year. Behind and next to us, there were two elderly Russian men. They were, my mother once explained, ‘Whites’ not ‘Reds’ – they had fled the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Although she was not sure, she felt that they were homosexuals. They never said much at lunch except once when one of them expressed the opinion that the paintings in the Accademia Gallery had been ruined by cleaning. He thought that the old masters had looked far better before the restorers had removed layers of yellowing varnish to reveal the bright colours had been hidden beneath them.

Each of two tables facing each other and close to ours were occupied by two Polish composers and their respective wives. One of these musicians was named Horowitz. He was not related to the famous pianist as far as I know. The other was named Tansman.  I did not realise it at the time, but he was none other than the composer Alexander Tansman (1897-1986). Although he might not be as well known to the public as some of his contemporaries, he was, and still is, highly regarded by musical cognoscenti. The two composers spent much of their lunchtimes glaring at each other. They appeared to disagree about most things except one. And that was the appalling quality of the food that used to be served in the Calcina. As soon as the main course arrived at table, everyone in the regulars’ section of the dining room looked at each other, raising their eyebrows knowingly.

The food was served to the regulars by a friendly waiter, who was at the Calcina year after year. Along with the ladies, the owner Ms Scolozzi and her manager, Miss Steiner, he was a permanent fixture at the pensione.  I often felt that he sympathised with us. I am sure that he knew that what he was serving was probably unenjoyable, but that was his job. At the end of lunch, fruit would be served. This always included grapes, which he pronounced as ‘greeps’.

There was one more regular who lunched with us. A well-built elderly American, he remained an enigma for years. He beamed at us in a friendly way, but said nothing during our meals. It was not until one morning in the early 1970s that we learned more about him. For some reason we left the Calcina later than usual: at 11 o’clock instead of the usual 10 or half-past. We were standing waiting outside the pensione when my mother noticed a gondola draped with green cloths pulling up at the corner where the nearby small side canal, which ran alongside the Pensione Seguso, next door to La Calcina, met the much larger Giudecca Canal. The gondolier, a young man, was dressed in green livery that matched the drapes on his highly polished black boat.

Soon after this gondola had moored, we noticed our elderly American fellow diner emerging from the main entrance of the Calcina. He headed straight for the recently arrived gondola, and then boarded it. Next, he sat down, and then started reading a newspaper whilst the gondolier began to row him across the Giudecca Canal. We watched his gondola crossing the water, before it disappeared into one of the small canals that traversed the Giudecca Island before reaching the lagoon. We were fascinated and intrigued. After he disappeared, we began our morning’s activity.

My mother was never shy when she needed to know something. So, after lunch that day, she stopped our mysterious American lunch neighbour and asked him about the gondola and its liveried oarsman. He explained that every day, he was ferried out into the lagoon in the gondola. When he reached the lagoon, he took over the oar and rowed around the waters of the lagoon for an hour before handing the oar back to the gondolier, who then rowed him back to the Calcina in time for lunch. Remarkable as it was that a non-Venetian could row a gondola competently, what he told us next was even more amazing.

Mr Milliken, as he identified himself, was, as my father – a keen amateur art historian – was most excited to learn, none other than the director of the well-respected Cleveland Art Museum in the USA. The liveried gondolier, whom we had observed, was the grandson of his late mother’s personal gondolier. She used to accompany Mr Millikan on his annual visits to Venice before WW2, and employed her own gondolier during her stays.

Later that day, we asked Miss Steiner about Milliken. She told us that he visited the Calcina every year on the anniversary of either the birth or the death of his mother – I cannot remember which. He occupied the room in which she used to stay. It would be furnished exactly as it was when she was alive, and was kept decked with fresh flowers – not the plastic ones that adorned so many Italian hotels. We were most interested to learn this, but I did not think about it much until years later when I looked up Milliken on the internet and discovered that he had published a book about Venice called “Unfamiliar Venice”. I obtained a copy of this from a second-hand bookseller. It is a beautifully written and illustrated book, clearly the work of one who knew the city intimately. However, nowhere except in his dedicatory words does he make any reference to his own very personal connection with the place. He wrote: “To my mother, ‘The lady who loved Venice,’ and Bernard Berenson, who encouraged me to write these impressions.” The biographical note on the book’s endpaper added that Milliken had spent several months in Venice each year since 1921, when he was aged 32, but not during WW2. In his autobiography, “Born under the Sign of Libra”, I discovered that his mother’s gondolier was a member of the Fabris family. I also learnt that his mother, like mine, had a fear of small boats, but made an exception of the gondola.

