LONDON WALK NO 104 – GROUP 3 – SLOANE SQUARE TO BATTERSEA PARK ORGANISED BY BARBARA RYAN & PHYLLIS KING – Wednesday 20th September 2017

The usual 9.31 train saw thirteen of us travel to Charing Cross on a dull but dry and warm Wednesday morning. We then took the tube (District/Circle Line) to Sloane Square. Leaving the station we entered Sloane Square, named after Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) who purchased the Manor of Chelsea in 1712), and went into Peter Jones for our coffee break.

There was some conversation as to why this store is owned by the John Lewis Partnership, yet remains called Peter Jones. The reason is fascinating and warrants a page of its own at the end. This Grade II listed 1930’s Art Deco building was the first London store to have electric lighting throughout, and one of the first to boast a frontage made entirely of glass. After coffee, we had a quick look at the clothing displayed, and were not impressed. The very old-fashioned styles and the huge expense did not go down well. Do Chelsea-ites really wear this sort of thing, and at £150?

Gathering together again outside, we crossed over the road and went into Holy Trinity Church. Built in 1890 to a striking Arts and Crafts design by the architect John Dando Sedding, a major feature is the east window designed by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Opposite the Church, next to the Station exit, is the Royal Court Theatre, one of the best theatres outside the West End, built in 1888 and constructed of fine red brick and a stone façade in free Italianate style. John Osborne’s ground breaking play “Look Back in Anger” was premiered here in 1956.

We then walked down the Kings Road, and Barbara and Phyllis took it in turns to read from their copious notes, sometimes struggling against the traffic. So much to see and learn about and the notes are repeated here for those who did not hear all the information, or want to take on the walk separately :

CHELTENHAM TERRACE on the left was where Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists were based from 1933-35 in a now demolished building named Black House.

At No 4 ANDERSON STREET Karl Marx and his family briefly lived in 1849. They were evicted for rent arrears, and suffered the indignity of a crowd gathering to watch the family’s possessions being dumped in the street by bailiffs.

Passing ROYAL AVENUE you get a view of the Royal Hospital to the south. The avenue was laid out by Wren in 1682 and was supposed to be the first part of an intended route between the Royal Hospital and Kensington Palace. However after Charles II died the project was abandoned.

We gathered by McDonalds on the corner. This stands on the site of the Chelsea Drugstore one of the coolest places to be in the “swinging 60’s”. Modelled on Le Drugstore on Boulevard St Germain in Paris, the London version offered visitors a selection of bars, food outlets, a chemist, a record store and boutiques and was open 16 hours a day 7 days a week. It also offered a “Flying Squad” home delivery service featuring motorbikes and girls clad in purple catsuits. Unsurprisingly traditional Chelsea residents detested the Drugstore but luckily for them its era, like many 60’s fashions, was short-lived. Scenes from Kubrick’s controversial film A Clockwork Orange (1971) were filmed here. Mick Jagger included the lyric “So I went to the Chelsea Drugstore to get your prescription filled” in the Stones 1969 song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and as he used to live nearby he would have known the place very well.

The next road down, WELLINGTON SQUARE, is where the fictional character James Bond is found living at No 30. Had Bond lived for real it would have been interesting to see how he would have got on with his neighbour Aleister Crowley, the Satanist, who once lived at 31 Wellington Square. (Crowley was a pansexual, mystic, occultist, ceremonial magician, deviant, recreational drug experimenter, poet and accomplished mountaineer who was also known as The Great Beast 666. The British press named him “The Wickedest Man in the World.”)

Just opposite Wellington Square at 9 BYWATER STREET is where John Le Carre’s fictional character George Smiley lived.

No 138a KINGS ROAD now a café called Ca’puccino on the corner of MARKHAM SQUARE was where Mary Quant’s fashion boutique Bazaar opened in 1955. The restaurant Alexander’s was downstairs – frequented by Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot.

The PHEASANTRY 152 KINGS ROAD now a branch of Pizza Express dates from 1769. The site gets its name from the business of Samuel Baxter who developed new breeds of oriental pheasants. It had a variety of uses including in 1916 a ballet academy founded by the Russian ballerina Serafine Astafieva whose pupils included Anna Neagle and Margot Fonteyn. Later the Pheasantry Club and restaurant based here from 1932 to 1966 was popular with stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lucien Freud, Marc Chagall and Francis Bacon.

