Tite Street
Encyclopedia
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is a central London borough of Royal borough status. After the City of Westminster, it is the wealthiest borough in England....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, just north of the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
. It was created in 1877, giving access to the Chelsea Embankment
Chelsea Embankment
Chelsea Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment, a road and walkway along the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England.The western end of Chelsea Embankment, including a stretch of Cheyne Walk, is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; the eastern end, including...
. In the late nineteenth century the street was a favoured and fashionable location for people of an artistic and literary disposition.
Tite Street is named after the architect William Tite
William Tite
Sir William Tite, CB was an English architect who served as President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was particularly associated with various London buildings, with railway stations and cemetery projects....
. He was a member of the Metropolitan Board of Works
Metropolitan Board of Works
The Metropolitan Board of Works was the principal instrument of London-wide government from 1855 until the establishment of the London County Council in 1889. Its principal responsibility was to provide infrastructure to cope with London's rapid growth, which it successfully accomplished. The MBW...
, responsible for the construction of Chelsea Embankment to the south of Tite Street and some railway station buildings.
During the 18th century, Gough House stood on the eastern side of the street. It became a school in 1830 and then the Victoria Hospital for Children in 1866. The hospital moved to St George's Hospital
St George's Hospital
Founded in 1733, St George’s Hospital is one of the UK's largest teaching hospitals. It shares its main hospital site in Tooting, England with the St George's, University of London which trains NHS staff and carries out advanced medical research....
, at Tooting
Tooting
Tooting is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated south south-west of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
in south London, and the original building was demolished in 1968. The site is now occupied by St Wilfred's
Daughters of the Cross
Daughters of the Cross is a religious congregation of the Catholic Church founded in Liège in 1833. The foundress, Mère Marie Therese , sent her Sisters over to England in 1863. Its formal title is The Congregation of the Daughters of the Cross of Liège.Daughters of the Cross is constituted as a...
convent and home for the elderly.
River House in Tite Street was designed by the church architect Thomas Garner
Thomas Garner
Thomas Garner was one of the leading English Gothic revival architects of the Victorian era. His name is usually mentioned in relation to his almost 30-year partnership with George Frederick Bodley...
(1839-1906).
Famous occupants
The following people have lived in Tite Street:- No 30 (formerly 12A):
- Peter WarlockPeter WarlockPeter Warlock was a pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine , an Anglo-Welsh composer and music critic. He used the pseudonym when composing, and is now better known by this name....
, composer - marked with a blue plaque. Warlock died here on 17 December 1930, probably suicide.
- Peter Warlock
- No 31 (residence) & 33 (studio):
- John Singer SargentJohn Singer SargentJohn Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
, American portrait painter http://jssgallery.org/resources/Photos/Places/Tite_Street.htm.
- John Singer Sargent
- No 33:
- James McNeill WhistlerJames McNeill WhistlerJames Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
, artist http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/vmtours/chelseawalk/vm_cw_titestreet.asp. - Augustus JohnAugustus JohnAugustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....
, artist http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/vmtours/chelseawalk/vm_cw_titestreet.asp — intermittently between 1940 and 1958.
- James McNeill Whistler
- No 34 (formerly 16):
- Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, writer http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/pva223.html — now with a blue plaqueBlue plaqueA blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....
.
- Oscar Wilde
- No 35:
- Whistler instructed E. W. GoodwinEdward William GodwinEdward William Godwin was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic "Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by The Stones of Venice, then moved on to provide designs in the "Anglo-Japanese taste" of the Aesthetic...
to build the White House here, but due to his bankruptcy after his legal case with John RuskinJohn RuskinJohn Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
, he was never able to occupy it; the building was demolished in 1968.
- Whistler instructed E. W. Goodwin
- No 44: (formerly 1)
- Frank MilesFrank MilesGeorge Francis "Frank" Miles was a London artist who specialised in pastel portraits of society ladies, also an architect and a keen plantsman.-Life and career:...
, portrait painter - Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, writer http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/pva223.html who moved in to this house, built for Miles, before later renting No 34 himself. The house is on the market in 2011 for £15,500,000.
- Frank Miles
- No (not known):
- Julian Edward Alfred Mond, 3rd Baron MelchettJulian Edward Alfred Mond, 3rd Baron MelchettJulian Edward Alfred Mond, 3rd Baron Melchett was an English industrialist who became the third Baron Melchett on the death of his father in 1949.-Early life:...
- Sir Wilfred Thesiger, British explorer and travel writer http://www.travelintelligence.com/travel-writing/3120/europe/france/provence/--/obituary-sir-wilfred-thesiger-1910---2003.html
- Julian Edward Alfred Mond, 3rd Baron Melchett
External links
- Chelsea Walk — Tite Street
- View of the western side of Tite Street in 1905
- LondonTown information
- No 31 Tite Street by Max BeerbohmMax BeerbohmSir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson.-Early life:...