We were not yet on speaking terms with our fellow diner Mr Milliken in 1960 when the Olympic Games were held in Rome during the height of summer. However, he and the other regular lunch diners including my father used to crowd around the Calcina’s only TV set after lunch during the Games. It was a small black and white receiver situated in the sitting room that adjoined the dining room. All the diners from the regulars’ section used to cluster around it to check on the latest Olympic results. Each time one of the Soviet Bloc countries won a medal, everyone booed. When a non-Soviet Bloc nation won, it was usually West Germany or the USA, they cheered. One thing apart from the awful food served in the pensione united those who sat near us at lunch in the Calcina, and that was a dislike of Communism. This was hardly surprising as the regulars included Russian émigrés, Poles, and an American; and the Games were being held during the height of the so-called Cold War.

A few years before my last visit to Venice with my parents, I met a couple who were destined to play a prominent role in my social life during the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

One evening whilst we were standing in front of the Calcina, my father greeted an elderly lady who was walking hand in hand with an equally elderly, but taller, man. It was touching to see them as they were clearly very much in love. The woman was a colleague of my father at the London School of Economics (‘LSE’). Her name was Kit Russell, and she was until her retirement in 1973 an academic member of the School’s Department of Social Administration. Her husband Sheridan was an almoner by profession. They used to stay at the Seguso which was next door to the Calcina. After that first encounter, we used to bump into them often whenever we visited Venice. As far as I know, the Russells were not part of my parents’ social circle; I had never heard of them before we met them in Venice.

One evening in Venice before August 1970 that is when I was still a secondary school student, Kit asked me whether I enjoyed listening to classical music. When I answered affirmatively, she said that she would be sure to invite me to one of the musical evenings that she and Sheridan held at their home. So it was that I turned up one Saturday evening at the Russell’s ground floor flat in Lindsey House in Cheyne Walk close to the River Thames. It dated back to the 17th century, but the ground floor flat occupied by the Russels resulted from an 18th century modification of the building. Separated from the river only by its front garden and a street, it is now maintained by the National Trust.

I attended many musical evenings at the Russell’s place. They all followed the same pattern, but always differed in detail. On arrival at the flat, the 30 or so guests would mingle and help themselves to what Kit called the ‘Stones of Venice’. These were almonds covered by a sugary coating that was coloured to make them resemble washed pebbles. The Russells used to buy them in bulk when they visited Venice. When everyone including the guest musicians had arrived, the audience would sit on a variety of objects ranging from sofas to cushions on the floor. After my first musical soirée, Kit used to ask me to sit on a chair near the windowsill upon which the telephone was perched. My job was to answer the telephone should it ring during the music, and I was to say: “We are having a party. Please ring again tomorrow,” and then to replace the receiver quickly. Fortunately, I never ever had to do this because it never rang.

When we were all seated, Sheridan, an accomplished ‘cello player, would introduce the guest musicians. Most of them were well-known professional players. Maria Lidka (1914-2013), a highly accomplished violinist who had fled from Nazi Germany, appeared frequently at these soirées. One evening, the famous pianist Louis Kentner (1905-1987) joined Sheridan’s ensemble. Kit persuaded him to give me a lift part of the way home in his car. He did so, but very reluctantly.

In addition to Sheridan, there would be up to 5 other musicians, but more usually 2 or 3. They were usually string players and pianists, but on one occasion there was a clarinettist. It was at this party that I first heard the beautiful clarinet quintet by Brahms. Sheridan explained to me that the members of his ensembles were different for each soirée. No musician would ever be invited to play with the same group of musicians more than once. And also none of his guest musicians would play the same composition more than once. Further, the Russells varied the composition of the audience so that everyone had a chance to meet someone new.

The guest musicians had no idea what they would be asked to play until they arrived. Sheridan had rehearsed the pieces in advance, but his musician guests had not. They played each work either from memory or by sight-reading. The performances were truly impromptu, but that did not matter because all the players were of the highest calibre. Kit and Sheridan made sure that none of the audience, many of whom were regular attendees, ever heard the same pieces more than once. Apart from being highly enjoyable, each of the soirées was a masterpiece of planning.

