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A pub tucked away down some side streets in a posh hood. Changed ownership since then.
Address: 6 Christchurch Terrace.
Former Name(s): The Surprise at Chelsea.
Owner: Young's [Geronimo Inns] (former); Mitchells and Butlers (former); Charrington (former).
Links:
Pubs History (history)
By Soheila Sokhanvari in the Saatchi Gallery.
Taxidermy, fiberglass, jesmonite blob, automobile paint.
20160212_1967
Soviet Art 1970s - 1980s
Saatchi Art Gallery
York Barracks Cadogan Estate, York Square,
King's Rd, Chelsea, London SW3
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Note: "Comrade K", standing, is Nikita Krustchew, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party after Stalin's death. Still, at the beginning, (that was after the Georgian tyrant and his former boss died) Comrade K was compelled to "share" the top position with two fellow aparatchiks - Bulganin and Malenkov (seated). However, owing to his peasant cunning, Nikita K managed to gain the top position by having the two other 'comrades' removed from the pinacle of Communist power. The latter were lucky to have eventually died in their own bed, rather than at Lubianka, or in a Siberian gulag...
In this Russian painting the three ogres are shown prior to the political palace coup staged by Nikita, when they went on State visits, together, as a "team" (oh, yes!), visiting Eisenhower, the American president, shown here with his dog (a Capitalist dog, that is!). This explains the whole philosophical difference between the two opposing camps, symbolic during the Cold War: in Communism "dog eats dog", while in Capitalism "dog is man's best friend"...
The bearded Russian seated next to K is Bulganin, head of the KGB, no less, sporting a sly smile.
The third guy (seated) is Malenkov, engineer of Soviet missiles program, during Stalin's time: he was soon after, also to be removed by K, in a palace coup.
The foundation plaque of the Physic Garden started by the Society of Apothecaries in 1686 (1673). It is the oldest London Garden and has some venerable specimen trees.
The location was chosen as the proximity to the river created a warmer microclimate allowing the survival of many non-native plants - such as the largest outdoor fruiting olive tree in Britain - and more importantly, to allow plants to survive harsh British winters. The river was also important as a transport route that linked the garden to other open spaces such as Putney Heath, facilitating easy movements of both plants and botanists. In fact the garden has always sought to achieve good communications with others working in the same field: by the 1700's it had initiated an international botanic garden seed exchange system, which continues to this day.
Dr. Hans Sloane, after whom the nearby locations of Sloane Square and Sloane Street were named, purchased the Manor of Chelsea from Charles Cheyne. This purchase of about 4 acres was leased to the Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year in perpetu
P1010411
Crosby Hall was built in 1461 in Bishopsgate, in the City of London. Richard III lived here when he was Duke of Glocester. Shakespeare was familiar with the place and the plot to kill Richard Duke of Glooucester is set at Crosby Hall, in Shakespeare's play "Richard III".
Crosby Hall was also owned by Thomas More.
in 1908 the building was dismantled and the materials stored to be used on the new site in Chelsea, where it was re-erected in the 1920's, coincidently in land once owned by Thomas More.
In 1990 the property changed hands and is curently extended "according to Tudor specifications" (sic).
P1010937
In the Street where Oscar Wilde lived before he was sent to Reading jail
This long ballad poem published in 1898 was Wilde's last artistic effort. The poem is a social commentary against the deplorable and inhuman conditions existing in Reading jail. His poignant plea for prison reform was written while he served a two-year term there.
from Wilde's "Ballad of the Reading Jail"
"He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed."
www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/PoemsbyO...
Swan Walk is suggestive of the proximity of river Thames. It goes back at least to the 17th century when this place was no more than a village at the time when the Society of Apothecaries founded the "Physic Garden".
The location was chosen as the proximity to the river created a warmer microclimate allowing the survival of many non-native plants - such as the largest outdoor fruiting olive tree in Britain - and more importantly, to allow plants to survive harsh British winters. The river was also important as a transport route that linked the garden to other open spaces such as Putney Heath, facilitating easy movements of both plants and botanists. In fact the garden has always sought to achieve good communications with others working in the same field: by the 1700's it had initiated an international botanic garden seed exchange system, which continues to this day.
Dr. Hans Sloane, after whom the nearby locations of Sloane Square and Sloane Street were named, purchased the Manor of Chelsea from Charles Cheyne. This purchase of about 4 acres was leased to the Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year in perpetu
P1020437 In 1926 the American novelist Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) lived in Wellington Square in a house seen here, the fourth on the right at number 32. He wrote here "Look homeward Angel".
His books, written and published during the 1920s and 1930s, reflect vividly on American culture and mores of the period, albeit filtered through Wolfe's sensitive, sophisticated and hyper-analytical perspective.
