In the 1840s, there was a house on the site of Nell Gwynn House in which the member of parliament George Thompson lived. A blue plaque added to the side of the present building in 2013 commemorates Thompson being visited there in 1846 by the notable American Frederick Douglass.[1]
At the beginning of the 20th century, this area of Chelsea contained run-down or derelict housing, and by the 1930s the area was being redeveloped.[2] The Victoria County History notes that by the end of the decade the district was "filled with housing for the better off, a curious mixture of select, consciously picturesque low houses and enormous and forbidding blocks of flats, either cautiously Art Deco or approximately neoGeorgian in style." It continues:
On the east side of Sloane Avenue several semi-detached houses were built and two immense ten-storeyed blocks of flats on either side of Whitehead's Grove with second frontages to Draycott Avenue: on the south corner Sloane Avenue Mansions was completed in 1933, and on the north corner the larger Nell Gwynne House, faced with red brick and with a spacious open courtyard in the centre forming the main entrance, was finished in 1937. Both had parking space in the basements, and Nell Gwynn House had a restaurant open to non-residents.[3]
With a footprint forming a giant capital W, the building's geometric design is Cubist, making use of Egyptian, Aztec, and Mayan patterns and materials. From the outset, each apartment had built-in central heating, there was a restaurant in the basement, a hairdressing salon, and a bar in the lobby.[1]
In 1937, Country Life carried an advertisement -
"NOT HAVE A DISTINCTIVE FLAT IN TOWN? The Supreme choice: NELL GWYNN HOUSE CHELSEA'S SMARTEST BUILDING Inclusive Rentals £90 to £190 per annum Nell Gwynn House offers beautifully designed and decorated single-roomed and two-roomed flats, each with their own private bathroom, kitchenette and up-to-date conveniences for luxurious comfort. Magnificent Restaurant - Ballroom for 200 Patrons. Cocktail and Snack Bar which are definitely unique. Perfect service: well trained staff."[4]
In 1966, A. G. Ogden described Nell Gwynn House as a "pied a terre for many Chelsea bachelors who honor the spirit of Charles II.[5] In 1967, three Scandinavian newspapers were using apartment 337 as their London contact address,[6] joined by two others in 1971.[7]
Since 2006, the Trustees of the building have undertaken multiple major refurbishment works, both inside and out, including the renovation of more than half of the apartments and the restoration of the Art-Deco features in the reception front driveway and public areas, by renowned designer Tim Gosling.[1]
Management company and freehold
Scaffolding in place for renovation work in 2009
On 29 September 1937, the Central London Property Trust Ltd granted a lease of the whole block of flats to Nell Gwynn House (Chelsea) Ltd for ninety-nine years at a rent of £7,000 a year, and on the same day the company borrowed £225,000 from Land Charges Ltd, mortgaging its lease.[8]
In 1946, under the new Labour government's Rent Control Act, the Chelsea, Holborn, and Westminster Rent Tribunal was asked by tenants to assess the fair rent of two flats in Nell Gwynn House. The landlord had wanted to increase the rent to £5 5s a week, but the Tribunal imposed rents of £4-1s-6d and £4-2s-6d in the two cases.[9] The landlord was Nell Gwynn Furnished Flats Ltd., which then controlled seventy-nine unfurnished flats in the building, out of a total of 437 self-contained flats.[10]
In a taxation case in the High Court in 1966, Mr Justice Megarry concluded: “I am certainly unable to say that, as a matter of law, the Special Commissioners were wrong in being unable in these circumstances to find in Nell Gwynn House sufficient of the qualities of an investment to enable them to say that it was indeed an investment.”[11]
In 2010, NGH Freehold Ltd, a management company representing about three-quarters of the lessees, bought the freehold (see collective enfranchisement) which lowered the cost for the lessees of licences to make any major alterations or other works. At the time of the sale to NGH Freehold Ltd, this was the largest UK collective enfranchisement.