Once, Maria Lidka’s son, the then young ‘cellist Marius May, was invited to play for us. All went well for a while until suddenly one of his instrument’s strings snapped noisily. It sounded like a gunshot. Marius had to stop playing. One of his fingers had begun to swell horribly having just been assaulted by the broken string.  Fortunately, this did not put an end to his promising career as a professional musician.

The lights were turned down and, if it was summer, the curtains were drawn. Then, the first piece of the evening was performed. The Russell’s living room was the perfect setting for chamber music, much of which had been written soon before or just after the room had been built. Its acoustics were second to none. Sheridan always played with his back to the audience. Kit used to sit a short distance away from his right hand, beaming lovingly at him. I will never forget her sweet smile and her obvious care and affection for him. As he grew older, Sheridan used to wear gloves even during the performance. He would remove them only when he had to play. During the intervals in which he was counting bars without playing, he used to slip his aging shaky hands back into his gloves. I used to be saddened seeing my elderly friend having to do this.

During the interval that followed the first piece of music, we were allowed to mingle whilst we enjoyed the refreshments that Kit brought out from her kitchen. These were always the same: savoury biscuits upon which there were small pieces of a yellow hard cheese that was studded with caraway seeds. Glasses of red wine were served with this snack. After the interval, the second piece of the evening was performed. When that was over, we all bade farewell to our hosts and went our own ways. I used to love attending these evening chamber concerts. It was wonderful hearing Brahms, Beethoven, and Mozart, performed in such a perfect environment.

Sheridan, who was born in 1900, married Kit when he was 57. He told me once during an interval at one of his soirées that marrying her allowed him to do something that he had always wanted to do, but was unable to do so as a bachelor. And that was to become a marriage guidance councillor.

The encounters described above are amongst my fond memories of Venice – a place I still enjoy visiting. And had it not been for meeting Kit and Sheridan on a warm summer night in Venice, I might never have been able to experience the magical musical occasions at their home in London.

By Moore it moved from Chelsea to near Tate Britain

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RECENTLY I NOTICED a sculpture close to Tate Britain but not within it.

When the Chelsea School of Art – now the Chelsea College of Art and Design – moved from Chelsea to Millbank next to Tate Britain, so did this sculpture by Henry Moore (1898-1986). Called “Two Piece Reclining Figure No 1” and created in 1959, this was originally placed in the Chelsea campus of the art school, where for a time in the 1930s Moore was Head of Sculpture. When the college relocated to Millbank, the Sculpture moved with it.

A concert in a church at Sloane Square

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UNTIL YESTERDAY EVENING (24th of June 2023), I had never heard of the town of Davis in California. And unsurprisingly, neither did I know of the existence of Davis Senior High School and its baroque ensemble. Had I not attended their concert in Holy Trinity Church in London’s Sloane Square, I would have missed a great treat. Established in the year 2000, the ensemble consists of musicians – string players – aged between 15 and 18. It was founded by its conductor Angelo Moreno, who along with Caitlyn Oher – a student, performed some of the solo violin parts during the concert. Despite the internal air temperature of the church being about 26 degrees Celsius, the musicians played without an interval for an hour and a half. The concert included works by Purcell, Avison, Handel, Couperin, Buonamente, Vivaldi, Geminiani, and Rameau. Each piece was performed superbly. If you did not know, you would not have believed that these excellent musicians were high school pupils. The concert favourably rivalled many baroque performances I have heard by professional orchestras that specialise in baroque music.

The concert was held within a church designed by John Dando Sedding (1838-1891) in a Victorian gothic style, and completed by 1890. Apart from being a spacious church, what makes it special is that most of its decorative features were designed in the Arts and Crafts Movement’s style. Under the influence of people such as John Ruskin and William Morris, the Movement rebelled against industrialisation and encouraged craftsmen, who had been made redundant by the ever-increasing use of machines to manufacture things. The church contains much metalwork with designs characteristic of the Arts and Crafts Movement (a British version of Art Nouveau or Jugendstil). So important is this church as an example of the Movement’s style that Sir John Betjeman named it “The Cathedral of the Arts and Crafts Movement.” The east window, which we could see high above the musicians in the baroque ensemble, was created by the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones and includes foliage as depicted by William Morris.

Whereas you will have to wait until the Davis High School Baroque Ensemble next visits London, Holy Trinity Church is open every day and welcomes visitors. I recommend that you pay it a visit.

