Living in Chelsea: area guide to homes, schools and transport
More than 90 shops and restaurants decked out their frontages for the Chelsea in Bloom floral display during Chelsea Flower Show. With a theme this year of Under the Sea, highlights included a giant octopus outside Polpo in Duke of York Square and a sea goddess at Sticks’n’Sushi in King’s Road.
Cadogan Estates, Chelsea’s largest landlord, is in the process of a £500 million modernisation project including King’s Road redevelopment that will bring a new Curzon Cinema with a restored Art Deco façade, new shops, an improved Waitrose, offices, a rooftop bar and 47 new rental homes, ready in 2021.
Next to Sloane Square Tube station, Cadogan is building a hotel to be operated by the Costes group of France. The first hotel outside Paris for brothers Gilbert and Thierry Costes, Cadogan hopes that when it opens next year it will boost Chelsea in the way Chiltern Firehouse has boosted Marylebone..
Cadogan has also created a new shopping street in Pavilion Road, where small independent shops and cafés have been encouraged to set up alongside the smart boutiques. Locals now have a butcher, fishmonger, baker, cheesemonger and grocer.
The opening of the Mary Quant exhibition at the V&A is a reminder of just how central King’s Road was to the Swinging Sixties.
The fashion designer, her husband Alexander Plunket Greene and their business partner Archie McNair opened Bazaar on the corner of King’s Road and Markham Square in 1955, above Alexander’s, a basement restaurant run by Plunket Greene.
They were a breath of fresh air in what still felt like post-war Britain. By the Sixties, Quant was designing the miniskirts and hotpants that came to epitomise the spirit of the decade.
Andrew Langton of Aylesford International estate agents has been selling homes in Chelsea for over 50 years and recalls when King’s Road was at the epicentre of life in the capital.
Two-and-a-half miles south-west of central London, Chelsea has South Kensington to the north; Pimlico to the east; the Thames and Battersea to the south and Fulham to the west.
The property scene
Georgian houses overlook the river in Cheyne Walk, where Mick Jagger has a home, and there are terraces of big Victorian houses in the garden squares, most notably The Boltons, and the squares off King’s Road.
There are streets of pretty cottages and areas of interwar Queen Anne-style houses. As for flats, there are red-brick Victorian mansion blocks, council towers at World’s End and new riverside flats where Chelsea meets Fulham. Artist studios, a reminder of Chelsea’s bohemian past, are now mosly converted into homes, including a five-bedroom house in Tite Street for sale at £9.85 million.
The most expensive house for sale now is an eight-bedroom home in Tregunter Road in The Boltons conservation area, for £22.5 million. A listed Georgian four-bedroom house in Cheyne Walk is £14.95 million. One of the most expensive flats, a four-bedroom penthouse in Chelsea Harbour is for sale at £5.8 million.
New-build homes
In Chelsea Bridge Road at the Sloane Square end of the district is Chelsea Barracks, by the Qatari royal family’s property company Qatari Diar, which was persuaded, after the intervention of Prince Charles, to adopt a more traditional design of streets and squares.
Claimed to be “the most coveted 12.8 acres in the world”, the scheme will have 440 new homes, of which 126 will be lower-cost, arranged around seven garden squares.
Finishing later this year, the first phases of 64 flats, three penthouses, 13 townhouses and a mews house include two-bedroom flats from £5.25 million. Call 020 7801 3081.
At the Fulham end of the district, Chelsea Waterfront, the riverside development of the former Lots Road Power Station site, includes two glass towers of 25 and 37 storeys (chelseawaterfront.com).
Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich is rumoured to have paid £27 million for a penthouse. The scheme has 771 flats with one to five bedrooms, including 277 lower-cost homes. As well as the two towers, riverside buildings are set around gardens overlooking Chelsea Creek.
Prices range from £1.02 million for a one-bedroom flat to £7.39 million for a five-bedroom flat. The imposing red-brick power station building will become 260 homes, with 67 lower-cost. Call Savills and Knight Frank (020 7352 8852).
