Delving Into The History And Treasures Of Chelsea Old Church

Chelsea Old Church has stood quietly on the banks of the River Thames for more than 700 years.

It may not be London’s most spectacular church, but like Chelsea itself, is steeped in history. The building is an architectural jigsaw, shaped and reshaped over the centuries and has one of the most remarkable collection of monuments in the metropolis. The church’s story is also closely intertwined with some of England’s most notable figures, including the Tudor statesman and scholar Sir Thomas More and the physician, collector and philanthropist Sir Hans Sloane.

Origins

Chelsea Old Church is first mentioned in a papal taxation document back in 1290, but likely has origins stretching back into the Anglo-Saxon period. 

This was a time when Chelsea was a small riverside village outside of London, the name coming from the Old English for ‘Chalk wharf’ or ‘Chalk landing place’. The Manor of Chelsea, an estate in this area acquired in 1536 by King Henry VIII, itself was first recorded during the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066).

The church was originally called All Saints church, but became Chelsea Old Church in the 1820s when St Luke’s was built nearby on Sydney Street.

The building itself a complete mishmash, with the chancel likely dating from the 13th century, the North and South chapels being added in 1325 and the nave and tower dating from 1670.

On the night of the 16th/17th April 1941 a parachute mine blew the tower onto the church. The church was then, subsequently, heavily restored after the war. Despite heavy post-war reconstruction you still really get a sense of the centuries here. 

Sir Thomas More

Outside the church you will find a statue of Sir Thomas More.

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was a lawyer, scholar, member of parliament and then Chancellor under King Henry VIII. He was executed on Tower Hill on the 6th July 1535 for refusing to accept Henry as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. 

More settled with his growing family in Chelsea in 1520, in Beaufort House, which stood roughly where Beaufort Street is today. He would have had gardens running down to the river and a dock for his barge to take him to Westminster, the City or in the other direction to Hampton Court on state business. 

The More Chapel

When he moved to Chelsea he rebuilt the South chapel in the church as his private family chapel. It features pillars and capitals reputedly crafted by Hans Holbein the Younger.

He and his family were highly devout and worshipped here regularly, attending Divine service on Sundays and often assisting at the celebration of mass. 

The Duke of Norfolk apparently came to dine with him one day only to find him in church singing in the choir. “God’s body, my Lord Chancellor!” said the duke, as they returned to his house. “What! A parish clerk! A parish clerk! You dishonour the king and his office.” “Nay,” said Sir Thomas, “you may not think your master and mine will be offended with me for serving God, his master, or thereby count his office dishonoured.” More’s last words, before the axe came down, were in the same vein: ‘I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first’.

This is the monument in the chapel today to Sir Thomas More.

The inscription was composed by More himself and edited by Erasmus, commemorating his first wife (Jane Colt) and expressing the wish that he and his second wife (Dame Alice More) should be buried in the same tomb. Both wives were buried in the church but More, sadly, did not get his wish. After his beheading, his body was buried in the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. His head was put on a spike on London Bridge. His daughter retrieved it after a month and it is most likely in St Dunstan’s Church in Canterbury. Some, however, believe it could be inside the monument in Chelsea Old Church, but this is unsubstantiated. 

Sir Hans Sloane

In the southeast corner of the churchyard, you can find this striking memorial. 

This is the tomb of renowned physician and collector Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) whose extensive collection became the foundation for the British Museum, Natural History Museum and British Library. It is also the burial place for his wife, Elizabeth Langley Rose. 

Sloane purchased the Manor of Chelsea in 1712. He was able to do this through the marriage to his wife, a wealthy plantation heiress in Jamaica. The profits from her plantations, worked on by enslaved people, were used to purchase the land in Chelsea and build his vast collection. He moved into the manor house in Chelsea in 1742, which had once been a residence of King Henry VIII.

Sloane ended up selling off chunks of land and is remembered in the names of Sloane Square, Hans Place and others in Chelsea. In fact, big parts of Chelsea are still owned today by the Sloane-Stanley Estate and the Cadogan Estate, after Hans Sloane’s second daughter married Charles Cadogan, the 2nd Baron Cadogan.

Sloane also gifted a collection of chained books to Chelsea Old Church which are still there today.

They are a rare historical treasure and the only remaining collection of chained books in any London church, consisting of five antique religious volumes. They are locked and chained to stop them being stolen in an era when books were incredibly valuable.

He was also the benefactor of the nearby Chelsea Physic Garden which I have written about previously here.  

The Memorial to Lady Jane Cheyne

Inside the church is another amazing monument to Lady Jane Cheyne (d. 1669). It was commissioned in 1670 from the studio of the legendary Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It features the reclining figure of Lady Jane on a black marble sarcophagus. The likeness was apparently based solely on a sketch of her face shipped to Italy from England by her husband.

Lord and Lady Cheyne purchased the Manor of Chelsea in 1657 and lived in Henry VIII’s old manor house. Their name is commemorated in the nearby Cheyne Walk. She was a great benefactor to the village, bearing part of the expense of rebuilding the church roof after the English Civil War.

Other Memorials And Monuments

One of the other dramatic memorials is the Dacre Monument (1595). This is dedicated to Gregory Fiennes, Lord Dacre of the south, and his wife Ann Sackville, who inherited More’s Chelsea properties.

There is a plaque to American-British novelist Henry James. James spent his final years living and working at Carlyle Mansions in Chelsea (at 21 Cheyne Walk). It was here that he died on 28th February, 1916. Following his death, his funeral service was held at Chelsea Old Church but his ashes were taken back to the USA.

Below is the monument to Jane Guildford, Duchess of Northumberland and Mother-in-Law to Lady Jane Grey, the famous ‘Nine-Days Queen’. She was also a lady-in-waiting at the court of Henry VIII and a close friend of his final wife, Catherine Parr.

Below is another unusual one, dedicated to four men who drowned in a storm in the river, directly outside the church in 1839.

Finally, there is a plaque to Thomas Hurd, a Post Captain and Hydrographer (a surveyor of the seabed)/Cartographer in the Royal Navy. He was the first person to carry out an exact survey of Bermuda in 1789, taking him nine years. Hurd’s Deep in the English Channel and the Hurd Peninsula in the Antarctic are named after him. Hurd died in 1823 after serving for fifty years.

Roper’s Garden

One final thing to look out for is Roper’s Garden, just to the West of the church.

This is a Grade II-listed pocket park created from the basements of Victorian terraced houses destroyed by that same parachute mine during the Blitz. It is named after William Roper, Sir Thomas More’s son-in-law, because More gifted the land as an orchard to his daughter, Margaret, and her husband as a marriage settlement. 

Visiting Chelsea Old Church

Chelsea Old Church is open for visiting from 2pm-4pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You can also make an appointment outside of those hours with the Parish Office. It looks like they also hae guided tours on Sundays from 1.30-5.30pm. Find out more here.

They of course have services as well on Sundays, find out more here.

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