Crossing the road again at 127 KINGS ROAD is BRGR.CO (hamburger bar) which until 2009 was the PICASSO CAFE opened by the Barbien family during the Italian coffee bar boom. It became a favourite over the next half century with generations of local residents including members of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Bob Geldorf and Gordon Ramsay. The author Martin Amis later recalled his youth “mincing up and down King’s Road in skin-tight velvet trousers and grimy silk scarves and haunting a coffee bar called the Picasso, and smoking hash, then £8 an ounce, and trying to pick up girls”.

Staying on this side of the Kings Road is FLOOD STREET where just down on the right is CHELSEA MANOR STUDIOS where the front cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album was shot by photographer Michael Cooper on 30th March 1967. The Beatles stood patiently for 3 hours amongst a collage of life-sized cardboard cut-outs of people the band admired.

The cover design was the work of Pop artist Peter Blake. (Glazed wall tiles at corner of Kings Road).

Crossing the road yet again is the flag ship branch of HABITAT at 208 KINGS ROAD which arrived in 1973. The main body of the store takes up the old atrium of the Gaumont Palace Theatre which ceased being a cinema in 1972. One of the medallions on the front of the building represents William Friese-Greene inventor of celluloid film.

SYDNEY STREET - to ST LUKE’S CHURCH - (We didn’t actually walk down as far as the Church). Built in the 1820’s the church dominates the skyline. It’s one of the first neo-gothic Victorian churches to be built in England and can seat 2,500 people in what remains the tallest nave of any London parish church. The size accounts for its nickname of “Chelsea Cathedral”, and it was chosen by Charles Dickens as the place where he married 20 year old local girl Catherine Hogarth in 1836. Film buffs might recognise the church from the Disney film 101 Dalmations (1995). It was used as the setting for the marriage of the two main characters played by Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson joined by 100 dogs.

CHELSEA OLD TOWN HALL dating from 1880 contains a library, two halls and the Chelsea Registry Office where the likes of Judy Garland, and Wallis Simpson were married. There is a drinking trough set into the wall which was set up by Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. The Association was founded in 1859 to provide public drinking water for humans and animals in the last few decades before motor traffic replaced horses and domestic water supply became the norm.

Just opposite the Town Hall we made our way to OAKLEY STREET. Oakley Street in Chelsea was laid out in the 1830s, with the first houses constructed in the 1850s and 1860s. It has been home to many famous residents; Oscar Wilde and his mother Lady Wilde lived at No.87, which was later the home of footballer George Best. The street was also the home of the late David Bowie. He moved in with wife Angie in October 1973. David and Angie’s Oakley Street house has been described as a “sexual cocoon” and a “four-storey pleasure palace”; the couple created a rock-star hangout with wild parties and sexual decadence, involving many famous names of the time, allegedly including Mick Jagger. The house featured air-brushed murals, a hallway lit by car lights and, notoriously, a sunken bed in the living room. However at the time of the miners’ strikes in 1974, Bowie painted the entire interior black to try to understand what it would be like to live in a coalmine. When he was arrested with Iggy Pop in New York on suspicion of possession of drugs, Bowie gave his real name, Jones, and listed his address as Oakley Street, London. The arrest mugshots have been circulating since his death in January.

We passed what is described as the most famous pink door in London. The residents decorate the door according to the holiday seasons with it covered in large spiders for Halloween! Also in the street we saw a blue plaque to Robert Falcon Scott.

(We had seen plenty of other plaques along the Kings Road. I do feel that

there should perhaps have been a plaque to Christian the Lion, who lived in a furniture shop called Sophisticat on Kings Road in 1969. Bought from Harrods, he was finally returned to the wild by his owners and the YouTube clip of their reunion in the wild is one of the most frequent downloads ever.) We then crossed the ALBERT BRIDGE to BATTERSEA PARK. Described by John Betjeman as “one of the beauties of the London river”, Albert Bridge has many secrets. Because of a design problem, it was strengthened twice (in 1884 and 1973) which involved additional bridge styles, so it is now a combination of three styles - suspension, cable-stayed and beam bridge. Because it was not always the sturdiest bridge, it was known as “The Trembling Lady”. The old sign remains, telling soldiers to break step to prevent damaging the structure.

The bridge also has a serious dog urine problem, with many crossing over to be walked in Battersea Park. The bridge is partially made of wood, so many urine stops en route cause the wood to rot! Following a closure for renovation work in 2010, the repaired bridge was re-opened in 2011. Two

Staffie cross-breeds, named Prince and Albert — from the local Battersea Dogs & Cats Home — were called in for the honour of being the first to cross. It's slightly ironic that dogs were chosen to mark the occasion, considering they played a major part in its weakening. Entering Battersea Park via Albert Gate, we started our walk along the bank of the Thames, making our way towards the Peace Pagoda. A notice indicated that plans were afoot for a new Promontory Garden in the Park, using an unused area that juts out into the river.