This summer, 100 Sydney Street will be move-in ready, with seven flats in a former commercial building. Two-bedroom flats start at £5.75 million and the penthouse is £8.45 million.
Call 020 7629 0239. Sloane Building in Hortensia Road is a school conversion by Tenhurst with 18 flats, including two- to five-bedroom homes and a penthouse.
Coming soon behind the building will be two houses converted from an 1840 chapel designed by Buckingham Palace architect Edward Blore. Visit sloanebuilding.com for more.
Shared ownership
Clarion Housing Group will be selling shared-ownership flats at Chelsea Waterfront. Email Shared.Ownership@myclarionhousing.com for information.
Rental homes
A garage in Chelsea can rent for £350-£750 a week, while home rentals range from £1,083 a month for a studio in Chelsea Cloisters in Sloane Avenue, to £60,450 a month for an immaculate six-bedroom house in Mulberry Walk.
Just now, the Chelsea rental market is exceptionally busy, with many people deciding to rent rather than buy at a time when the direction of house prices is so uncertain.
Staying power: families have stayed in Chelsea for generations.
Postcode
SW3, the Chelsea postcode, is one of the most desirable in London. On its western border, Chelsea strays in to SW10, the West Brompton postcode.
Best roads
Cheyne Walk and The Boltons
Up and coming
Andrew Langton of Aylesford International estate agents rates the smaller three-storey Victorian houses off Lots Road which he says is an undiscovered corner.
Travel
Sloane Square on the District and Circle lines is Chelsea’s Underground station, but for commuters at the Fulham end of Chelsea there is another option — the Overground from Imperial Wharf with trains to Clapham Junction for connections to Victoria and Waterloo.
A lot of Chelsea residents rely on the regular bus service up and down King’s Road and there was a deal of opposition to suggestions that Crossrail 2 might open a station at the remote western end of the road.
The useful commuter buses along King’s Road, all of which stop at Sloane Square, are the No 11 to Liverpool Street via Victoria; the No 19 to Finsbury Park via Tottenham Court Road; No 22 to Oxford Circus, and the No 211 to Waterloo via Victoria.
Sloane Square is in Zone 1 and Imperial Wharf is in Zone 2.The price of an annual travelcard both within Zone 1 and from Zone 2 is £1,404.
Council
Kensington & Chelsea council is Conservative controlled. Band D council tax for 2019/2020 is £1,190.55.
Lifestyle
Shops and restaurants
King’s Road is still one of London’s premier shopping streets with a concentration of mid- and top-of-the-range chains such as Whistles, Cos, All Saints, Jigsaw and Hobbs. Peter Jones, a branch of John Lewis facing Sloane Square, is a Chelsea institution.
Old favourites include David Mellor for cutlery and homewares, also in Sloane Square; John Sandoe Books in Blacklands Terrace and Designers Guild in King’s Road for interior decor.
Some international brands, such as America’s Rag & Bone and the Italian Liu Jo, famous for its jeans, have chosen the area as the location for one of a small number of UK shops.
Chelsea Green has a more village-like feel, with Paxton & Whitfield cheese shop; Haynes Hanson & Clark wine merchants; Jago Butchers and The Chelsea Fishmonger.
Eating out, especially at a sunny pavement table where you can watch the world go by, is a favourite Chelsea occupation. Colbert French bistro in Sloane Square and Bluebird in King’s Road are great for people watching.
The top restaurant is Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Royal Hospital Road, with three Michelin stars.
Other great gastronomic experiences are available at The Five Fields in Blacklands Terrace, which has its own vegetable garden in East Sussex; long-standing Italian restaurant La Famiglia, in Langton Street, run by the Maccioni family; French-influenced Medlar in King’s Road and Irish-influenced Myrtle in Langton Street; Tom’s Kitchen, chef Tom Aikens’s Cale Street restaurant; Japanese restaurant Kurobuta and, for seafood and cocktails with a Peruvian twist, Chicama, both in King’s Road.
