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Christ Church was built by architect Edward BLORE (1787-1879) as a chapel of Ease for St Luke's. It hwas consecrated in 1839 and It became an independent church in 1880.
It was servicing a congregation of working class and lower-middle class parishioners.
Today the parish is a residential area for professional people and the houses are pitched to seven digits prices towell over 1.5 million pounds
Edward Blore was previously commissioned by William IV to take over from Nash in finishing the work on Buckingham Palace: Blore was responsible for building the East wing of the royal palace, thus enclosing the courtyard.
Blore is also famous for his work on Lambeth Palace and Westminster Abbey, as well as the building of Alubka Palace for Prince Vorontzov in the Crimea.
168 Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, SW3
Thought by some to be a genius and by others to be a charlatan, Benjamin Thompson was quite possibly, both. Certainly he was one of the more remarkable men of his day. Born in Massachusetts, Thompson's early career as a schoolmaster was interrupted by suspicions that he was spying for the British in the War of Independence and he fled to London, deserting his wife and young chld. In London he gained recognition for his scientific work and was elected to the Royal Society at the age of only twenty-six. Five years later, for rather mysterious reasons, he was knighted by George III. While travelling in Europe, Thompson had met Prince Maximilian of Bavaria and, in 1784, he accepted the Prince's invitation to work as an advisor and civil servant in Munich. He proved an able and imaginative administrator who instigated a series of military and social reforms. His most lasting legacy in Germany is the English Garden in the city. In 1791 Thompson was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and took the name of Rumford, the New England town from which he had to flee ignominiously fifteen years earlier. As a scientist Thompson is best remembered for his experiments investigating the nature of heat, and for his role in the founding of the Royal Institution 'for diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the gneral introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements'. Rumford's own useful inventions included a smokeless chimney, a revolutionary design of kitchen stove and an early version of thermal underwear. Soon after the foundation of the Royal Institution, Rumford, a notoriously quarrelsome man, fell out with his associates there and left London for Paris where he died in 1814.
Royal Hospital Chelsea, London SW3,
Ranelagh Gardens
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Ranelagh Gardens (alternative spellings include Ranelegh and Ranleigh, the latter of which reflects the English pronunciation) were public pleasure gardens located in Chelsea, then just outside London, England in the eighteenth century.
The Ranelagh Gardens were so called because they occupied the site of Ranelagh House, built in 1688-89 by the first Earl of Ranelagh, Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital (1685–1702), immediately adjoining the Hospital; according to Bowack's Antiquities of Middlesex (1705), it was "Designed and built by himself". Ranelagh House was demolished in 1805 (Colvin 1995, p 561). Fulham F.C. played on this very site for home matches between 1886-8 when it was known as the Ranelagh Ground.
In 1741, the house and grounds were purchased by a syndicate led by the proprietor of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and Sir Thomas Robinson MP, and the Gardens opened to the public the following year. Ranelegh was considered more fashionable than its older rival Vauxhall Gardens;
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