Rambling Recollections of Chelsea Part 2

CHAPTER 11.-On the Downs.

At eleven I turned down a lane about a mile before you get to the town, and over a stile and through corn-fields by a path that brought you to the Downs. At the bottom of the hill there was a large and busy crowd at that time in the morning although but a few visitors had arrived. The Grand Stand was there and the Enclosure, although very much smaller than at present. Tents and booths covered the ground extending at least one-third of the extent of the course, with the signs of well-known London taverns, long booths, fitted as stables with livery stable-keepers with familiar names attached. Boxing booths, single-stick and quarter-staff and wrestling booths.

One large refreshment booth had up for a sign in large letters-"Dan Regan, the Cambridge Gyp. Refreshments and good accommodation for man and beast. Pallia.s.se prostration with matin peck, two-and-sixpence," and appeared to be doing a good trade. The accommodation a shakedown on some planks, and breakfast in the morning.

There did not appear to be any professional bookmakers, but the betting was carried on quite happily in the tavern booths and shops everywhere by everybody. Towards twelve o'clock the company began to arrive and get into place alongside the course, the four-in-hands drawn up, and carriages of every description, mostly taking out the horses to the stables in the tents, and formed a row two deep. The vans and other vehicles forming lower down in the same way, but further from the Grand Stand, and taking out the horses and tying them to the wheels, hundreds of loafers thus being busy selling pails of water and forcing their services to rub down and generally to extort a fee.

There was almost everything to be had on the course in the way of eatables and drinkables; occupants of carriages and drags began to have their lunches spread on the top of those vehicles; corks began to pop and a general onslaught was made on the provisions by everybody. The entertainments commenced their business. Sharpers in plenty, roulette tables, dice, three-card trick, pea and thimble, and the p.r.i.c.king in a curled up strap, and every phase of gambling without let or hindrance.

At about one a bell rang, the horses were brought out on to the course for one of the minor races, the course cleared by the few police there were, and the race run with very little excitement, for there did not appear to be much interest taken in the three or four races that were run before and after the great event of the day, the Derby, that was run about half past two or a quarter to three, when the company had fed and had got pretty well primed with wine, and the noise became furious and the excitement immense.

There was a great concourse of people, and standing on the hill just before the Derby was run it looked one black moving ma.s.s, and you could see almost the whole of the course from start to finish. The races after the Derby did not appear to attract the visitors so much as the early ones, and drinking and the other amus.e.m.e.nts appeared to be all in full swing and had plenty of patrons, and there was gambling of every form. I tried my luck at it with varied good and bad luck, but about five in the evening had spent about two shillings and a penny. I found I had only sevenpence halfpenny to carry me home out of my sixteen shillings and threepence which I had started with, so someone was thirteen shillings to the good; but, anyhow, I had seen the Derby, and had thoroughly enjoyed the trip so far. There then set in a general activity and bustle of brushing up and putting to of horses and preparing for the start home.

However the people got their right horses and so few accidents happened was amazing.

The best of the turn-outs got away first, and the company appeared to be getting livelier, and were decorating themselves with false noses and masks and dolls stuck in their hats, and blowing tin trumpets and using tin tubes to blow peas as they pa.s.sed by the best of the turn-outs, and there were a large number of them, with the carriages drawn by four post horses and ridden by the post boys in coloured satin jackets, white top hats, breeches and top boots, different coloured striped jackets, silk or velvet jockey caps. The best of them had relays of horses which they changed at the "c.o.c.k," at Sutton, a favourite halting house. About six in the evening the road became crowded with both vehicles and pedestrians of every description, many of them driving most recklessly, and a breakdown of some sort occurred at every half mile. I counted four wagonettes, three light carts, one carriage and four vans, complete wrecks, and left in the ditches and the fields by the roadside, and several with shafts broken and otherwise damaged and tied up with ropes.

The roadsides appeared like one continual fair all the way from the course, and the company playing all manner of mad antics.

At Sutton a carriage containing four ladies and a foreign-looking old gentleman, all elegantly dressed, and a man sitting on the box, had the misfortune for the post boys to get so drunk that one of them fell off his horse and had to be left behind, and the other was so incapable that he had run into several traps and done damage and was stopped by a threatening crowd, when he got off his horse and wanted to fight and was quite unable to continue his journey. Just then a four-in-hand drove up and was appealed to by the lady occupants for a.s.sistance. Two of the gentlemen volunteered to ride in the place of the post boys. The one left was with a.s.sistance tied in the provision hampers and fastened behind the carriage, while the two gentlemen mounted the horses and drove off amid cheers of an admiring crowd, looking, in their dress coats, top hats and green gauze veils and trousers not at all like post boys; but they appeared to be quite at home on their mounts, and the ladies and all started for home, quite happy. In getting nearer to London the crowd got thicker and the fun and horse-play became more furious, many of them halting at the taverns by the roadside, at all of which there was a large number stopping outside and in the fields provided for that purpose.