King Richard III and more

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SEEN FROM ACROSS THE THAMES at Battersea Park, it looks like a Tudor palace in immaculate condition on the opposite bank of the river. But do not be fooled because much of Crosby Hall, the edifice you can see from the riverside at Battersea, was built between 1910 and about 1926.  Part of the building is far older, dating back to mediaeval times and it was moved from the heart of the City to its present location in Chelsea in 1910. Let me explain, please.

In 1466, Sir John Crosby, alderman and a sheriff of London, built his mansion, Crosby Place, on land just east of Bishopsgate, leased to him by the Prioress St Helens Bishopsgate, a church nearby.  After Crosby died in 1475/6, Crosby Place was owned by the Duke of Gloucester (1452-1485), who was to become King Richard III, of Shakespearian fame.  John Timbs in his “Curiosities of London” (published in 1855) suggests that in 1598, Shakespeare had lodgings close to Crosby Place. In Act 1, scene 2 of his play, Richard, Duke of Gloucester says:

“And presently repair to Crosby House;

Where (after I have solemnly interr’d

At Chertsey monast’ry this noble king,

And wet his grave with my repentant tears)

I will with all expedient duty see you.

For diverse unknown reasons, I beseech you,

Grant me this boon.”

Writing in 1603 in his “The Survey of London”, John Stow (1524/25-1605) noted:

“Then you have one great house called Crosby place, because the same was built by Sir John Crosby, grocer and Woolman … This house he built of stone and timber, very large and beautiful, and the highest at that time in London … he was buried in St Helen’s, the parish church…”

Stow also recorded that in the late 16th century several ambassadors lived in the house.

The fourth owner of Crosby Place was the senior government official, Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), whose head was removed at the Tower of London after disagreements with his ‘boss’, King Henry VIII. It has been suggested by Timbs that More wrote his books “Utopia” (1516) and “History of Richard the Third” (1512-1519) whilst residing at Crosby Place. In 1523, More sold Crosby Place to his friend, the banker and merchant Antonio Bonvisi (died 1558) from Lucca in Italy. Interestingly, More moved to his house in Chelsea after leaving Crosby Place. His riverside home, the former Beaufort House was a few yards away from the present Crosby Hall.

The ownership of Crosby Place changed several times after More sold it. Sir Walter Raleigh lived there in 1601. Between 1621 and 1638, the Place was home to the East India Company (founded 1600). Soon after 1642, fire struck the property, and it was never again used as a residence. The conflagration spared the great hall, which became known as Crosby Hall. During the Civil War, it was used as a prison for Royalists. In 1672, it was converted into a Presbyterian meeting house, and was used as such until 1769. Next, the hall was used as a packer’s warehouse. The packer’s lease expired in 1831. Following that and public concern about its condition, the hall was restored in about 1836. Timbs noted that it was:

“… the finest example in the metropolis of the domestic mansion Perpendicular work … The glory of the place is, however, the roof which is an elaborate architectural study, and decidedly one of the finest examples of timber-work in existence. It differs from many other examples in being an inner roof…”

From Timbs’s detailed description, it sounds as if it was a spectacular creation.

Following its restoration, Crosby Hall became used for musical performances and as a meeting place for literary societies. In 1868, Crosby Hall became a restaurant. The Hall was sold to the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China in 1907. The bank wanted to destroy what was one of the oldest buildings in the City of London, one of the few survivors of the Great Fire of 1666. These plans caused a public outcry. In 1910, the Hall was dismantled and moved stone by stone to its present site in Chelsea, opposite Battersea Park. There, it was reassembled and Tudor-style additions, designed by the architect Walter Godfrey (1881-1961) were constructed.

During WW1, the relocated and enlarged Crosby Hall was used to house refugees from war-torn Belgium. Between 1925 and 1968, the Hall was leased by the British Federation of University Women. Following the anti-Jewish laws passed by the Nazis in 1933, Crosby Hall provided residential fellowships for Jewish women academics who had fled from Hitler’s Germany. After 1988, Crosby Hall became a private residence (www.christophermoran.org/news/crosby-hall-the-most-important-surviving-domestic-medieval-building-in-london/).