After Wolfe's death, William Faulkner said that he was his generation's best writer; Faulkner listed himself as second. Wolfe's influence extends to the writings of famous Beat writer Jack Kerouac and author Philip Roth, among others. He remains one of the most important writers in modern American literature.
57, Chelsea Manor Street, SW3 5RZ
They ruin your clothes: they charge you for shoddy work and they refuse to own to the responsibility! they are rude, unprofessional and aggressive if you complain!
I gave an expensive summer linen jacket which was worn in town for a few weeks: it came back like a leopard skin with white discoloured blotches where they "applied the solvent to remove the stains". I said that they ruined my jacket. They intimated that "it was an old one and there was nothing else they could do" I said that i bought it two months previously at a shop in Sloane Street and that their remark was irrelevant to the topic. They refused to release the jacket "unless you got the ticket" which they hoped I may have lost. The manager was very rude saying that they "had warned me that it may not clean so well" which if it was true I will no have left it there.
I found the receipt paid the £7-50 and took the jacket for an expert opinion to the retailer (Hackett's). They gave me a detailed technical report from their chemical laboratories explaining what the "Prime" cleaners have done wrong. Hackett's also offered to have the jacket cleaned again at their expense and graceously offered to shorten the sleeves free of charge.
In all I lost many precious hours trying to sort out the mess not to mention the unnecessary aggravation
There is no place in London for rogue traders of this kind not even in "third world countries" where the owner/manager comes from.
Many of my friends tell me that dry cleaning services in London are a disgrace: do you share this opinion?
The Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council should withdraw the trading licence from this shop.
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this is how they advertise their services which is a travesty of the truth and a misrepresentation of facts:
"Prime Dry Cleaners was established in 2000. Our branches are at Victoria, Chelsea and Knightsbridge. We provide reliable, efficient, flexible and affordable dry cleaning service for virtually all items of clothing, whether everyday wear or special items of evening wear or wedding attire. Our staff, combined with our in-house technology and expertise has brought Prime to the forefront of our industry and our position as one of the best dry cleaners in London, UK."
You bet: do not let yourself be hoodwinked not only it will rip you off, ruin your clothes, but ruin your health in the bargain!
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One of the rare Victorian pubs which remains more or less unaltered, conveniently situated near the Brompton Oratory, Harrods and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
DSC03719
A fresco representing literary and historical figures from the borough is decorating the Town Hall. Amongst these worthies is also Oscar Wilde.
In 1912 a Councillor proposed the removal of the portrait of Oscar Wilde because the poet was "a criminal" convict... Another Councilor aptly pointed out that Henry WIII committed regicide and that George Eliot was an adulteress. The motion to remove Oscar from the fresco was adopted but never carried out because of the intervening WWI.
Presently if you wish to see this fresco, do not bother to ask any of the clerks of the Council because they have not got a clue about it - they will even mislead you by saying that you are in the wrong building and that you should go instead to the main borough council in W8.
If you are adamant and insist that the fresco in question is indeed in this building in Chelsea then a porter who is the holder of the keys to that particular reception room will tell you that you have to ask the borough council in Kensington by letter and that you will be given an appointment for two officers of the Council to come all the way from W8 to accompany you whilst you look at the fresco in Chelsea...
Bureaucracy gone mad but also hand in hand with ignorance at the expense of the tax payer: think of how much it would cost the wages of two clerks to come from Kensington to Chelsea and back again to keep an eye on you whilst you look at a work of art which should be readily available to be admired by the public?
Hans Sloane was an Irishman (one must not forget) born in county Down (Ulster) who came to London to study as a young man. Well, you may call him an "Anglo-Irish" if you want to, but he displayed the curiosity, restlessness and inventivity of people from his native land - Ireland and he was charming to boot and made many friends in London. He also made a lot of money and soon climbed up the ladder of the English establishment.
He also was a man of the Enlightment and a European for his interests and activities went well beyond the boundaries of his adoptive country - England.
A royal physician, a president of the Royal Society, a scientist, writer and entrepreneur, he was enobled as Baronet "Sir Hans Sloane' and his collection of "curiosities" formed the core of the first collection of the British Museum (now in the Natural History Museum".
He gave his land in perpetuity (albeit a lease for a five pounds annual rent) to the worshipful company of Apothecaries to have here the present "Physic garden" the oldest botanic garden in London.
One of his two daughters married in the Cadogan family - hence today's very substantial "Cadogan estate" which is in the freehold of the "Earls Cadogan".
London Chelsea SW3, Cadogan Estate,
King's Road, York Place, York Barracks
Saatchi Gallery, Russian Art 1960s-1980s
Okay, I had to take this photo upside down, so you can rotate it if you want, but it says "Luncheon Bar and Billiards". (View of building.)
Address: 298 Kings Road.