Getting towards Mitcham the pea shooting and the flour throwing commenced, and the men selling bags of flour there for sixpence, were doing a roaring trade. The pelting led to a good many disturbances, often ending in a fight. The occupants of the various carriages and drags made themselves conspicuous by dressing up in paper coloured hats and false beards, and using fans and kissing their hands and bowing to the girls and women along the road; and most of the traps were decorated with large branches of may and horse chestnut blooms that had been torn from the hedges and the trees by the roadside.

It was now drawing towards seven, and I began to get a bit tired, dusty and footsore, when I saw an opportunity of a ride, and by a little manuvring I got behind a carriage without being seen by the occupants, and sat myself down comfortably on the step and had a nice ride all through Mitcham and Fig's Marsh, with only a flip with the whip now and then from a pa.s.sing driver. Getting into the Mitcham Road and the Broadway I had to contest my possession of the seat with several boys who wanted it, and at the corner of the Broadway just turning into the Tooting Road, a biggish, rough-looking fellow who had been trying to get possession of my seat, s.n.a.t.c.hed off my cap and threw it down in the road.

I got off, collared and began to punch him, and had one or two rounds just opposite the Castle tavern. A crowd quickly surrounded us, and we were soon supplied with seconds, and were hustled by them through the large stable yard of the Castle tavern into a meadow at the back, attended by a large crowd of both men and women, and stripped for a regular fight. I certainly was the younger and the lighter of the two, but my knowledge of the use of my hands stood me in good stead of both weight and age. We had a fair stand-up fight, the only one I ever had in my life, and was well attended. I got terribly punished in the body, but not a crack on the face. It lasted nearly twenty minutes, when a master butcher that was well known in the neighbourhood, pushed through the crowd and said that "The young 'un has had enough of it," and the crowd began to murmur, when the butcher turned round and said, "If any of you particularly want a fight, you can have one. I do not mind obliging you," but the offer did not seem to be accepted.

CHAPTER 12.-The First Steamboats.

The Morris Dancers at Chelsea on May Day or early in May would pay us a visit, generally consisting of from nine to twelve, all men or lads.

They had the appearance of countrymen, dressed some in smock frocks, others in shirt-sleeves, breeches and gaiters, and all decked out in coloured ribbons tied round their hats, arms, and knees of their breeches, with long streamers, and others carrying short sticks with ribbons twisted round, and bows on top, or garlands of flowers tied on small hoops. They generally stopped outside the taverns in the roadway and danced to a drum and pan pipes, tambourine and triangle. They would form themselves into three rows, according to their number, about three feet apart each way, and would dance a sort of jig, and change places by pa.s.sing in and out and turning round to face one another, striking their sticks and twisting their garlands to the time of the music, and then stamp their feet and give a sort of whoop or shout, and finish with a chant in honour of the month of May, and make a collection among the crowd.

The "Endeavour," a wooden paddle boat, was the first to run three times a week from Dyer's Hall Wharf, London Bridge, to Hampton Court; leaving London Bridge at nine and pa.s.sing Chelsea at about a quarter past ten.

The pa.s.sengers had to be put on board in the wherries at a charge of threepence each. A signal was made from the Yorkshire Grey stairs for them to lay to to take them on board, as there was no pier at Chelsea at that time. The boat, always once or twice during the summer, would come to grief under Battersea Bridge by knocking its paddle-box off, and get a-ground once or twice before it got to Hampton Court. I have several times seen her a-ground just before you get to Kew Bridge, and lay there for two or three hours with no way of getting ash.o.r.e but by being carried on men's backs through the mud. The fare was three shillings and sixpence, and five shillings. They always advertised "Weather and Tide permitting." If everything was favourable they would arrive about half past twelve and leave again at four. The pa.s.sengers were not very numerous. The boat ran for about two years, and then one called the "Locomotive" started, a very much superior boat, and much quicker; and a start was made for a ider of a very primitive character at the Yorkshire Grey stairs-merely two old coal barges with gangways from the sh.o.r.e, and one from a landing stage. A company was then formed called the Chelsea Steamboat Company, with four small wooden boats, and a pier was built.