Close to the relocated Crosby Hall there is a statue of Sir Thomas More, seated and looking across the Thames. This statue is appropriately located between what is left of his old home, which used to be in Bishopsgate, and the land on which his Chelsea mansion used to stand. One day, I hope that I will be able to see the superb hammer beam roof in Crosby Hall. I wonder how it compares with the wonderful example that can be seen in Middle Temple Hall, in which Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” was first performed in 1602.

Music by the River Thames

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A ROW OF HOUSEBOATS is moored alongside the bank of the River Thames that runs past Cheyne Walk in London’s Chelsea. The floating dwellings are faced by Lindsey House, one of the oldest buildings in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Built in 1674 by Robert Bertie, 3rd Earl of Lindsey (1630-1701) on land that was once part of Thomas More’s riverside garden, it was remodelled by Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf (1700-1760) for London’s Moravian community in 1750. Five years later, the edifice was divided into separate dwellings. Today, they are numbered 96 to 101 Cheyne Walk. The American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) lived in number 96, and the engineers Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849) and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) lived in number 98. My friends Kit and Sheridan lived in a ground floor flat in number 100.

Lindsey House, Chelsea, London

I first met Kit and Sheridan during one of our annual family holidays to Venice. Kit, who was a colleague of my father at the London School of Economics, and her husband Sheridan used to stay in the Pensione Seguso that was next door to the Pensione La Calcina, where John Ruskin (1819-1900) once stayed, and we always stayed in Venice. During one of our holidays when we stopped on the Fondamente Zattere to talk with Kit and Sheridan in Venice, they asked me whether I liked classical music. When I told them that I did, they said that they would invite me to their musical evenings held some Saturdays in their home. I attended quite a few of these during the second half of the 1960s.

On arrival at 100 Cheyne Walk, Kit used to welcome the guests by offering us coloured sugar-coated almonds, which she described as ‘stones of Venice’, an illusion to Ruskin’s book about Venice (“The Stones of Venice”), where the almonds had been purchased. After discarding coats, all of the guests, twenty to thirty in number, had to find somewhere to sit in the large, low-ceilinged living room. I was always directed by Kit to the same seat. She used to want me to sit next to the telephone. She always told me:

“If it rings during the music, dear, lift the receiver and say: ‘Sorry, we are having a party. Please ring again tomorrow’”

It never did ring, but I used to sit nervously in anticipation of having to perform my important duty.

Sheridan was a fine ‘cellist, who knew many professional musicians, all of them quite famous. He used to invite several musicians, anything from two to four, to perform a couple of chamber works with him. Kit knew what was to be performed at each soirée, but the invited musicians were not told until they arrived (at the same time as the audience). Without prior rehearsal, Kit and his musical guests performed chamber works, often by Brahms and Beethoven, beautifully and, except for Sheridan, from ‘scratch’. The acoustics of the 17th (or 18th) century living room were perfect for the music performed. These wonderful evenings engendered my enduring love of the chamber music of Brahms. During the music, Kit sat a few feet away from Sheridan on his right. Her eyes never wandered from him and she always smiled sweetly as he played. Whenever we saw them in Venice, they were always walking hand-in-hand like two lovers.

I believe that Kit and Sheridan married late in life. Sheridan told me once that he was pleased when he married, because as a married man he was able to perform a service, for which only married people were eligible at the time. He was at last able to become a marriage guidance counsellor.

Sheridan told me once that there was a lot of planning before putting on each musical evening. He ensured that none of his guest musicians ever played the same piece together more than once. Also, he tried to make sure that nobody in the audience ever heard the same combinations of pieces more than once. He did this by recording who had played what and who had heard what in a set of notebooks.

Two works were played at each soirée. During the interval, everyone stood up, many relieved to get off the not always comfortable seating provided. Kit served glasses of red wine and crackers with pieces of cheese that contained cumin seeds. Every soirée, the same refreshments were provided. 

A few of the musicians that I can remember hearing playing with Sheridan included the violinist Maria Lidka (1914-2013) and her son, a ‘cellist; individual players from the Amadeus Quartet; and once the pianist Louis Kentner (1905-1987). At the end of the evening when Kentner had played, Kit asked him to give me a lift part of the way back to north west London. He agreed, but as we drove together, I had a distinct feeling that this famous pianist was not at all keen about giving me a lift and said not a word to me during the short journey.

