and Tedworth Square, which lies between the King's and Queen's Roads and faces Christchurch Street on its south side.

Of MARKHAM SQUARE, all that Besant says is that therein is a large Congregational Chapel opened in 1860; which does not seem to promise much in the way of antiquarian interest, or of interest of any kind for that matter; and indeed there is little to be said of the place as it stands to-day, but a house in the adjoining Markham Street is mentioned by Beaver as bearing a name-plate on which appear the initials "H. I. A., with the name Box Farm and the date 1686. The land attached to this farm is now partly covered by the Square. This land is known to have belonged to one Edward Green over a hundred years later, and at a later date still was the site of Moore's Nursery. A large area here between the King's Road and the Fulham Road was known as Chelsea Common, and at a time when local authorities were not so careful in their guardianship of these open spaces as they are to-day, it is probable that much of it, particularly where it abutted on the King's Road, was annexed, without right or authority, by enterprising gardeners who were not slow to recognise the advantages of its position and the richness of the ground; the number of market gardens formerly here helping to confirm this supposition. It takes some stretch of the imagination to realise that what we now consider a part, and that not an extremely western part of the town, was two hundred years since a heath covered with furze, and somewhat analogous to what Wimbledon Common (to take an example) appears to-day. The first interference with this common generally, as apart from those portions that may have been filched by the enterprising, would seem to have been in the reign of George I., when an Act was passed empowering the Surveyor of London Roads to dig gravel from any common or waste lands which might be convenient to him for making or repairing the highways. In 1736, the matter was, however, after many complaints and indeed ejectments by force of the surveyors by those locally interested and naturally indignant, adjusted, and I find building operations commencing on the common some years later; the earliest building lease being dated 1790, and granted to the Hon. George Cadogan. As various other individuals also obtained leases, the varied character and want of uniformity in the streets and buildings erected here is easily accounted for.

Of these building operations Markham Square, so denominated to perpetuate the name of a family once owning land here, was one of the later results; the church in it, mentioned by Besant, was erected of Kentish

rag, with dressings of Bath stone, in 1860, after the designs of John Tarring, and is in the Decorated style1 so beloved by architects of that period for this sort of building.

MARLBOROUGH SQUARE is named after the great Duke of Marlborough, of whose one-time residence in a house at the south end of Marlborough Road there is a tradition, but probably only a tradition. A statue, presumably of the great Captain, once stood, I am told, in the centre of the Square, but has long since disappeared.

What I have said about the site of Markham Square applies practically to Marlborough Square, which lies within a stone's throw of it; and as there is no record of any interesting inhabitants in either, they must, perforce, be passed over in this somewhat summary manner.

If not for the same reason, yet for a very sufficient one, TEDWORTH SQUARE must also be dismissed with a mere allusion, for it has no history, and beyond being a square, no particular interest for us here except what can be attached to it through Mark Twain, and Mrs. Langtry both having sojourned in its precincts.

A little to the north-west of Tedworth Square is WELLINGTON SQUARE, the north side of which is formed by King's Road. It is named, of course, after the great Duke of Wellington, whose brother, the Hon. and Rev. Dr. Wellesley, preceded, it will be remembered, the Rev. Charles Kingsley as Rector of Chelsea.

The site of Wellington Square was formerly occupied by one of the best known of the many nurseries of Chelsea, that kept by Thomas Davey, who died in 1833, and to whom a local poet, Samuel Shepherd, F.S.A., addressed some lines quoted by Beaver. A certain greenness is still imparted to the spot by the double row of trees in the central garden, which form a pleasant relief to the houses of which the Square is composed.

Between the Fulham Road and the King's Road, just east of Church Street, is the largest of the Chelsea Squares-TRAFALGAR SQUARE, named after Nelson's crowning victory. The north side of the Square is formed by what is called South Parade, while the continuation of its eastern side is now known as Manresa Road. The Square is of consider

1 Walford's Old and New London, and Beaver's Memorials of Chelsea.

It was here that Mark Twain gave his memorable reply to a reporter who had, as he thought, seen an announcement of the humourist's death: "Report greatly exaggerated."

able size, and has a large central garden. It is interesting to record that that fine landscape-painter Cecil Lawson, whose family lived in Carlton House, Chelsea, from 1869, and whose artistic work is so identified with this locality, painted a picture in 1876, which he called "Rus in Urbe: a Pastoral in Trafalgar Square, Chelsea." 1

In various old maps the site of Trafalgar Square is shown as open country adjoining Chelsea Common, but in an early eighteenth-century plan it would seem that this ground was attached to a residence called 'Mr. Watt's house"; while by a map of the end of the eighteenth century, although the land hereabout is divided into various enclosures, this house is shown to have disappeared.

Almost adjoining Trafalgar Square is what is now known as CARLYLE SQUARE, but was originally called Oakley Square, after a title in Lord Cadogan's family. In 1872, its name was changed to the present one, in honour of the great philosopher who was then living in Cheyne Row; it has therefore the distinction, together with Wellington Square, of being the medium of admiration shown to two great men during their lives; in which respect these two squares are unique. It is interesting to know that the Sage appreciated this act, for Mr. Moncure Conway, in an article on Carlyle, says, "One honour he did value—the naming of a green space in Chelsea, Carlyle Square." Although Carlyle Square is a comparatively small one, it has a good oblong central garden, which is bounded on its south side by King's Road.

