![]() King's Road, looking east towards Sloane Square | |
Length | 1.9 mi (3.1 km) |
---|---|
Location | Chelsea, London, England |
Postal code | SW3, SW6, SW10 |
South end | Sloane Square |
West end | Waterford Road |
Other | |
Known for | Shopping, Peter Jones, Saatchi Gallery |
King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents) is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both in west London, England. It is associated with 1960s style and with fashion figures such as Mary Quant and Vivienne Westwood. Sir Oswald Mosley's Blackshirt movement had a barracks on the street in the 1930s. [1]
King's Road runs for just under two miles (3.2 km) through Chelsea, in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, from Sloane Square in the east (on the border with Belgravia and Knightsbridge) and through the Chelsea Design Quarter (Moore Park Estate) on the border of Chelsea and Fulham. Shortly after crossing Stanley Bridge the road passes a slight kink at the junction with Waterford Road, where it then becomes New King's Road, continuing to Fulham High Street and Putney Bridge; its western end is in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.
King's Road derives its name from its function as a private road used by King Charles II to travel to Kew. It remained a private royal road until 1830, but people with connections were able to use it. Some houses date from the early 18th century. No. 213 has a blue plaque to film director Sir Carol Reed, who lived there from 1948 until his death in 1976. Thomas Arne lived at no. 215 and is believed to have composed "Rule Britannia" there. Ellen Terry lived in the same house from 1904 to 1920, and also Peter Ustinov; Terry's residence is also commemorated by a blue plaque. The photographer Christina Broom was born in 1862 at no. 8.
In 1871, the Chelsea Hospital for Women was founded on King's Road, later moving to Fulham Road. [2] The corner of King's Road and Manresa Road was occupied from 1895 to 1985 by Chelsea College of Science and Technology before it was subsumed into King's College London and immediately sold into private hands.
The world's first artificial ice rink, the Glaciarium, opened just off King's Road in 1876, and later that year it relocated to a building on the street.[ citation needed ]
During the 1960s the street became a symbol of mod culture, evoking "an endless frieze of mini-skirted, booted, fair-haired angular angels", one magazine later wrote. [3] Mary Quant opened her boutique BAZAAR at 138a King's Road in 1955. King's Road was home in that decade to the Chelsea Drugstore (originally a chemist with a stylised chrome-and-neon soda fountain upstairs, later a public house), and in the 1970s to Malcolm McLaren's boutique Let It Rock, which was renamed SEX in 1974, and then Seditionaries in 1977. During the hippie and punk eras it was a centre for counterculture, but has since been gentrified. It serves as Chelsea's high street and has a reputation for being one of London's most fashionable shopping streets. Other celebrated boutiques included Granny Takes a Trip.
484 King's Road was the headquarters of Swan Song Records, owned by Led Zeppelin. The company was closed and the building vacated in 1983. King's Road was the site of the first UK branch of Starbucks, which opened in 1999.
In 1984, Keith Wainwright, a pioneer responsible for starting one of the first men's hairdressers catering for the longer men's styles of the time, with such clients including Roy Wood, Cat Stevens and The Walker Brothers, opened the salon "Smile", at 434 King's Road.[ citation needed ]
535 King's Road was the headquarters of Cube Records, an independent record label of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The label folded in the mid-1970s, becoming part of Elektra Records. The building has since been demolished but the new building on the same site still houses a record company.
The road has been represented in popular culture on various occasions: "King's Road" is the title of a song by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers from the 1981 album Hard Promises and is name-checked in the song "Dick a Dum Dum (King's Road)" which was a hit for Des O'Connor in 1969. In Ian Fleming's novels, James Bond lives in an unspecified fashionable square just off King's Road.
In the 1960s radio series Round the Horne , in the 'Jules and Sandy' section, their establishment (named 'Bona...'), is often located in the King's Road (for example, Bona Books in series 4).[ citation needed ]
Pet Shop Boys met in an electronics shop on King's Road in August 1981.
The eastern part of King's Road is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. [4] King's Road is part of A3217. [5] [6]
Buses 11, 19, 22, 49, 211, 319, 328, and C3 all go down King's Road, yet most of these turn off the street at one point or another. The 11 and the 22 are the only routes which run the entirety of King's Road, with the 22 being the only route that runs all the way from Sloane Square to the end of New King's Road in Fulham.
The western end of King's Road is close to Imperial Wharf railway station on the London Overground network, with connections to Willesden Junction and Clapham Junction. Southern also run direct rail services to Milton Keynes Central and East Croydon from this station. At the eastern end of the street is Sloane Square, and Fulham Broadway lies at the western end, on the boundary between Chelsea and Fulham. King's Road, and the area of Chelsea as a whole, is known for having poor links to the London Underground. Due to this, the route of Crossrail 2 is proposed to have an underground station in this area, called King's Road Chelsea.