As Sheridan grew older, he became increasingly frail and began looking gaunt. During the last few concerts I attended, I noticed that he covered his hands with woollen fingerless gloves. Maybe, he had a circulation problem. Sheridan died in 1991. Kit lived on another seven years. I believe that the last time I spoke to her was just after I married in late 1993, but she showed little interest in my news. 

Whereas back in the 1960s, when I used to attend the musical evenings at Lindsey House, one could walk from the street to the front door, today this is impossible without being able to unlock a gate leading into the grounds of the house. Currently owned by the National Trust and rented to tenants, Lindsey House is rarely opened to the public. Fortunately, we did once manage to attend one of these openings, but all seemed to have changed since I last listened to chamber music being played close to the river.

From Chelsea to Chiswick: travels of a gateway

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BEAUFORT HOUSE IN CHELSEA was the home of Henry VIII’s ill-fated advisor, Thomas More (1478-1535), between 1521 and his arrest in 1535. After More’s death, the property passed through the hands of several owners, the last of which was the physician and founder of the British Museum Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753). He bought the house and its grounds in 1737 (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol4/pt2/pp18-27). During 1739 and 1740, Sloane demolished Beaufort House, and sold parts of it and its grounds to be used in other buildings. One of the items he sold was an elegant gateway designed by the British architect Inigo Jones (1573-1652), who introduced the neo-classical style to the UK.  The gateway, which was constructed in 1621, used to serve as an entrance to the grounds of the house from Kings Road.

The gateway, which now stands near to Chiswick House in west London, bears a carved stone with the words:

“Given by Sir Hans Sloane, Baronet to the Earl of Burlington 1738.”

Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork (1694-1753), an architect. He built the present Palladian-style mansion at Chiswick in 1717. An admirer of Inigo Jones, he was happy to install the gateway from Beaufort House close to his recently constructed building in Chiswick. Contrary to what appears on the inscription, he paid for the gateway rather than receiving it as a gift from Sloane. A poem by the architect and landscape designer William Kent (c1685-1748) relates the story of this fine gateway (quoted from “The Palladian Revival. Lord Burlington, His Villa and Garden at Chiswick” by John Harris):

“Ho! Gate, how came ye here?

I came fro’ Chelsea the last yere

Inigo Jones there put me together

Then was I dropping by wind and weather

Sir Hannes Sloane

Let me alone

But Burlington brought me hither

This architecton-ical

Gate Inigo Jon-ical

Was late Hans Slon-ical

And now Burlington-ical”

Burlington was so keen to have the gate that he agreed to pay Sloane however much it was valued.

As far as I can see, the gateway serves no other function than as a decorative garden feature. Burlington was a keen collector of the architectural drawings of Inigo Jones and had seen the Beaufort House gateway amongst them. As an enthusiast, he must have been thrilled to have acquired an actual work by the architect he admired. So, apart from being a garden feature, it was a fine collector’s item. I feel that it is a pity that he did not rescue more from the house that Sloane demolished because old drawings and plans of it make it appear as if it was a remarkable edifice.

The gardens of Chiswick House, close to the busy A4 highway, are open to the public free of charge and apart from the fine gateway, there are many other lovely man-made garden features: statues, neo-classical buildings (apart from the main villa), bridges, and a fine waterfall that empties into a lake. The gardens are interestingly laid out, both formal layouts with hedges and also less manicured areas. Come rain or shine, a visit to these gardens is a worthwhile and refreshing experience.

Where Londoners once had fun

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BEFORE THE COVID19 PANDEMIC gripped the world, many Londoners made outings to pleasure grounds such as Legoland, Thorpe Park, and further afield to Disneyland near Paris. During the late 18th century, Londoners seeking entertainment headed for places such as Vauxhall Gardens, Ranelagh (now, the grounds of Royal Hospital Chelsea, site of the Chelsea Flower Show), and Cuper’s (across the Thames opposite Somerset House). These pleasure gardens began to decline, some before and others during the 19th century. However, in their wake, another such place came into existence in Chelsea, Cremorne Gardens.

Thomas Dawson, 1st Viscount Cremorne (1725-1813), an Irish landowner, possessed a plot of land on the north side of the Thames, just west of Battersea Bridge. There he had a mansion, Chelsea Farm, which was often visited by King George III, his wife Queen Charlotte, and the future George IV. In 1825, the property came into the possession of Granville Penn (1761-1844), a cousin of Cremorne’s widow.  Penn’s claim to fame is that he was involved in the establishment of what is now The Royal Veterinary College in London (www.rvc.ac.uk/about/the-rvc/history). Penn did much to improve the grounds of the estate, but later sold it. The house and grounds were bought in 1831 by Charles Random De Berenger, Baron De Beaufain (www.rbkc.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/parks/), who created the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens.

