Note 130 — Chapter IX · THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL

“Considerable confusion exists as to the identity of some of these historical houses. Messrs. Wheatley and Cunningham, in their most useful London Past and Present, seem to think that Sir Thomas More resided in Chelsea Manor before Katherine Parr came to live there. After the execution of More his estate at Chelsea was confiscated by Henry VIII and given to the Marquess of Winchester. Chelsea New Manor, which was inhabited by Katherine Parr and others,—and, under the Commonwealth, by Bulstrode Whitelock,—came into the hands of the Duke of Buckingham, who sold it to the Duke of Beaufort (hence Beaufort Street). It was purchased in 1738 by Sir Hans Sloane, who pulled it down in 1740. There is, moreover, local tradition, and even historical evidence, that there were two distinct manors at Chelsea in the first half of the sixteenth century—Chelsea New Manor, and Chelsea Old Manor. Dr. King, in his MS. account of Chelsea, says that the ‘old manor-house stood near the church.’ This is the house associated with the deaths of Anne of Cleves and of the old Duchess of Northumberland. He mentions another house, Chelsea New Manor, standing on that part of Cheyne Walk which adjoins Winchester House, and extends as far as ‘Don Saltero’s coffee house.’ ‘This house was built by Henry VIII as a nursery for his children, and here Katherine Parr lived.’ A picture of it in Faulkner’s Chelsea shows it not unlike St. James’s Palace. Small turrets communicate with the chimneys; the windows are long and high, and one of them has a Tudor arch on top. On the site of the present Durham House, Durham Terrace, the town residence of Sir Bruce and Lady Seton, there stood, not so many years ago, an ancient wainscoted house with a fine staircase, rather mysteriously connected by report with Jane Grey, who, according to a local tradition, lived here before she was made queen. In the beginning of the century this house was made a fashionable school for young ladies, but was pulled down in 1860 to make room for the present mansion.”—Mr. Richard Davey’s Pageant of London, vol. i. p. 379.