Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WILDE ABOUT CHELSEA
John Singer Sargent, Augustus John, James Whistler and Bertrand Russell all lived at one time
or another in Tite Street, which runs alongside the National Army Museum, but the street's
most famous resident was writer and wit
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie
Wills Wilde
(1856-1900),
who moved into no. 1 in 1880 with an old Oxford chum, Frank Miles, only to be asked to leave
the following year by the latter (under pressure from his father, Canon Miles), after the hostile
reception given to Wilde's recently published poetry. Four years later, Wilde moved back into
the street to no. 34, with his new bride Constance Lloyd. By all accounts he was never very
good at “playing husband”, though he was happy enough to play father to his two boys (when
he was there). It was in Tite Street, in 1891, that Wilde first met
Lord Alfred Douglas
, son of
the Marquis of Queensberry and known to his friends as “Bosie”, who was to become his lover,
and eventually to prove his downfall.
At the height of Wilde's fame, in 1895, just four days after the triumphant first night of
The
Importance of Being Earnest
, the marquis left a visiting card for Wilde, on which he wrote “To
Oscar Wilde, posing as a somdomite [sic]”. Urged on by Bosie, Wilde unsuccessfully sued
Queensberry, losing his case when the marquis produced incriminating evidence against Wilde
himself. On returning to the
Cadogan Hotel
on Sloane Street, where Bosie had rooms, Wilde was
arrested by the police, taken to Bow Street police station, charged with homosexual offences
and eventually sentenced to
two years' hard labour
. Bankrupt, abandoned by Bosie and
separated from his wife, he served his sentence in Pentonville, Wandsworth and later Reading
jail. On his release he fled abroad, travelling under the pseudonym of Sebastian Melmoth, and
died three years later from a syphilitic infection. He is buried in Paris's Père Lachaise cemetery.
18
before heading up to
Changing the World
(1784-1904), a none-too-critical look at the
British Empire. Here you can see a vast spot-lit model of the Battle of Waterloo (at
7pm before the Prussians arrived to save the day). The skeleton of Marengo, Napoleon's
charger at the battle, the saw used to amputate the Earl of Uxbridge's leg and Richard
Caton-Woodville's famous painting of
The Charge of the Light Brigade
are among the
highlights of this section.
World Wars
has sections on just about every conflict zone of the two global conflicts from
a slice of the Somme to the POW camps of the Far East.
Conflicts of Interest
(1969 to the
present), on the top floor, with a good section on the Korean War, complete the story.
Make sure you pop into the
Art Gallery
, where there are some excellent military portraits
by the likes of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney and Lawrence, not to mention a suave
self-portrait by a uniformed Rex Whistler, who died in action shortly after D-Day.
Chelsea Physic Garden
66 Royal Hospital Rd • April-Oct Tues-Fri & Sun 11am-6pm; July & Aug also Wed until 10pm; plus occasional winter weekend openings •
£9 •
T
020 7352 5646,
W
chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk •
!
Sloane Square
Founded in 1673 by the Royal Society of Apothecaries, the
Chelsea Physic Garden
is
the oldest botanical garden in the country after Oxford's: the first cedars grown in this
country were planted here in 1683, cotton seed was sent from here to the American
colonies in 1732, England's first rock garden was constructed here in 1773, and the
walled garden contains Britain's oldest olive tree. Unfortunately, it's a rather small
garden, and a little too close to Chelsea Embankment to be a peaceful oasis, but keen
botanists will enjoy it nevertheless. A statue of Hans Sloane, who presented the Society
with the freehold, stands at the centre of the garden; behind him there's a licensed café,
serving afternoon tea and delicious home-made cakes.
Cheyne Walk
Chelsea Physic Garden marks the beginning of
Cheyne Walk
(pronounced “chainy”),
whose quiet riverside locale and succession of Queen Anne and Georgian houses drew
artists and writers here in great numbers during the nineteenth century. Since the
building of the Embankment in the 1870s and the increase in tra
c, however, the