The great beauty of the grounds led it to being opened by De Berenger as a public pleasure ground known at first as ‘The Stadium’. De Berenger was:

“… a sportsman and in the grounds opened Cremorne Stadium. Members who paid their two or three guineas could, under the Baron’s instruction, shoot, box, and practise “manly exercises generally” in the grounds.” (https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/pdf/CRA_Historical_Survey.pdf).

Today, there is a Stadium Street located in what would have once been part of Cremorne’s estate.

The Baron died in 1845 and the estate grounds were sold. They were laid out tastefully and the place, opened as a public pleasure ground that attracted large crowds of people seeking pleasure and entertainment, who were willing to pay modest fees for it. The gardens flourished between 1845 and 1877. In 1850, they came under the ownership of Thomas Bartlett Simpson, who also purchased Ashburnham House (an 18th century edifice) on the west side of the estate, which he used to house some of his visitor attractions. The grounds offered visitors many attractions including dancing; meals; secluded areas; firework displays; theatres for farce and vaudeville; ballets; puppet shows; trapeze artists; tight-rope walkers; a maze; and balloon ascents.

In his 1880’s “Old and New London”, Edward Walford describes some of the exploits with balloons, which were not without excitement. In 1839, whilst the gardens were owned by De Berenger, a Mr Hampton equipped with a parachute ascended two miles above the ground with a balloon and then descended to the ground with his parachute.  Some years later, Vincent De Groof ascended from Cremorne Gardens in a contraption, designed to help him fly, suspended from a balloon. After reaching a high altitude, something went wrong and poor De Groof fell to his death.

By the 1870s, the Cremorne Gardens were becoming disreputable, especially becoming notorious for prostitution. After they closed (for financial reasons), the land became used for building houses and other buildings including the Lots Road Power Station.

In about 1846, the artist JMW Turner (1775-1851) moved into a house by the river on what is now Cremorne Road, close to Cremorne Gardens and to the Cremorne Pier. He constructed a kind of gallery on its roof, from which he could sit and observe the changing light on the river. According to a biography by Peter Ackroyd, Turner was unwell whilst he lived there, suffering from dental problems that caused him to lose all of his teeth, and consequent dietary-related illness. He remained in Cremorne Road until the last year of his life and died there.

Today, little remains of Cremorne Gardens except a few street names and a small park close named Cremorne Gardens next to the river. This delightful, small open space has a paved section as well as a lawn. It is a tiny fragment of the original Cremorne Gardens but a fitting memorial to a place that provided entertainment for Londoners over many years. A couple of piers project into the river. These were originally landing stages for visitors arriving at the Gardens by river boat. Another souvenir of the heyday of the Gardens is a pair of wrought iron gates that stand in the present plot, but not in their original position, now built over. Small though it is, with its superb views of the Thames, the present Cremorne Gardens is a pleasant place to visit, within a short distance from the fashionable Kings Road.

Utopia and Worlds End

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THE AUTHOR OF “Utopia”, which was published in Latin in 1516, Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), had a house in London’s Chelsea. It was not far from Henry VIII’s manor house on what is now Cheyne Walk. The land in which More’s house was built was bounded to the north by what was, and still is, the Kings Road, to the south by the River Thames and between the still extant Milman Street and Old Church Street.

The house that was ‘L’ shaped in plan (www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol4/pt2/pp18-27) when More used it as his out-of-town dwelling between 1520 and 1535, when he was arrested there and taken to the Tower of London. His arrest was in connection with trying to upset the marriage plans of his neighbour in Chelsea, King Henry VIII. More lived at Beaufort, to which he loved to escape from London and from the Court, and to spend time with his family and to write. It was here that he entertained many friends, among whom were the scholar Erasmus and the artist Holbein.

After Thomas More’s execution and the death of Henry VIII, King Edward VI granted Beaufort House to William Pawlet, 1st Marquis of Winchester (c1484-1572). Then, it passed through the hands of the Dacre family to William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520-1598), and next to his son, Sir Robert Cecil (1563-1612). Cecil sold it to Henry (Clinton) Fiennes, Earl of Lincoln (1539-1616). The house and its grounds continued to move through different owners until it came into the possession of the physician and founder of the British Museum, Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) in 1738.