Chelsea Harbour Pier is also within easy reach of the western end of King's Road, with river bus services provided by London River Services and Thames Executive Charters to Putney and Blackfriars. Further east, the same services are also provided at Cadogan Pier, only a few blocks south of King's Road near the Albert Bridge.
Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End. Knightsbridge is also the name of the roadway which runs near the south side of Hyde Park from Hyde Park Corner.
Putney is an affluent district in southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, five miles southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
Fulham is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, 3.6 miles (5.8 km) southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, with which it shares the area known as West Brompton. Over the Thames, Fulham faces Wandsworth, Putney, the London Wetland Centre in Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
Shepherd's Bush is a suburb of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham 4.9 miles (7.9 km) west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan.
Chelsea is an affluent area in West London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles (4 km). It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area.
Putney Bridge is a Grade II listed bridge over the River Thames in west London, linking Putney on the south side with Fulham to the north. Before the first bridge was built in 1729, a ferry had shuttled between the two banks.
Sloane Square is a London Underground station in Chelsea, serving Sloane Square. It is served by the Circle and District lines, between South Kensington and Victoria stations, and is in Travelcard Zone 1.
Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the central London districts of Belgravia and Chelsea, located 1.8 miles (2.9 km) southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The area forms a boundary between the two largest aristocratic estates in London, the Grosvenor Estate and the Cadogan. The square was formerly known as 'Hans Town', laid out in 1771 to a plan of by Henry Holland Snr. and Henry Holland Jnr. Both the square and Hans Town were named after Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), an Anglo-Irish doctor who, jointly with his appointed trustees, owned the land at the time.
Sands End is an area of the ancient parish of Fulham, formerly in the County of Middlesex, which is now the southernmost part of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England. In a deep loop of the River Thames, between the tidal Chelsea Creek and the old Peterborough estate, west of Wandsworth Bridge, its northern edge is New King's Road. While wharves, industrial acres and workers' cottages gave way to intensive re-development such as Chelsea Harbour and Imperial Wharf in the last quarter of the 20th-century, it still contains some 300-year-old cottages and 19th century streets.
Sloane Street is a major London street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea which runs north to south, from Knightsbridge to Sloane Square, crossing Pont Street about halfway along.
Imperial Wharf is an interchange station between National Rail services and the Mildmay line of the London Overground, located in Sands End in West London. Opened on 27 September 2009, the station is located on the West London line in between West Brompton and Clapham Junction stations. The station is managed by London Overground. Chelsea Harbour Pier is located 250 m (820 ft) away, providing interchange with Thames Clippers boat services.
Peter Jones & Partners is a large department store in central London. It is owned by John Lewis & Partners and located in Sloane Square, Chelsea. The store holds two royal warrants granted by Charles, then Prince of Wales, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Fulham Road is a street in London, England, which comprises the A304 and part of the A308.
London Buses route 14 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, England. Running between Putney Heath and Russell Square, it is operated by Go-Ahead London.
London Buses route 22 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, England. Running between Putney Common and Oxford Circus, it is operated by Go-Ahead London.
Cadogan Group Limited and its subsidiaries, including Cadogan Estates Limited, are British property investment and management companies that are owned by the Cadogan family, one of the richest families in the United Kingdom. They also hold the titles of Earl Cadogan and Viscount Chelsea, the latter used as a courtesy title by the Earl's eldest son. The Cadogan Group is the main landlord in the west London districts of Chelsea and Knightsbridge, and it is now the second largest of the surviving aristocratic Freehold Estates in Central London, after the Duke of Westminster's Grosvenor Estate, to which it is adjacent, covering Mayfair and Belgravia.
World's End is a district of Chelsea, London, lying at the western end of the King's Road. Once a Victorian slum area, council housing was built here in the 20th century, including the brutalist architecture World's End estate.
Pavilion Road is a street in Chelsea in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. It runs parallel to Sloane Street and is accessed from Sloane Square in the southern end and Basil Street in the northern end.
Mr Freedom was a clothing boutique in London which sold fashion by a number of young designers commissioned by the owner, designer Tommy Roberts, and his partner, Trevor Myles. Celebrities such as Freddie Mercury and Elton John wore designs from the shop which was at 430 King's Road in Chelsea, London from 1969–70 and then at 20 Kensington Church Street in Kensington.
The Royal Commission on London Traffic was a royal commission established in 1903 with a remit to review and report on how transport systems should be developed for London and the surrounding area. It produced a report in eight volumes published in 1905 and made recommendations on the character, administration and routing of traffic in London.