Cheyne Walk (pronounced /ˈcheɪni/) is a historic street in Chelsea. Most of the houses were built in the early eighteenth century. Before the construction in the nineteenth century of the busy Embankment, which now runs in front of it, the houses fronted the River Thames. The most prominent building is Carlyle Mansions.
Today, Cheyne Walk forms part of the A3212 and A3220 trunk roads; it extends eastwards from the southern end of Finborough Road past the Battersea and Albert Bridges, after which the A3212 becomes the Chelsea Embankment. It marks the boundary of the extended London Congestion Charge Zone.
East of the Walk is the Chelsea Physic Garden with its cedars.
Famous residents
Many famous people have lived (and continue to live) in the Walk:
- Keith Richards lived at number 3, which in 1945 became a National Trust property housing the Benton Fletcher collection of keyboard instruments.
- George Eliot spent the last three weeks of her life at number 4.
- David Lloyd George lived at number 10. Gerald Scarfe now lives there.
- Ralph Vaughan Williams lived at number 13 from 1905 to 1928. There he wrote works including his first three symphonies, the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, The Lark Ascending, and Hugh the Drover.
- The landscape painter Cecil Gordon Lawson lived at number 15 (a number of his works still hang there) …
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- as did the engraver Henry Thomas Ryall …
- and the Allason family, well-known for their political and literary influence.
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti lived at number 16 (where he was banned from keeping peacocks due to the noise) from 1862 to 1882 …[1]
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- and so did Algernon Charles Swinburne.
- Sir Hans Sloane’s manor house, demolished in 1760, stood at numbers 19–26.
- James Clerk Maxwell lived at 41 while lecturing at King's College London in the early 1860s. He used the iron railings outside his home in two experiments on electro-magnetic fields, much to the dismay of friends and foreigners.
- James Abbott McNeill Whistler lived at numbers 21, 96 and 101 at different times.
- Erskine Childers lived at 20 Carlyle Mansions with his family, and wrote his novel The Riddle of the Sands there as well. He also lived at 16 Cheyne Gardens for several years.
- Nicolaus Ludwig, Imperial Count von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf, and the Brethren of the Moravian Church renovated Lindsey House at numbers 99–100 in Cheyne Walk in the mid-18th century; it was for a number of years the headquarters of their worldwide missionary activity. Moravian Close nearby is still the London God's Acre, where many famous Moravians are buried.
- Mortimer Menpes, the watercolourist and etcher, shared a flat with Whistler.
- Henry James spent his last years at number 21.
- Mick Jagger lived at number 48.
- Elizabeth Gaskell was born at number 93.
- Sir Marc Brunel, who designed the Thames Tunnel, lived at number 98 …
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- as did his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
- Hilaire Belloc lived at number 104.
- John Tweed, sculptor and friend of Auguste Rodin, lived at number 108.
- Sir Philip Steer lived at number 109.
- J.M.W. Turner died at number 119 in 1851.
- Sylvia Pankhurst lived at number 120 after leaving university.
- George Best once had a flat here.
- Lawrence Olivier and Jill Esmond lived here in the 1930s.
Fictional residents
- In Stormbreaker, Alex Rider directs his cab to his home in Cheyne Walk, London.
- Carnacki lived in a flat in Cheyne Walk.
- Sâr Dubnotal owned a house in Cheyne Walk.
- In the episode "The Constant" (Season 4, Episode 5) of Lost, Penelope Widmore lives in number 423.
- In Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series, Simon and Deborah St. James live and work on Cheyne Walk.
- In Timothy Findley's Pilgrim, the eponymous main character is a former resident of Cheyne Walk.
- In Iris Murdoch's A Word Child, Gunnar Jopling and his second wife, Lady Kitty, lived here.
- In Daniel Silva's The Defector, the Russian billionaire Viktor Orlov lives at number 43.
Notes
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- ^ Pamela Todd, Pre-Raphaelites at Home, Watson-Giptill Publications, ISBN 0823042855
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