The Wellesley Street tragedy (now called Upper Manor Street), occurred on the left hand side about four or five doors from the top. The house was kept by an old lady who let the best part to lodgers, and on one Sunday evening about nine she had taken her supper beer from the potman at the Wellesley Arms, who came round in those days at meal times with a tray made for the purpose of carrying beer to be sold at the customers' doors; and about eleven o'clock the people who occupied the upper part of the house came home and opened the door, but did not find any light as they expected, as it was usual for the old lady to leave a candle burning on the ledge of the staircase window. They went to a neighbour to get a light and returned and found the old lady at the foot of the stairs. She appeared to have been stunned and then strangled. The jug with the beer was standing on the stairs, the place had not been robbed, and nothing had been disturbed. The people in the house had been recently married, and it had been their practice to go away the whole of the Sunday and spend it with their friends. There were several arrests, but there appeared to be no clue, and the matter was never cleared up; the only theory was that it was a contemplated robbery, someone knocking her down and then strangling her, but got scared and took to flight without taking any thing.

CHAPTER 13-Politics on Kennington Common.

There appears always to have been a radical element in Chelsea, for a large contingent met on Chelsea Common and marched to Kennington Common to give the Dorsetshire Labourers, Frost, Williams, and Jones, a grand reception on their return from imprisonment. They were drawn by four horses in a hackney carriage with outriders, and followed by a large number of vehicles occupied by their admirers, and a large crowd, when a meeting was held on Kennington Common, and violent speeches were made.

The crowd became very disorderly, some ugly rushes were made, and the few police and constables who were there got very roughly handled, and in one of the scrimmages a policeman's top hat was knocked off, and got kicked, and I had a kick at it-what boy would not do so? In the excitement, anyhow, I got collared, and was being dragged away when a rush was made, the police upset, and we all rolled in the mud together, and I got away.

More police came up and began to hunt the crowd, and made many arrests.

I, in one of the crowds, rushed down a mews at the back of the houses in the Kennington Road. As I was without a cap, and covered in mud and my face was bleeding, it was thought they were after me, so I was picked bodily up and pitched over the wall into a lilac bush in one of the long gardens, and I slid down on to a stone garden roller on which I sat, pretty well dazed and thoroughly done up. I do not think I was noticed by the people in the house, for I sat there some considerable time, when some children from an upper window noticed me. Soon after, an old gentleman in a dressing gown and a scarlet smoking cap and two or three ladies appeared on a sort of verandah at the back of the house, and had a good look at me, but did not attempt to come down in the garden.

Presently two men came up the steps from the kitchen under the verandah, one of them dressed as a groom, and the other in his shirt sleeves and a big rough hairy cap on, who I found afterwards was the potman at the White Bear Tavern opposite, while the other was the doctor's groom, who lived two or three doors higher up the road, who had been fetched in to arrest me. They brought me up into the hall at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, and the old gentleman began to question how I got into such a sc.r.a.pe, and where I came from. When I told him I came from Chelsea near the Hospital, he asked if I knew any of the officers, and as I mentioned several of them by name that he knew; he told me he was a retired army surgeon. I was allowed to go into the scullery to have a wash and brush the mud off, and it was suggested by the potman that I had better stop until it was dark for fear I should be known, and as I had no cap he went off to his mistress and begged an old one belonging to one of her boys, who had just gone back to school. As soon as it was dark I was let up the area steps and started home and went to bed saying nothing about it, but felt awfully sore and bad.

In speaking of the King's Road I forgot to mention a very famous pump which stood opposite the "Six Bells," close to the old burial ground, and that had the reputation of giving the most transparent and sparkling water that was to be obtained, which was fetched from far and near. The boys used to play some trick by placing a large stone up the curved nozzle, so that when the servants came with their jugs and began to pump it would send out the stone and through the bottoms of the jugs. It got complained of, and the parish put a grating which stopped that little game. The reputation of the water went on till some wag a.s.serted that a human tooth had been pumped up and found its way to the water bottle on the dressing table. It then began to dawn on the authorities that it might not be so wholesome as reported, and the handle of the old pump was chained up, and soon after the road was widened by taking a part of the burial ground, and the old pump was done away with.

CHAPTER 14.-Knightsbridge.