Reaching the Pagoda, we decided to take our group photo, and a young lady offered to take it so we could all be in it. Lunch was organised to be at the Pear Tree Café and so we used the map previously distributed to find

our way round past the Zoo to the café by the lake. (Rather a case of too many cooks …. or maps !!). Settling ourselves down, some of us were surprised at how many dogs were running around inside, and some were even seated primly on the bench seats with their Japanese owners. Apparently this is renowned as a popular place for dog walkers, and dogs are welcome “on a lead”, something that seemed to be ignored by the proprietors.

Barbara and Phyllis’ notes provide information on the facilities in the park – BATTERSEA PARK was the site of the 1951 Festival of Britain Pleasure Gardens, which had a permanent funfair until the early 1970s. Large-scale renovations took place throughout the park in 2003 resulting in new features including the fountain area with impressive jets up to 15 feet high. There is an adjacent Rose Garden which inspires visitors to take part in Yoga or Tai Chi. On the North Carriage Drive the huge Thameside Peace Pagoda is the parks best known landmark. It can be climbed to access panoramic views of the Thames and both Albert and Chelsea bridges. There is also a large fishing lake where you can see a Barbara Hepworth sculpture called Single Form and on the lakes north side you can see Henry Moore’s Three Standing Figures. There is a Pump House Gallery which holds temporary exhibitions. The park also houses a children’s Zoo. We attempted to visit some of the places mentioned on our way out of the park, but eventually we reverted to the route back along the river, this time to Chelsea Gate. Here we caught the bus to Charing Cross, having decided not to go back to Sloane Square and use the Tube. Thank you to Barbara and Phyllis for another interesting walk.

JOHN LEWIS HISTORY

As the John Lewis department store chain celebrates its 150th anniversary, one shop alone retains the name of a Carmarthenshire draper who inspired its partnership ethos. In 2009, the first John Lewis department store in Wales opened as part of Cardiff's new city centre shopping redevelopment. Yet the company's Welsh connections date back over a century, to when the son of a Carmarthenshire milliner first established what is now one of the chain's flagship London stores. Born in Newcastle Emlyn in 1842, Peter Jones left for London with just £14 savings, and within a decade had established one of Chelsea's most fashionable shops.

The brand he created was so respected that on hearing of Jones's death in 1905, his rival - the original John Lewis - personally walked across town to purchase the store, with £21,000 cash hurriedly collected from his own tills. John Lewis Partnership archivist Judy Faraday said: "The two men were rivals, but also had a great deal of respect for each other. They were roughly the same age, were both religious non-conformists, and had both risen from humble countryside backgrounds to make outstanding successes of themselves in London retail. But John Lewis was a hard-headed businessman, and wouldn't have bought Peter Jones purely out of sentimentality. Jones had chosen his location incredibly well in the up-and-coming King's Road/Sloane Square area, and John Lewis would have known only too well not only how much money he could make from Peter Jones, but also what a dangerous competitor it would be if he hadn't bought it himself."

But despite his phenomenal success, throughout his life Peter Jones remained true to his humble beginnings as an apprentice with drapers in Newington and Leicester Square. The welfare of his staff seems to have been as important to him as his profit margin. At a time when average retail wages were just 25 shillings (£1.25) per week, Peter Jones introduced generous Christmas bonuses. He also created accommodation for staff above the store, equipped with a well-stocked library, a piano for musical evenings and a pair of billiard tables. His employees rewarded him by boosting his turnover from £18,000 in 1877 to £157,000 by the turn of the century.

Starting out as two houses knocked through, his Sloane Square premises eventually took over 28 properties across an entire block. It was this happy marriage between success and fair play which Ms Faraday says went on to influence the John Lewis model for the next century. John Lewis was a hard-headed businessman, not overly concerned with the welfare of his staff. So Peter Jones' style was somewhat alien to him. But fortunately for us, John Lewis decided to entrust the running of Peter Jones to his son John Spedan Lewis, who was much more interested in what Peter Jones had created. Spedan thought of himself as something of a scientist, and treated Peter Jones as a social experiment. He knew from his father's shops how workers responded to discipline, and he wanted to be able to prove whether even better profits could be achieved by involving his staff, and motivating them with a stake in the company's success.

It was Spedan - without his father's knowledge or consent - who introduced the co-operative profit-sharing model of today's John Lewis, and that's why we consider Peter Jones as the cradle of the group, in some ways even more so than his father's original store on Oxford Street. Out of respect for that status, the Peter Jones store alone retains its original name, and has not been absorbed into the John Lewis brand.