Nell Gwynn House is a ten-storey residential building in
Sloane Avenue
Sloane Avenue is a road in London.
Sloane Avenue runs roughly north-west to south-east from Brompton Road in Kensington to a junction with Elystan Place and Bray Place, and its short southern continuation, Anderson Street, joins the King's Road i ...
,
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area.
Chelsea histori ...
, designed in the
Art Deco style
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
by
G. Kay Green
George Kay Green (3 May 1877 – December 1939) was a Scottish architect whose work after 1918 was mostly in southern England.
Life
Born in May 1877,[Sloane Avenue Mansions
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.
History
At the beginning of the 20th century, the area comprised derelict ...]
, built a few years earlier.
History
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
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
added to the side of the present building in 2013 commemorates Thompson being visited there in 1846 by the notable American
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
.
[
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. The ]Victoria County History
The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of En ...
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:
With a footprint forming a giant capital W, the building's geometric design is Cubist
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
, 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.[Nell Gwynn Chelsea]
homepage, accessed 25 July 2016
In 1937, ''Country Life'' carried an advertisement -
In 1948, a music club was established, with Sir Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (; 8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, wi ...
as President, and was patronised by Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...
, Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral musi ...
, and John Ireland
John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in ''All the King's Men'' (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Oscar nomin ...
.[
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. In 1967, three Scandinavian newspapers were using apartment 337 as their London contact address, joined by two others in 1971.
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
Timothy Job Gosling (born 23 August 1966) is a British furniture designer based in London. ''The Sunday Times'' has described him as "designer to the rich and famous".
Background
Gosling was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1966. His father was s ...
.[
]
Management Company and freehold
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.
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. 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.
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.”
In 2010, NGH Freehold Ltd, a management company representing about three-quarters of the lessees, bought the freehold (see collective enfranchisement
Collective enfranchisement is a legal term in English property law used to describe a process whereby leaseholders of a block of flats of apartments can buy out their freeholder. The right to collective enfranchisement was granted by the Leaseh ...
) 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
Council Tax is a local taxation system used in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a tax on domestic property, which was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, replacing the short-lived Community Charge
The Community C ...
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.
Statue and alcove
Above the main entrance, at the level of the 2nd floor, is Nell Gwynn
Eleanor Gwyn (2 February 1650 – 14 November 1687; also spelled ''Gwynn'', ''Gwynne'') was a celebrity figure of the Restoration period. Praised by Samuel Pepys for her comic performances as one of the first actresses on the English stag ...
's statue, with a Cavalier King Charles spaniel
The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is a British breed of toy dog of spaniel type. Four colours are recognised: Blenheim (chestnut and white), tricolour (black/white/tan), black and tan, and ruby; the coat is smooth and silky. The lifespan is usual ...
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
A royal mistress is the historical position and sometimes unofficial title of the extramarital lover of a monarch or an heir apparent, who was expected to provide certain services, such as sexual or romantic intimacy, companionship, and advice ...
anywhere in the capital city.
Notable residents
*Frank Foley
Major Francis "Frank" Edward Foley CMG (24 November 1884 – 8 May 1958) was a British Secret Intelligence Service officer. As a passport control officer for the British embassy in Berlin, Foley " bent the rules" and helped thousands ...
(1884–1958), Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
officer who helped many Jewish families to escape from Germany in the 1930s
*Daisy Burrell
Daisy Burrell (born Daisy Isobel Eaglesfield Ratton; 16 June 1892 – 10 June 1982) was a British stage actress and Edwardian musical comedy performer who also appeared as a leading lady in silent films and in pantomime.
In 1951 she appeared i ...
(1892–1982), actress of the silent film era, lived in flat 203 as Daisy Young
*Vera Atkins
Vera May Atkins (15 June 1908 – 24 June 2000) was a Romanian-born British intelligence officer who worked in the France Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) from 1941 to 1945 during the Second World War.
Early life
Atkins wa ...
(1908–2000), Romanian-born Intelligence Officer of the Second World War[ 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
* Theyre Lee-Elliott (1903–1988), artist, designer of the ]BOAC
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. It continued operating overseas services throughout World War II. After the passi ...
Speedbird
The Speedbird is the stylised emblem of a bird in flight designed in 1932 by Theyre Lee-Elliott as the corporate logo for Imperial Airways. It became a design classic and was used by the airline and its successors – British Overseas Airways C ...
[
*]Samuel Hughes
Sir Samuel Hughes, (January 8, 1853 – August 23, 1921) was the Canadian Minister of Militia and Defence during World War I. He was notable for being the last Liberal-Conservative cabinet minister, until he was dismissed from his cabinet post ...
(1913–2002), Canadian field historian, during Second World War
*Diana Dors
Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck; 23 October 19314 May 1984) was an English actress and singer.
Dors came to public notice as a blonde bombshell, much in the style of Americans Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. Dors was pr ...
(1931–1984) English film actress and singer
* Roy James aka "The Weasel" (1935–1997), one of the Great Train robbers, was living in flat 907 at the time of the robbery in 1963[
*]Indira Devi of Kapurthala
Indira Devi of Kapurthala (26 February 1912 – 1 September 1979), affectionately known as the Radio Princess, was an Indian socialite and princess, the eldest grandchild of Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of the princely state of Kapurthala in Punja ...
(1912-1979), Lived in flat 512 in the late 1930s-early 1940s.
*Bruce Forsyth
Sir Bruce Joseph Forsyth-Johnson (22 February 1928 – 18 August 2017) was a British entertainer and presenter whose career spanned more than 70 years. Forsyth came to national attention from the late 1950s through the ITV series ''Sunday Night ...
(1928–2017), entertainer[ occupied Flat 828 until 2000
* Tina Moore (1942- ), first wife of footballer ]Bobby Moore
Robert Frederick Chelsea Moore (12 April 1941 – 24 February 1993) was an English professional footballer. He most notably played for West Ham United, captaining the club for more than ten years, and was the captain of the England natio ...
is currently a resident in the building
*Alan Merrill
Alan Merrill (born Allan Preston Sachs; February 19, 1951 – March 29, 2020) was an American vocalist, guitarist and songwriter. In the early 1970s, he was one of the few resident foreigners to achieve pop star status in Japan. He was the write ...
(1951–2020) American rock singer and songwriter, wrote the song I Love Rock 'n' Roll
"I Love Rock 'n' Roll" is a rock song written by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker and first recorded by the Arrows, a British rock band, in 1975. A 1981 cover version by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, released as the first single from her album of ...
while living in Flat 337 Nell Gwynn House in 1975[
Mark McStea,]
Alan Merrill tells the story of I Love Rock 'n' Roll in his final Guitar World interview
31 March 2020, accessed 11 December 2020
In February 2013, a blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
was unveiled by Barbara J. Stephenson, the deputy chief of mission at the United States Embassy in London
The Embassy of the United States of America in London is the diplomatic mission of the United States in the United Kingdom. It is located in Nine Elms and is the largest American embassy in Western Europe and the focal point for events relating ...
, in honour of the social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
. It is located on the Whiteheads Grove elevation of the block, standing on the site of the London house of the British abolitionist George Thompson, with whom Douglass stayed in 1846, while lecturing in London.[
]
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nell Gwynn House
Chelsea, London
Residential buildings in London
Residential buildings completed in 1937
Art Deco architecture in London
Nell Gwyn