Exceptional Travel Writing
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Known
as "No. 1 London" is the Wellington Museum in Apsley House,
149 Piccadilly at Hyde Park Corner. The house exhibits a collection
of Wellington relics, fine paintings, silver, plate and porcelain. Not far away in fashionable Mayfair, a plaque on the wall of 11 Bolton Street records the fact that novelist Fanny Burney lived here from 1818-28. Henry James, the American novelist, had lodgings on the first floor of 3 Bolton Street. In 1886, he moved to 34 De Vere Gardens in Kensington. |
Elsewhere
in Kensington there is a plaque on 39 Harrington Gardens commemorating
the fact that the house was designed by W.S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan
fame. He lived here between 1883 and 1890.
American poet, Ezra Pound, rented the first-floor front room at 10 Kensington
Church Walk from Mrs. Langley, his "unique and treasured landlady."
The room "had a cast-iron fireplace with a hob either side of the
bars and a pair of good windows looking south." His bath, which he
celebrated in his poem, The Bathtub, was supplied by cans of hot water
from the kitchen boiler. Pound lived here from 1909 until his marriage
to Dorothy Shakespeare in 1914.
Kensington Palace in Kensington Gardens was completed about 1605 for Sir
George Coppin. In 1689, King William III and Queen Mary II acquired the
house, which was redesigned by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of
London's renowned St. Paul's Cathedral. The royal apartments of the palace
are now open to view. The house also has a fine collection of early Georgian
and Victorian work, paintings from the Royal Collection, furniture and
objets d'art formerly belonging to Queen Victoria and the late
Queen Mary (consort of King George V), both of whom were born at the palace.
Queen Mary's Gallery, paneled in oak, contains two large gilded mirrors,
the only surviving pieces of the original room. The Queen's Bedroom, although
badly damaged by German bombs in 1940, still retains its 17th-century
floor. The Presence Chamber has a ceiling by Kent and wood decorations
by G. Gibbons. The King's Staircase, partly by Wren, has an iron balustrade
by J. Tijou and walls painted by Kent representing a gallery.
Close by at 18 Stafford Terrace, the Linley Sambourne House contains a
unique collection of furniture, paintings and objets d'art, which show
the taste of an artist of the late Victorian period. Edward Linley Sambourne
(1845-1910) was a leading cartoonist for Punch magazine.
Essayist, novelist and poet Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was born
at 32 Sheffield Terrace, Kensington. He spent his early years (1879-99)
at 11 Warwich Gardens, just south of Kensington High Street. His first
book of poems, The Wild Knight (1900) was written here. A stone's
throw away is Young Street, where novelist William Makepeace Thackeray
(1811-63) lived at No. 13 (now No. 16) from 1846 to 1853.
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Further west, Chiswick House in Burlington Lane was completed about 1730 and was probably designed by the third Earl of Burlington, who modeled his house on the work of Italian architect, Andrea Palladio. The rich interior and the gardens are the work of William Kent. King Edward VII lived here as Prince of Wales from 1866 to 1879. |
Within
walking distance of Chiswick House is Hogarth's House in Hogarth Lane.
The home of 18th-century artist William Hogarth (1697-1764), it contains
relics and a permanent exhibition of the artist's engravings.
Drop down into Chelsea and you will find Carlyle's House, the 18th-century
townhouse where the noted Scottish writer lived from 1834 until his death
in 1881. The house remains virtually unaltered and contains personal artifacts,
manuscripts and portraits. Carlyle's House is at 24 Cheyne Walk, overlooking
the River Thames.
Novelist George Eliot's (1819-80 - real name, Mary Ann Evans) last home
was at No.4 Cheyne Walk and poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82)
lived at No.16 from 1862 to 1882. Novelist and playwright Jerome K. Jerome
(1859-1927) wrote Three Men in a Boat (1889) when he lived just
around the corner in Chelsea Gardens.
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Also
in Chelsea was poet and playwright Oscar Wilde's (1854-1900) home
at 34 Tite Street from the time of his marriage in 1884 until his
disastrous trial and imprisonment in 1895. Most of his principal work
was written here. Other houses of literary interest include Dickens House at 48 Doughty Street, where novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) lived from 1837 to 1839.
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| Dr. Johnson, compiler of the first definitive English dictionary, lived at what is now Dr. Johnson's House in Gough Square (he spelt it "Goff"). The original edition of his dictionary is on display here. |
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LONDON'S
ROUND BLUE PLAQUES |