In 2020, a fifth-floor one-bedroom flat was for sale with a 999-year lease expiring in 3009. With a size of 316 square feet, it had an annual service charge of £3854 and council tax of £1237. The front door entered a living room (with a small kitchen in one corner) fifteen by thirteen and a half feet. Opening off that was a bedroom ten feet by eight and a half, and a small bathroom. The asking price was £590,000.[12]
Statue and alcove
Above the main entrance, at the level of the 2nd floor, is Nell Gwynn's statue, with a Cavalier King Charles spaniel at her feet. This stands at the foot of an alcove six storeys high, topped by an art deco set of reliefs, and is hard to see from Sloane Avenue, so is mostly unnoticed by the traffic, but it is believed to be the only statue of a royal mistress anywhere in the capital city.[13]
Daisy Burrell (1892–1982), actress of the silent film era, lived in flat 203 as Daisy Young[15]
Vera Atkins (1908–2000), Romanian-born Intelligence Officer of the Second World War[1] occupied Flat 725 between 1940 and 1950. In 2022 a plaque commemorating her work was installed by the American Jewish Historical Society on the Whiteheads Grove elevation of the building
↑ Archibald G. Ogden, London for everyone: an informal guide (1966), p. 136
↑ Willing's Press Guide (T. Skinner Directories, 1967), pp. 574, 575, 593: Arbetet of Malmö, Sørlandet of [[Kristiansand (town)|]], and Nordlands Framtid of [[Bodø (town)|]]
↑ Willing's Press Guide (T. Skinner Directories, 1971), pp 534, 535, 574: Jysk Aktuelt of Horsens and Bornholmeren of Rønne
↑ The Accountant, Volume 158 (Lafferty Publications, Limited, 1968), p. 784
↑ The Estates Gazette Digest of Land and Property Cases 1946 (Estates Gazette, 1947), pp. 36-39: "Chelsea, Holborn and Westminster Rent Tribunal — Mr. C. William Skinner, J.P., Barrister-at-law (Chairman); Mr. G. M. Cunningham, Barrister-at-Law; and Mrs. A. B. Martin... Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946 — Nell Gwynn House, Chelsea — First public hearing..."
↑ Justice of the Peace and Local Government Review, Volume 110 (Justice of the Peace, Ltd, 1946), p. 481
↑ Reports of Tax Cases, Volume 45 (H. M. Stationery Office, 1966), p. 198
↑ Rooftop statues at knowledgeoflondon.com/rooftops, accessed 13 January 2018
↑ Michael Smith, Foley: the Spy who Saved 10,000 Jews (2016), p. 177
↑ Probate index for 1982 at probatesearch.gov.uk, accessed 22 July 2016: "Young, Daisy Isobel Eaglesfield Ratton otherwise Daisy Isobel Eaglesfield of 203 Nell Gwynn House Sloane Av London SW3 died 10 June 1982."
↑ Sam Hughes, Steering the Course: A Memoir (McGill-Queen's Press, 2000), Chapter 10
Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The area's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, the Hudson River and West Street to the west, and Sixth Avenue to the east, with its northern boundary variously described as near the upper 20s or 34th Street, the next major crosstown street to the north. To the northwest of Chelsea is the neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, as well as Hudson Yards; to the northeast are the Garment District and the remainder of Midtown South; to the east are NoMad and the Flatiron District; to the southwest is the Meatpacking District; and to the south and southeast are the West Village and the remainder of Greenwich Village. Chelsea was named for an estate in the area, which in turn was named for the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London.
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.
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.
The Cabmen's Shelter Fund was established in London, England, in 1875 to run shelters for the drivers of hansom cabs and later hackney carriages (taxicabs).
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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.
Embassy Court is an 11-storey block of flats on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage. Wells Coates' "extremely controversial" piece of Modernist architecture has "divided opinion across the city" since its completion in 1935, and continues to generate strong feelings among residents, architectural historians and conservationists.
Daisy Burrell was a British stage actress and Edwardian musical comedy performer who also appeared as a leading lady in silent films and in pantomime.
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Sutton Dwellings, also known as the Sutton Estate, are a series of 14 residential buildings in Chelsea, London, U.K.
Sloane Avenue Mansions is a high-rise residential building in Sloane Avenue, Chelsea, London, England. It stands next to Nell Gwynn House, designed by the same architect.
George Kay Green was a Scottish architect whose work after 1918 was mostly in southern England.
Kingsway Mansions is a three-story apartment block dating back from 1928 that has Cape Dutch and classical design elements in the decoration of the balconies and the gables along the main façade towards Kingsway Avenue. The building has 27 units with 21 of its apartments being 100 square metres and the remaining 6 ‘studios” 65 square metres each.
Ovington Square is a garden square in central London's Knightsbridge district. It lies between Brompton Road to the north-west and Walton Street to the south-east.
Sloane Avenue is a road in London.
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