The unique history of Chelsea’s oldest house

In the seventeenth century, two of RBKC’s most important institutions were established. The first was the Chelsea Physic Garden, founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. The second was the Chelsea Royal Hospital, started in 1682 as an alms house for army veterans.

A third building from this period is less famous but no less historic. This is a manor constructed in 1674 by Robert Bertie, 3rd Earl of Lindsey. Occupying a beautiful spot beside the River Thames, it is probably the oldest house in the borough.

The first building on the site was a farm, which dates back to the previous century. This was the main farmhouse on the estate of Thomas More, who built a large mansion in Chelsea in 1520. More was the Lord High Chancellor to Henry VIII, but after breaking with the King over his marriage to Anne Boleyn, his estate was forfeited to the crown.

Over the next few years, More’s estate was passed between aristocratic owners. Eventually, the farmhouse was sold to Robert Bertie, who rebuilt the place in the typical style of late seventeenth-century architecture: a hipped roof decorated with dormer windows and domed cupolas, as well as stone quoins for the corners.

The house remained in possession of the Earl of Lindsey’s family until the mid-eighteenth century. By this point, it was known as Lindsey House, but in 1751 the property was acquired by the Moravian Church in Britain.

The Moravians are one of the oldest Protestant denominations, dating back to the fifteenth century. The leader of their London community was a German Count called Nicolaus Zinzendorf. Nicknamed the Pilgrim Count, Zinzendorf spent his life establishing missionary outposts in America, the Caribbean and various Northern European countries.

It was Zinzendorf who purchased Lindsey House and remodelled the interiors. This included a grand staircase hall filled with paintings, which showed many of the major figures from Protestant history. But after the count’s death in the year 1760, the house was again sold and separated into five separate properties.

Today, those properties are numbered 96 to 101 Cheyne Walk, but at the time they were known as Lindsey Row. Over the course of the nineteenth century, Lindsey Row became home to several celebrated residents. Perhaps the most famous was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the leading figures of the Industrial Revolution, who grew up at no.98. Brunel’s father was also an engineer, working on the construction of the Thames tunnel, which provided young Isambard with his first job.

In addition, Lindsey Row attracted several of the creative figures who gathered in Chelsea during the Victorian Era. For instance, between 1849 and 1853, the painter John Martin occupied one of the outbuildings attached to No.96. Martin was among the most popular English painters of his day, celebrated for his dramatic depictions of religious and historical scenes. What’s more, no.96 was later occupied by the influential American painter James McNeill Whistler, with a blue plaque recording his residency there.

By the first decade twentieth century, another celebrated resident had moved into Lindsey Row. This was Sir Hugh Lane, one of the period’s leading art dealers and collectors of Impressionist paintings. He not only bought the western wing of the house in 1909 but also hired two friends to work on the little garden. One was Edwin Lutyens, the architect behind New Delhi; the other was Gertrude Jekyll, who was responsible for over 400 gardens in Britain, Europe and America. Together they created a delightful Arts and Crafts design, centring on a pond and an ancient Mulberry tree.

Lindsey House now lies at the western end of Cheyne Walk, close to Battersea Bridge and the houseboat moorings. The building’s façade has changed little since Count Zinzendorf’s time, while the interiors still feature wooden panelling and marble surrounds that date back to the seventeenth century.

The National Trust owns nos.97 to 100, which are privately rented. Though they cannot be visited by the public, reading the history of Lindsey House gives a sense of the building’s special significance. As the Survey of London claimed, with the exception of churches, it is ‘the only structure still existing in Chelsea that shows a continuous history from the time of Thomas More.’