At Knightsbridge there used to be a toll collector, but I do not recollect any toll gate. A man used to come out of a gate in the fence to collect it, about where the Bank now stands, beside it the Cannon Brewery, a large building with a cannon at the top, with the back overlooking the park. That and White's menagerie, adjoining the Fox and Bull tavern, were pulled down, and one of the first National Exhibitions was built on the ground. It was for a collection formed by a doctor who had travelled in China. It was a collection of all sorts of curios, ill.u.s.trative of the habits, idol worship and life and industry of the Chinese, with native workmen and women carrying on their various trades and domestic apparatus, as they did at home with their temples, and performances in idol worship. It was first exhibited at the back of the Alexandra Hotel in a large room in the old barrack yard, and it was such a success that in the following year the large brick building was built on the site of the Cannon Brewery. There were a lot of immense stuffed dragons and winged snakes and flying fish and many-headed monsters and curious reptiles that had never been seen in Europe before, and several Chinese ladies sitting on pedestals exhibiting their deformed feet, which looked like hoofs with a row of small lumps of flesh underneath with nails that represented the toes. There was a large number of visitors, and it kept open for about two years, having had some waxworks added to its attractions.

A little beyond the Alexandra Hotel stood a dairy that was noted for its a.s.ses' milk, which at that time was considered a cure for consumption.

There would be as many as forty donkeys there of a morning and they would be driven in pairs by boys round to the customers and milked at their doors twice a day, which was a very large and profitable business.

On the Knightsbridge Road, opposite Gore House, stood an old tavern in the middle of the road with some old stables and sheds, a great place for the market carts and country wagons to stop at of a morning. Gore House became the residence of the Countess of Blessington, her daughter and Count D'Orsay, a very handsome and fashionable Frenchman. There were large grounds attached to the house and they used to give very grand garden parties both public and private, many of them for charities. I recollect going to one given for the benefit of the Caledonian School.

It was a very grand and fashionable Fancy Fair with the guards and the Caledonian School band, and Athletic Sports, trials of strength, sword dances and the Highland fling, putting the stone and flinging the hammer, the bag-pipes, and many other Scotch pastimes. The grounds were very beautiful. The property was bought by the commissioners of the '51 Exhibition from their surplus funds, and the Albert Hall now stands on the site.

The "Admiral Kepple" tavern at the top of College Street stood by itself, with tea garden at the back, and at the west side in the Fulham Road was the old parish pond, and a little farther west at the back of about where the "Stag" tavern now stands was a large pond from which Pond Place took its name. The present road in front of Chelsea Hospital was only a footpath that was closed every Holy Thursday; and the parish authorities beat the bounds, which they did on Holy Thursdays with the two beadles in uniform, the churchwardens, overseers, and parish constable, and the way-warden; and a great number of school children with willow wands would perambulate the parish to beat the bounds, and would knock down the obstruction and pa.s.s through the district called Jews' Row at that part, a labyrinth of courts and pa.s.sages of small and two-roomed houses. It was called Jews' Row, bounded by White Lion Street on the east, Turk's Row on the north, and Franklin's Row on the west, and was inhabited by the very lowest and most depraved and criminal cla.s.s both male and female, many low lodging houses and thieves' kitchens, and the roadway was at least one foot six inches lower than the path, and all along the curb the low, loose women would sit and insult and rob the pa.s.sers by.

It was quite impossible to arrest them as they escaped down the labyrinth of courts and alleys, and it was so well-known as a dangerous locality that very few people would venture through it, while the district lying to the east between White Lion Street and the boundary of the parish, and Chelsea Market, where Sloane Gardens now stand, was nearly as bad, with courts and alleys and crime and depravity. As a market it had long been disused. I can just recollect a few poor miserable stalls on the large open s.p.a.ce enclosed by posts and rails in front of the shops in Lower Sloane Street, where Sloane Gardens now stand. This district is now nearly all swept away and made one of the best and most fashionable residential districts of the west of London.

[Picture: Decorative image]

Dear old Chelsea, the land-marks fast fading away, Where the warrior, the statesmen, the grave, and the gay, Came to rest and to play.

Where fair maids and grand dames spent their fortune and fame, Then flirted away where grand lords and gay courtiers came For their wooing by the silent highway.

Where men of learning high in the state, Pa.s.sed from their hearths to the dungeons and died for their Faith.

Brave to the last, Dear old Chelsea will soon be but a page of the past.

[Picture: Decorative image]

Footnotes:

{32} It marks the parish boundary, and is carried across Sloane Square Station in great iron cylinders.-J. H. QUINN.