The site of this square was, in the eighteenth century, the inevitable market garden, in this case in the occupation of Mr. Hutchings, we learn from Beaver, who informs us further that the house was the scene of a murder and robbery in 1771, for complicity in which four Jews were hanged; and so notorious became the circumstance that for some time afterwards Jews were jeered at with the words "Chelsea" and "Hutchings." Some illustrations of the crime were given in a contemporary number of the European Magazine.2

It was on the site of Carlyle Square, when the ground was in the possession of Mr. Hutchings, that Faulkner records seeing the finish of a stag hunt; I give his own words:

About the year 1796 I was present at a stag hunt in Chelsea. The animal swam across the river from Battersea, and made for Lord Cremorne's grounds. Upon being driven from thence, he ran along the

1 Beaver.

2 Memorials of Chelsea, p. 324.

waterside as far as the church, and turning up Church Lane, at last took refuge in Mrs. Hutchin's barn, where he was taken alive."1

The only person of note recorded as living in Carlyle Square is Mrs. Kelly, the novelist, who kept a school here in a house on the west side.

A little to the westward of Carlyle Square, on the south side of King's Road, is PAULTONS SQUARE, named after the country seat of the Sloane Stanley family; the north side of which is open to the main thoroughfare. Although but a small oblong square with a central garden, it has a peculiar interest inasmuch as it stands on the site of the gardens of the once celebrated Danvers House, one of old Chelsea's landmarks. Aubrey tells us that "'twas Sir John Danvers of Chelsey who first taught us the way of Italian gardens"; and it is therefore not surprising to learn that the gardens of Danvers House were of exceptional beauty and size. Sir John himself is as notorious for having been one of those who signed the death-warrant of Charles I., as he was celebrated for his handsome face and his proclivity to squander money; indeed his personal beauty was such that we have Aubrey's authority for the statement that people would come after him in the street to admire him; while his regicide principles are sufficiently confirmed by the fact that his house at Chelsea was, under his auspices, in a few years transformed from a rendezvous of loyal gentlemen "to a very centre of sedition, and the acknowledged meeting-place of those who were plotting against Church and King."

2

The garden walls at the back of Paultons Square and Danvers Street are, Beaver thinks, undoubtedly those which separated the gardens of Danvers House from those of Chelsea House, otherwise Beaufort House, the well-known residence of the Dukes of Beaufort in bygone days.

Danvers House appears to have been altered and largely rebuilt by Sir John, from an earlier and far more modest erection. Beaver is unable to trace the date of this amplification, but is satisfied that it was anterior to the year 1615. According to the same high authority, the house itself stood in what is now Paultons Square, which he says was, before thus being transformed, a nursery garden in the occupation of a Mr. Shepherd; and in 1822, remains of the original house were discovered, but were thought by Mr. Shepherd to be too unwieldy to be removed

1 History of Chelsea. Quoted by Mr. Blunt in his Handbook of Chelsea. The Rev. A. G. L'Estrange in his Village of Palaces, however, says that "the exact position of Danvers House is not known.

and were covered up again, so that they still remain beneath the ground of the Square.1

Still a little further westward, now to the north of King's Road, is a tiny and most curiously shaped little square known as CAMERA SQUARE, which was formed roughly about 1832, on ground forming part of Chelsea Park, where the rearing of silkworms was once carried on with a great deal of vigour and some success by Henry Barham, and others whom he persuaded to join with him in the venture, in 1716. The adjoining Elm Park Gardens formed part of the same estate, and there still survives in the centre garden a single mulberry-tree of those planted nearly two hundred years since.

Camera Square is to-day anything you like to call it except a square. Its houses of tiny proportions; its ground of unequal elevation; its shape which might defy the most exact logician to properly define, all concur in giving it the appearance which a collocation of diminutive residences might conceivably assume, if some weird power had jumbled them together with the vague intention of giving them the semblance of that which the designation they bear would in no way seem to justify.

And yet I can identify one bygone celebrity-a theatrical onewith Camera Square, for here, at No. 1, was living at the time of his death, May 9, 1835, William Blanchard, an actor who, if never attaining greatness, was what is known as "a useful comedian"; making the most, says Crofton Croker, of whatever part was assigned to him and appearing, after a seventeen years' noviciate in the provinces, with some success as Bob Acres, at Covent Garden, in 1800.

Opposite to where Park Walk joins King's Road is the last of the Chelsea Squares, GILLRAY SQUARE, close to the Moravian burial-ground. It is like Carlyle Square, one that has been twice named, for it was originally known as Strewan Square, and was only comparatively recently rechristened, at the suggestion, I believe, of Sir Charles Dilke, in honour of the famous caricaturist, James Gillray, whose father was for forty years sexton to the neighbouring cemetery, and who himself was in all

1 Sir John Danvers died here in 1655, and Danvers House was afterwards purchased by the Hon. T. Wharton (who became Marquis of Wharton in 1714), said to have been the author of the well-known political song of "Lillibullero," which "sung a king out of three kingdoms," and was a favourite with Uncle Toby. See Beaver for a long account of Danvers and his house.

2 In this year (1906) its companion in the east garden had to be removed as being dead and unsafe.