Sloane demolished Beaufort House in 1740 to “…strip it for parts…”, so wrote James Delbourgo in “Collecting the World”, his recent biography of Sloane. The demolition work was executed by a Quaker, Edmund Howard (1710-1798; detailed biography: https://ahsoc.contentfiles.net/media/assets/file/Edmund_Howard_by_J_Nye_SF.pdf). He was Sloane’s gardener in Chelsea. During the demolition, he was often in dispute with Sloane over money.. Howard observed that:

“… the receiving of money was to Sir Hans Sloane more pleasing than parting with it.”

Little remains of what Sloane demolished apart from a few brick walls. However, one fine relic, an elegant neo-classical gateway designed by Inigo Jones, was sold to Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753) and placed near his Chiswick House.

The northwest corner of Thomas More’s Chelsea estate is a peaceful walled garden, which can be entered from Kings Road. Some of these walls are the Tudor brickwork from More’s time at Beaufort House. The north side of the almost square plot is occupied by a line of small buildings belonging to the Moravian Church Fetter Lane Congregation (Chelsea). These buildings, which include the curate’s house, a tiny chapel, and a meeting hall, once a church, face a large square patch of lawn with four fig trees in its centre. Closer examination of the lawn reveals that it contains numerous square gravestones that lie flush with the mowed grass. This is the Moravian Burial Ground.

Protestant missionaries from Moravia (now in the Czech Republic) founded a church in Fetter Lane in the City of London in 1742. The missionaries were hoping to travel to the British colonies to carry the Gospel to people out there, notably slaves. However, they realised that there was plenty for them to do in England and worked alongside British missionaries like the Wesleyans. The church in Fetter Lane survived until WW2 when it was destroyed by bombing. In the 1960s, the congregation moved to its present site.

The burial ground was established in the former stable yard of Beaufort House and the first burial was done in 1751. About 400 people have been buried in this cemetery. Amongst them was Henry, the 73rd Count of Reuss, brother-in-law of Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf (1700-1760). It was the latter who leased Lindsey House in Chelsea, built on the estate of Sir Thomas More, and used it between 1749 and 1755 as his base for missionary work in England. Zinzendorf was extremely critical of slavery (www.zinzendorf.com/).

At the south edge of the burial lawn, there is a stone pergola and an elaborately carved wooden bench backrest. Both were created by the sculptors Ernest (1874-1951) and Mary Gillick (1881-1965), who leased the site of the Moravian cemetery between 1914 and 1964 (https://londongardenstrust.org/conservation/inventory/site-record/?ID=KAC100). Mary designed the effigy of Elizabeth II used on coinage in the United Kingdom from 1953 to 1970. The long wooden bench is decorated with painted shields, showing the coats-of-arms of all the owners of Beaufort House and its estate from More to Sloane. It also has a brief history of Beaufort House carved into it.

From the oasis that is the Moravian Church’s ground, it is but a short walk west along Kings Road to the large Worlds End Distillery pub, which was already present in the 17th century.  The present pub was built in 1897. It is: “… a public house in the gin-palace genre …” (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1391649).

As for the name ‘Worlds End’, this might not be as apocalyptic as it first appears because ‘end’ often used to mean ‘field’ in archaic English. Regarding the ‘World’ part of the name, Edward Walford wrote in about 1880:

“In the King’s Road, near Milman Street, is an inn styled “The World’s End.” The old tavern… was a noted house of entertainment in the reign of Charles II …The house was probably called ‘The World’s End’ on account of its then considerable distance from London, and the bad and dangerous state of the roads and pathways leading to it.”

The posh ‘Sloanes’* of Chelsea might regard Worlds End as truly the end of their part of the world because west of it the shops and dwellings on Kings Road seem far less opulent than those on the stretch between the pub and Sloane Square. At Worlds End, the ‘Sloanes’’ utopian world transforms into unglamorous routine inner-city life. Should ‘Sloanes’ carelessly stray as far west as Worlds End, they would have crossed over to the ‘wrong side of the tracks’.

[* a ‘Sloane’ is a fashionable  upper middle- or upper-class, often young, person, especially one living in London and particularly in Chelsea; most definitely not Bohemian, but extremely bourgeois.]