Chelsea Park Gardens

From the C16th grand houses were being established around the old village of Chelsea, and numbered among the wealthy owners were Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More, who built Beaufort House. In the subsequent decades more building took place both along the river as well as further inland, particularly up Church Lane, now Old Church Street, which developed northwards to the Queen's Elm. This was so-called for being where Queen Elizabeth I is said to have sheltered from the rain with Lord Burghley; the 'Queen's Tree' was recorded as early as 1586 and an arbour was built around it. In the early C16th an area between Duke's Walk and Lovers' Walk called 'Sand Hill' was part of Sir Thomas More's estate. In 1664 it became Lord Wharton's Park after the then owner, and when Lord Wharton sold his property in 1714 it became known as Chelsea Park. By c.1718 it had been purchased for a mulberry garden with the purpose of manufacturing raw silk but the venture failed, and Chelsea Park was gradually built over for housing. Park Walk was developed from Lovers' Walk in the late C18th and the Camera Square area developed in the early C19th, during the 1830s gaining a reputation for vice and intrigue. During the C19th Chelsea Park was increasingly eroded as Elm Park Road and Elm Park Lane were developed, and by 1894 the park and its mansion were gone. The properties of Camera Square were also demolished around this time to make way for the Beaufort Street development.

Chelsea Park Gardens were part of the Sloane Stanley estate and were built after WWI on the site of Camera Square. The development consists of small Arts and Crafts style houses in grey and red brick, designed mostly by E. Elms and S. Jupp, who took inspiration from the work of Norman Shaw and the Garden Suburb movement. The importance of trees and greenery, and the informal boundaries between gardens, reinforce the impression of a garden suburb. The houses line three sides of the square with a brick wall forming the fourth side. At the junction of Beaufort Street and the southern arm of Chelsea Park Gardens is a studio house once occupied by Sir Alfred Munnings. Nos. 4-30 (even) were built between 1915-1930, with a common hedged area of green in front. Nos. 32-94 (even) differ in that the houses stand back from the road behind a common garden enclosed by a dwarf front wall, with gates with ball finials at each end; inside are informal, picturesque cottage gardens and flagstone paths. Nos. 9-39 (odd) are grouped around a formal communal garden.

On the corner of Park Walk and Chelsea Park Gardens is the church of St John with St Andrew, built in 1912-13 by Sir Arthur Blomfield to replace a chapel of 1718 by Richard Manningham, who owned Chelsea Park at that time.