I don’t want to go to Chelsea

26 July 2015

If the first part of our London adventure was mostly about graffiti, the second half was going to be mostly about flowers. The graffitifest was a sweetner to stop CJ complaining too much about what was to come. Chelsea was next on the agenda, a certain physic garden to be exact, and I wasn’t entirely sure CJ was going to find it as exciting as I did. Although he didn’t know it, my itinerary was fairly ambitious distance wise too. CJ walks a fair bit but I thought a half marathon, plus some, might stretch him a little so I’d broken it down into segments, “just over three miles to Chelsea, are you OK with that? We can always get the tube?” So far he was fine but we’d walked less than four miles. Still, the rain had turned to drizzle and, being London, there was plenty to take our minds off both rain and miles.

Using my written instructions we wound our way slowly towards Chelsea while an old Elvis Costello song kept going through my head. On the corner of Great Marlborough street we stopped to take a picture of the department store Liberty of London. The shop is not quite what it seems. The Tudor facade was actually built by shop worker turned store owner Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1924 at the height of the fashion for Tudor revival. Designed by Edwin Thomas Hall and his son Edwin Stanley Hall, a touch of authenticity comes from the timbers of the ships HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. It may not be as old as it looks but I like it and I imagine it’s fooled a good few tourists.

The next interesting building was a strange, angular affair with an impossibly narrow frontage. The dark oak beams, white plaster and leaded windows looked incongruous beside the tall concrete modern blocks. The Coach and Horses was built in the 1770’s, one of the first on Bruton Street, and was once connected to another building, which could explain its odd shape. Originally it was a coaching inn, serving the Hackney carriages and providing lodgings for both passengers and horses. Sadly, in 1933, when the neighbouring building was demolished this lovely old building was damaged and had to be rebuilt so, like so much else in London, much of what we saw is fake.

At the end of Bruton Street we came to Berkely Square. Perhaps romantic songs had led me to believe it would be something more than it was, but I was disappointed to find no nightingales singing and the rain coming down again. We dashed across, barely stopping to look even though I knew the most haunted house in London was on the square and Winston Churchill once lived there. CJ might have been interested to learn that Charles Rolls, co founder of Rolls Royce, was born in Berkely Square but I was too wet to think of that at the time.

The rain got heavier and had us rushing along Hill Street and Deanery Street with barely a glance. CJ smiled a little when I told him we were crossing Park Lane, of Monopoly board fame, then we plunged into Hyde Park hoping for some shelter. As we walked the trees dripped on us. While CJ got excited about all the squirrels I looked for the loos. We’d had two coffees in London and one at Costa in Southampton before we set out after all. Chasing squirrels and toilets took us further into the park than I’d planned and, when I did find what I was looking for, it took me back to the night of my first Moonwalk.

“These are the loos I queued outside for twenty minutes,” I told CJ. “It was freezing cold and I had twenty odd miles of walking ahead of me. Afterwards I saw hundreds of women in the bushes and relised I needn’t have queued after all.”
He seemed more excited by a squirrel that came right up to him and let him take a photo but in my mind I could still see those ten thousand women in their decorated bras walking through the park in the gloom. You had to be there I guess.

It didn’t take long to get back on track and soon we were in Kinghtsbridge turning  into Sloane Street, now everything started to look familiar. While CJ gasped at famous shop names like, Dolce and Gabana, Versace, Dior, Prada and Armani, I was thinking of Dream Factory who once owned a shop on Sloane Square. The rain had eased again and we stopped to take pictures of wet hollyhocks by the railings of Cadogan Place.

When we got to Sloane Square CJ, who heloped out at Dream Factory himself occasionally, asked me which had been the shop but everything had changed so much I couldn’t recall. There was an interesting shop just around the corner that I did remember though and I thought it might appeal to CJ’s love of the bizarre. When I was working at Silver Helm, Arabella and I came to London for some auditions and to interview the owner of this particular shop. Basia Zarzycka designs wedding gowns for famous fashion houses and very rich brides to be and was interested in holding design classes on our ship.

To say the place is quirky would be an understatement. She uses vintage pieces, beads, crystals and all sorts of found objects to make bags, jewellery and other beautiful items. Sadly, as it was Sunday, the shop was closed but we peered through the windows to get a taste of the Aladdin’s cave within. CJ is not a fashionista by any stretch but he couldn’t help being impressed by the most peculiar shop in London.

Leaving the fancy shops and memories behind us on Sloane Street, we turned into Royal Hospital Road, home of one of the most prestigious retirement homes in England. As if to emphasise this fact a Chelsea Pensionser, resplendent in his red coat and bent slightly over a cane, came towards us. Maybe Londoners take them for granted but I’ve never seen a Chelsea Pensioner in the flesh before.

The Royal Hospital Chelsea was founded by King Charles II in 1682 as  retreat for forces veterans, inspired by Les Invalides in Paris. Only former officers and men of the British Army qualify to be Chelsea Pensioners, they must be over sixty five, have no families to support and must surrender their army pension to the hospital. Today the hospital is home to around three hundred men and, these days, women. Although they may come and go as they wish, all Chelsea Pensioners wear the distinctive red coats and peaked hat, known as a shako, the coats are also worn, along with tricorn hats, for ceremonial occasions.

By this time we were very close to the physic garden and looking at the name of every street to our left so we didn’t miss the entrance. When I spotted one called Paradise Walk, I couldn’t help but smile. The next turning was Swan Street where it was easy to spot the gate to the Chelsea Physic Garden.

Chelsea means many things to people. For some it brings to mind the writers and artists of Victorian England. Artists like Rossetti, Turner and Whistler and writers such as Jonathan Swift, Hilaire Belloc and Oscar Wilde all lived in Chelsea. Some might think of the swinging sixties, the Kings Road, Chelsea Boots, Mary Quant, Twiggy, The Beatles and The Stones, when this was the heart of fashion. Others will remember the young women dubbed Sloane Rangers in the eighties, amongst them Lady Diana Spencer. The sporting minded might think football and one of the biggest premiership clubs. For me, it’s flowers. Chelsea is home of the flower show and the physic garden after all. The song in my head may have been saying ‘I don’t want to go to Chelsea,’ but we were there and I was glad.