The Site of Beaufort House [Map].

In the whole history of Chelsea, a history which is indeed famous, so many notable men and women has this little village known-the chief interest has centred about Beaufort House [Map]. From those early days in the 16th century, when it was the well-loved home of Sir Thomas More, until the 18th, when it was the seat of the Duke of Beaufort, it yielded to no other house in importance, not to King Henry VIII's manor house in Cheyne Walk, nor to the Earl of Shrewsbury's mansion, nor to the old manor house with which it shared the dignity of a proprietary chapel in the old Church. It did not carry with it the lordship of the manor, but its property was extensive, including practically the frontage of the Thames between Milman Street and Church Street, and its gardens stretched northwards as far as the King's Road [Map].

The house stood across the line of the present Beaufort Street and rather nearer King's Road [Map] than the river. Between it and the way along the waterside were two large courtyards, and opposite was a quay. The remainder of the estate, south of the present King's Road, was laid out in gardens and orchards, with the exception of the stable buildings, where now is the Moravian Burial Ground, and the farmhouse and barns on the site of Lindsey House. The situation, attractive as it is now, was far lovelier then, when across the Surrey bank was a view of undisturbed wood and pasture.

Sir Thomas More lived here for some fourteen years until his attainder in 1535. He loved to escape from London and from the Court, and to give himself up to his family and his own literary pursuits in his Chelsea home, and here he entertained many friends, among whom were Erasmus and Holbein. The latter may well have designed the beautiful capitals in the More chapel, in the old church (dated 1528), which show his hand as plainly as the ceiling of the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace, which was executed in 1540.

More's estate was granted to Sir William Paulet [See Patent Roll, I Edward VI., pt. 3.] (first Marquess of Winchester): it was inherited by his son the second Marquess, and in 1575 passed to Gregory Fiennes, Lord Dacre of the South, and his wife Anne - the foundress of those charming almshouses, Emmanuel Hospital, Westminster, now destroyed - who was a daughter of the Marchioness of Winchester by her former husband, Sir Robert Sackville. Baroness Dacre, who died in 1595, left the house to Lord Burleigh, who is said to have lived here, and he was followed by his youngest son, Sir Robert Cecil, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, who took possession in 1597. It is to Cecil's passion for building, which was not exhausted until he had parted with his fortune in completing Hatfield, that we owe the earliest representations on paper of the house at Chelsea. In his Chelsea Old Church Mr. Randall Davies published a reproduction of a beautiful plan of the Chelsea Estate, preserved among the Hatfield papers, and the present writer in some further research among Lord Salisbury's MSS. found five plans to a larger scale, all of which have reference to Cecil's schemes for rebuilding Sir Thomas More's house. For a detailed examination of these plans, the reader is referred to the Architectural Review of March and May, 1911, but by the courtesy of the proprietors of the Review, the reproductions are included here.

Cecil does not seem to have carried out his larger schemes and he sold the house to Henry Clinton, second Earl of Lincoln, in 1599.

Lincoln settled the estate on Sir Arthur Gorges, who had married his daughter. He lived in the house just mentioned, adjoining the great house, built for him by his father-in-law, and some four years after the latter's death in 1615, he sold Sir Thomas More's house to Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex. [See Close Roll, 18 Jas. I., pt. 18.] The new owner purchased several additions to the property, including "Brick Barn Close" and "The Sandhills," both north of the King's Road. These he converted into the Park, which is shown in Kip's view and was not built upon until after 1717. Cranfield fell under the displeasure of the King, and in consequence forfeited his property, which Charles I. granted in 1627 to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. After the Duke's assassination, the family continued to reside here until the outbreak of the Civil War, when the house was seized by the Parliament, and Mr. Randall Davies has referred to the record in the Perfect Occurrences of the petition in 1646 of the Duchess of Lennox, Buckingham's daughter, for leave to come to London, or to her house in Chelsea, to be under Dr. Mayerne's hands for her health. The great physician was then living at Lindsey House, the old farmhouse belonging to the estate.

In 1669 Shaver's Hall with all its appurtenances was bought by Thomas Panton, succinctly described by the Dictionary of National Biography as a "gambler," who in 1671 petitioned the Privy Council "that having been at great charge in purchasing a parcell of ground, lying at Pickadilly, part of it being the two bowling greens fronting the Haymarket, the other part lying on the north of Tennis Court," he might have leave to continue with his development of the property in spite of the king's "late proclamation" against building. Sir Christopher Wren (age 45) reported that "by opening a new street from the Hay-markett into Leicester-fields" Panton's scheme would "ease in some measure the great passage of the Strand, and will cure the noysomness of that part," and recommended that a licence to build be granted provided that the houses were built of brick "with sufficient scantlings, good paving in the streets, and sufficient sewers and conveighances for the water." Panton Street first appears in the ratebooks in 1674 and Oxendon Street, named after Baker's son-in-law, in 1675. Panton was also responsible for the erection of houses on the east side of the Haymarket at this time.

Panton Street was described by Strype in 1720 as "a good open street, inhabited by tradesmen." On the south side lived in 1696-1730 Thomas Hickford, proprietor of "Hickford's Great Room" used for auction sales and entertainments.