More Belgravia 1988

Chesham House, Lyall St, Chesham Place, Belgravia, Westminster, London, 1988 88-3f-34-positive_2400
Chesham House, Lyall St, Chesham Place, Belgravia, Westminster, London, 1988 88-3e-34

Chesham House was the Russian Embassy in London from 1853 until 1927, when we ceased to have a Russian Embassy after the foundation of the USSR. Now it hides away in Kensington Palace Gardens. The area was developed in the 1830s on land where leases had been obtained a century earlier by the Whig politician William Lowndes (1652–1724) who acquired the manor of Chesham Bury in Hertfordshire in 1687 and rebuilt the original Bury and manor house of Great Chesham in 1712.

Chesham House, Lyall St, Chesham Place, Belgravia, Westminster, London, 1988 88-3e-33-positive_2400
Chesham House, Lyall St, Chesham Place, Belgravia, Westminster, London, 1988 88-3e-33

In 2007 a large family flat occupying the third floor of this building was featured by Forbes in a listing of London’s Most Expensive Flats – at the time it was valued at a mere £17.5 million. Lowndes is said to be the origin of the phrase “Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves” and that is an awful number of pence.

Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-36-positive_2400
3 Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-36

You can see the rear of Harrods at the right hand edge of this picture. This area was rebuilt completely between around 1890 and 1910, partly becuase of the huge expansion of Harrods and is in a vaguely Queen Anne style. This building has become very familiar to me in more recent years as the home of the embassies of both Colombia and Ecuador, each with a small suite of rooms in a rather impressive building and sharing the entrance with the other occupants.

It was of course from June 2012 to 11 April 2019 the temporary home of Julian Assange, at first granted asylum by Ecuador and then, after a change of government, handed over to the British police and since kept in solitary confinement by the British establishment who clearly hoped he would die in Belmarsh prison. Keeping a police guard outside this building to prevent Assange’s escape cost us a totally unnecessary £12.6 million.

Chelsea House, Lowndes St, Belgravia, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-42-positive_2400
Chelsea House, Lowndes St, Belgravia, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-42

Chelsea House, a tall, curved block on the corner of Lowndes St and Cadogan Place, has around ten residental floors above this street entrance and the luxury shops of its ground floor. There is a second entrance like this around the corner in Lowndes St, and both look to me rather as posh noses stuck on to a rather more utilitarian facade. Above the 7th floor the upper reaches are set back in a largely unsuccessful attempt to disguise the height of the builsing.

Sloane St, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-43-positive_2400
Sloane St, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-43

Sloane St is full of shops seliing expensive clothes to those who think labels are more important than utility, and some seem rather ridiculously styled.

Danish, Peruvian, Embassy, Sloane St, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-44-positive_2400
Danish & Peruvian Embassies, Sloane St, Knightsbridge, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-44

The Danish embassy at left was one of very few modern buildings of distinction in the area and designed by the famous Danish architect Arne Jacobsen, and completed by his practice after his death. It was commisioned in 1969 and existing buildings were demolishes, but the Danes ran out of cash and for four years the site was a car park. Work began again and the foundation stone was laid in 1975 with the building – with added security measure included after the beginning of the IRA attacks was completed in 1977. To its right is a dental practice and then the Peruvian Embassy and another building with adjacent doors.

The Jeeves Ladies, Kate McGill, Pont St, Belgravia, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-46-positive_2400
The Jeeves Ladies, Kate McGill, Pont St, Belgravia, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-3e-46

There is still a Jeeves Dry Cleaners in Pont St, on the corner of Cadogan Lane, but its facade no longer displays the once well-known logo designed for them by Derrick Holmes. The statue by Irish Sculptor Kate McGill was commissioned by Sydney Jacob, who in 1969 founded Jeeves of Belgravia with David Sandeluss. Seven foot tall and weighing around a ton, it appeared on the street overnight in 1974 and is still there, outside a smaller shop on the opposite side of the road and rather obscured by fenced brick boxes around each of a short row of trees.


Clicking on any of the above images will take you to a larger version in my Flickr Album 1988 London Photos, where you can browse forward or back through the pictures in the album.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


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