Open space
There are pleasant walks along the Thames but unless you are fortunate to have the keys to one of the communal gardens, there is a shortage of public green open space in Chelsea. However, Battersea Park is a short hop across Chelsea Bridge or Albert Bridge, while Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens are a short bus ride away.
Leisure and the arts
The jewels in Chelsea’s arts crown are the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, which for years has pioneered new writing, and the Saatchi Gallery, which has pioneered modern art in a classical former Army building known as Duke of York’s HQ, off King’s Road.
The award-winning Finborough Theatre in Finborough Road is a leading fringe theatre. The local cinema is the Cineworld in Fulham Road.
The Chelsea Cinema is undergoing redevelopment and reopens in 2021; further down King’s Road the former Cineworld cinema is also being redeveloped with shops, 11 flats and a new cinema rumoured to reopen next year as an Everyman.
Cadogan Hall in Sloane Terrace is a leading music venue and home to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Schools
Primary school
All Chelsea’s state primary schools are rated “good” or better by Ofsted.
Those that get the “outstanding” rating are: St Joseph’s RC in Cadogan Street; Christ Church CofE in Robinson Street; Oratory Primary RC in Bury Walk; St Peter’s Eaton Square CofE in Lower Belgrave Street; Our Lady of Victories RC in Clareville Street; Servite RC in Fulham Road and Bousfield in South Bolton Gardens.
Comprehensive
The “outstanding” state comprehensive schools are: Saint Thomas More RC (co-ed, ages 11 to 16) in Cadogan Street; Pimlico (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Lupus Street; The Grey Coat Hospital CofE School (girls, ages 11 to 18) in Greycoat Place; Chelsea Academy CofE (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Lots Road, and London Oratory RC (boys, ages seven to 18) in Seagrave Road. Westminster City (boys, ages 11 to 18) in Palace Street is judged to be “good”.
Private
Chelsea has more private schools than state schools. The private primary and preparatory schools are: Garden House in Turks Row (ages three to 11, co-ed in the nursery, then separate classes for boys and girls); Sussex House (boys, ages eight to 13) in Cadogan Square; Eaton House School Belgravia (co-ed, ages three and four; boys, ages three to 11) in Eaton Gate; Knightsbridge (co-ed, ages three to 13) in Pont Street; Hill House (co-ed, ages four to 13) in Hans Place; The Hampshire School, Chelsea (co-ed, ages two to 13) in Manresa Road; Eaton Square School, Belgravia and Kensington (co-ed, ages two to 13) will both be based in Eccleston Square from September; Cameron House (co-ed, ages four to 11) in The Vale; Glendower (girls, ages four to 11) in Queen’s Gate; Westminster Cathedral Choir School (boys, ages four to 13) in Ambrosden Avenue; St Nicholas (co-ed, ages three to 11) in Princes Gate; Falkner House (co-ed in the nursery; girls, ages two to 11) in Brechin Place; St Philip’s RC (boys, ages seven to 11) in Wetherby Place; Westminster Under School (boys, ages seven to 13) in Adrian House in Vincent Square; Wetherby Kensington (boys, ages four to eight) in Wetherby Gardens; Westminster Abbey Choir School (boys, ages eight to 13) in Dean’s Yard.
The private secondary and all-through schools are: Francis Holland (girls, ages four to 18) in Graham Terrace; Moor House RC (girls, ages 11 to 18) in Pont Street; Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle (co-ed, ages three to 18), the French government school in Cromwell Road; Queen’s Gate (girls, ages four to 18) in Queen’s Gate; Westminster (boys, ages 13 to 18, with girls in the sixth form) in Little Dean’s Yard, and Kensington Park (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) also in Queen’s Gate.
Sir Simon Milton Westminster (co-ed, ages 14 to 18) is a new state University Technical College in Sutherland Street which has not yet been inspected by Ofsted.
There are three GCSE and A-level colleges: Mander Portman Woodward in Queen’s Gate; Collingham in Collingham Gardens and Chelsea Independent College in Fulham Road.