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London: Kensington and Chelsea: continued:
Click on the headings to find out more:
A stone's throw to the east of the Albert Hall brings you to aptly named Exhibition Road - "Gateway to Museumland" as they say in the worst
travelogues! Prince Albert died exactly 10 years after the Great Exhibition he organised here in 1851 (of typhoid). Queen Victoria wore clothes of
mourning until her death in 1901. In Hyde Park there is a huge Gothic edifice in memory of Prince Albert. For the coincidentally minded it
contains 61 human figures (Albert died in 1861) there are 19 men (he was born in 1819), there are 42 women (he was 42 when he died) and
there are 9 animals (he had 9 children). Trivia - where would we be without it?
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A to the locals) is the greatest museum of applied arts in the world. No wonder people get lost in there -
there are seven miles of galleries! Displays and exhibits include The Raphael Cartoons (ordered by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel), Indian and Islamic art, fakes and forgeries, the dress collections, a medieval treasury, mystical art of
south-east Asia - right through to modern items like trouser presses and Doc Marten boots. See if you can find Tippoo's Tiger, carved for the
Sultan of Mysore in 1790. There are around four million items in the V & A. If you spent 8 hours there you would have to take in over 8,000
items per minute to see the lot, so we suggest you get a map at the door and head straight for your areas of interest.
Opposite the V&A, next to the entrance of South Kensington tube station, the Science Museum galvanises children and adults alike. Displays
drawn from every aspect of science fill seven floors, including plenty of interactive exhibitions.
The adjoining Natural History Museum deals with Life on Earth, an extensive topic. In this cavernous, cathedral-like building, the Dinosaur
Exhibition comes alive with horrendous robot reptiles, all slavering and roaring, including an animatronic model of the dreaded killer
dinosaur Deinonychus. Needless to say, it's enormously popular. Hulking hairy-legged spiders in glass cases have their fans too.
South of the museums lies the exclusive and historic enclave of Brompton, bordered by Sloane Street and Sloane Avenue, both of which
lead to the Kings Road Chelsea. Chelsea was once an artists' haunt but is now too expensive for that. In the 1960s it was a hangout of
the trendy 'Chelsea Set' (the likes of photographer David Bailey and Rolling Stone Mick Jagger) and in the 1970s it gained a reputation
for cutting edge, punky fashion. It retains an arty feel and a vibrant buzz, with plenty of antique shops and galleries.
"So I went to the Chelsea Drugstore to get your prescription filled", the Rolling Stones wail in the Jagger/Richards number You
Can't Always Get What You Want. The Chelsea Drugstore (a pub rather than a drugstore) has departed but plenty of other pubs remain. Pause
for a leisurely ale at the Kings Head and Eight Bells on Cheyne Walk.
A tour of the area could well start at Sloane Square tube station. The many places called Sloane around here derive from Sir Hans Sloane,
one of the founders of the British Museum. The term "Sloane Ranger" is now consigned to history - but it totally summed up the generation it described - usually local residents - typically affluent
upper-middle-class types given to wearing expensive, informal country-style clothes. Good show! Princess Di was a shining example.
Holy Trinity Church in Sloane Street, just around the corner, is decorated magnificently but is open only for services, not sightseeing.
From Sloane Square, turn left and wander along Holbein Place, turning into Royal Hospital Road and entering the grounds of Sir Christopher Wren's
distiguished Royal Hospital, now the home of the wonderful Chelsea Pensioners in their navy-blue or scarlet outfits.
The Pensioners are all military veterans. The annual Chelsea Flower Show (last week of May) is held in the playing fields to the south.
Next to the Royal Hospital stands the National Army Museum, presenting the history of the British Army from 1485 to the present.
"Hold your fire till you see the whites of their eyes, lads. Then give them what for!"
Tite Street flanks the museum on the western side. It was home to Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (Oscar Wilde) in the 1880s. He lived at No. 1 and met Lord
Alfred Douglas there, the aristocrat who later proved his downfall. Wilde was arrested in the Cadogan Hotel at 75 Sloane Street (Room 118)
and jailed for his 'friendship' with Douglas in 1995.
"A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his
life," Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred from prison.
The artists James Whistler, John Singer Sargent and Augustus John all lived in Tite Street too - keep an eye out for the blue historical plaques.
At the bottom of Royal Hospital Road you reach Chelsea Physic Garden, a pleasant haven from local traffic and the site of Britain's first
greenhouse. Cheyne Walk, a delightful array of Queen Anne and Georgian houses with many literary connections, leads from it.
In the Swinging Sixties, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards used to live in Cheyne Walk - not together, of course; they hung out in numbers
48 and 3, respectively. George Eliot (Middlemarch) lived and died at No 4, poet Algernon Swinburne shared No 16 with artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and painter JMW Turner shacked up with his easel at No 119 under the alias Booth.
The Chelsea Old Church (behind the statue of Thomas More on Cheyne Walk) was the parish church for More and his family.
He built the More Chapel in 1528 with plans for it to be his last resting place, not planning on Henry VIII to upset things when
he had More beheaded in 1535.
Cheyne Row, leading off Cheyne Walk, also has literary associations. Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle lived at No. 24 and
laboured over the first volume of The French Revolution there. Too bad his maid inadvertently used his manuscript to
light the fire. Carlyle's House (frequently visited by Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin and other luminaries) has been
restored and turned into a museum dedicated to his work.
From Cheyne Walk, stroll up Manor Street to King's Road, heart of Chelsea. Poseurs and dandies still strut along
the street on Saturday mornings and the occasional rock star ambles by in shades, perhaps not to the same extent
as in the days of yore. In days of long ago yore, Charles II, the Merry Monarch, set up a little love nest for
the delightful Nell Gwynn down a farmer's track in Chelsea. Gossip was good and the track soon became known as the King's Road.
The south side of the street offers excellent antique browsing at Chelsea Antiques Market (No. 253), the Chenil
Galleries (No. 181) and Antiquarius (No. 137).
The Pheasantry (No. 152) - was once a drinking club where Dylan Thomas boozed it up, and later became the home of old 'slow hand' himself - ace
guitarist Eric Clapton. (OK, so it's now a pizza joint - times change!)
At No. 430, Malcolm McLaren and his partner used to run a punk fashion shop called Sex. McLaren later dressed The
Sex Pistols in his zipper-and-safety-pin threads and set them up as a band, of sorts.
Not to be missed is a visit to the famous shopping emporium Harrods on Brompton Road in the exclusive neighbourhood of Knightsbridge.
Originally a family-run grocery store in 1849, with only two staff, it is now owned by Mohammed Al Fayed, father of Dodi, the late
fiancee of Princess Diana, and has over 3,000 staff. There is a fountain dedicated to the memory of Dodi and Di in Harrods.
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