316 



JOURNAL OP HORU'ICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENEK. 



[ April 26, 1677. 



doners at an earlier period, they devoted tbeir attention to the 

 useful rather than to the ornamental. ColviU's nureery the 

 visitor to Chelsea first saw, the ground of that extending Bome 

 distance northward towards the Blacklands estate, but not 

 joining ; the open ground once occupied as a market garden 

 by the family of the Catleugba, and on which now stands 

 St. Mary's convent and schools, Cadogau Terrace, approaching 

 what was called the " Pavilion," and which has recently been 

 demolished to form a new line of road. Colvill's ground hud 

 a rather irregular shape, but that it did cover a largish space 

 would appear from the description of its various buildings. 

 An old plan of Middlesex of the date of 1745 shows a lane 

 turning out of the King's Eoad opposite the Military Asylum 

 (now Blacklands Terrace), which probably bounded the London 

 eide of Colvill's nursery ; and on the weet the boundary can 

 be exactly fixed, for it was in the line of a street now named 

 " Keppel," and not so many years ngo " Butterfly Alley," once 

 a walk with neat hedges on each side. No doubt it really had 

 once its butterflies, attracted to the tpot by the flowers in the 

 gardens and greenhouses of Colvill and Davey, for this lane 

 separated their grounds. Mr. Pratt, an occasional visitant to 

 Chelsea and a poet, whose "delightful" and "exquisite" 

 verses had a small circle of admirers, commemorated these in 

 a poem, from which we may extract a few lines : — 

 " Wheic smiliDg Chelsea spreads the cultured lands 



Sacred to Flora a pavilion sland" ; 



And yet a second temple neiRbbnuring near, 



Norses the fragrance of the various year. 



Of Davey this, of Colvill that, the care. 



While both the favour of the godde=i8 share ; 



But not for her — the Deity of flowers — 



Alone the Inceosc breathes— still higher powers; 



Fair Venus marks each temple for her own. 



And Fashion sits upon a blossomed throne." 

 Tho imagery savours of the ludicrous, but we let that pass 

 88 we turn to the prosaic account of the nursery belonging to 

 Colvill, which we find in the pages of the usually veracious 

 Faulkner. The principal conservatory lay a little back from 

 the King's Road, and, says this author, "it was scientifically 

 divided into two compartments, the largest part occupied by 

 what are generally termed greenhouse plants, which are planted 

 out in a bed of earth, and grow as luxuriantly as if they were 

 in the soil and under the clime of their respective countries. 

 The other part consists of tropical plants, and requires to be 

 kept up to a tropical heat throughout the year." Then, with 

 a frontage to the King's Road, another handsome conservatory 

 was almost exclusively occupied by Geraniums, and here were 

 reared many of the specimens described and figured in Mr. 

 Sweet's work on the Geraniaceie. There were also smaller 

 houses for exotics, heated both in winter and in summer; in 

 one of these a display was made of the genus Amaryllis. The 

 Bight of three hundred plants blooming at once seems to have 

 rather astonished the Chelsea historian. In another house of 

 some altitude was placed the trunk of a large Elm, to which 

 were nailed in various positions shells of cocoa-nuts ; and para- 

 sitical plants, many of them Orchidaceous, were inserted in 

 these, Colvill's establishment was closed about forty years 

 ago, making way for a row of shops which until recently re- 

 tained the name of the former resident. 



About Mr. Thomas Davey'a nursery there is not much on 

 record, but it probably was at first a nursery and market gar- 

 den combined, for early in this century he disposed of a part 

 of his ground to the Messrs. Downing, who removed their 

 floor-cloth establishment to the north side of the road from 

 its position nearly opposite, and Davey continued cultivating 

 the remainder of tho ground until his death in April, 1833, at 

 the good age of seventy-seven, after which the land was soon 

 let on building leases. An old resident in Chelsea, the late 

 Samuel Shepherd, F.S. A., wrote some memorial lines on Davey, 

 representing his flowers as mourning his decease, and con- 

 cluding with this stanza : — 



" Though sun and showeiti each following year 

 Shall with ni w life your bloBsomB rear, 

 No more on earth will he appear— 



From life he's fled ; 

 But in the dark and dreary tomb 

 No more his pleasing toil resume, 

 'U'hile you each year shall bud and bloom 

 Though Davey's dead." 



This gardener furnished one of the many examples adducible 

 that the horticultural business is very favourable to longevity, 

 though it may develope in some men rheumatic affections, often 

 painful yet not materially abridging life. A shop just beyond 

 the premises formerly occupied by the Messrs. Downing is said 

 to stand where the entrance to Davey's nursery was ; also it 



is said that both were much " patronised by the nobility." 

 Flanking Chelsea Common, which was situate between the 

 King's Road and Erompton or Little Chelsea, there were at one 

 time orchards of some extent belonging to the market gardeners, 

 and I am afraid some of those who were predecessors to Col- 

 vill and Davey in the King's Road were not overscrnpulouB 

 about appropriating some part of the common land for their 

 use and benefit by insidiously shifting the boundaries of the 

 ground they had in cultivation. The parish books, moreover, 

 show one instance at least where the Chelsea gardeners got 

 into trouble because they took the liberty of digging pits on the 

 common for the purpose of fermenting their manure in the 

 manner then much in vogue. The ponds here were doubtless 

 made free use of by the gardeners. It should be remembered 

 that in Pond Place, in the Fulham Road edge of the common, 

 once lived William Curtis, whose " Botanical Magazine," 

 started in 1787, attained a sale which was remarkable ninety 

 years since, and who was one of the earliest who advocated the 

 formation of natural history societies, which should be at once 

 scientific and friendly in their tone. Curtis made an attempt at 

 a botanic garden in that unpromising locality Lambeth Marsh, 

 and after eighteen years' occupancy he removed his plants in 

 17^0 to a nursery at (^lueen's Elm, Erompton, concerning 

 which more hereafter. 



Returning to the King's Road we next observe that the land 

 on which the Royal Military Asylum was built at the com- 

 mencement of this century was part of the glebe of Chelsea , 

 and doubtless cultivated by market gardeners at an earlier 

 time, though nothing particular survives relative to its history. 

 A little farther on was a nursery garden nearly opposite to 

 Colvill's and Davey's establishments, occupying, I suspect, the 

 open space leading down to the principal entrance of the Chel- 

 sea Hospital, now " Royal Avenue," and probably joining the 

 old house called " Whitelands," and an old resident tells mo 

 it was known as " Whiteland's Nursery." This went the 

 way of many other London nurseries — disappearing, and leav- 

 ing no trace ; as did also another once belonging to a Mr. 

 Moore, which was a short distance beyond Davey's nursery, 

 on the north side of the Kitjg's Pioad. 01 all the nurseries 

 dotted along the part of the King's Eoad that associated with 

 the name of Little alone remains, and still does some amount 

 of business, having been honoured for years past with occa- 

 sional royal patronage. I am unable to carry its history 

 farther back than to the time when it was owned by the grand- 

 father of the present proprietor; it was then more extensive, 

 having undergone curtailment during this century. There were 

 once suflicient fruit trees at the rear to afford temptation to 

 the Chelsea boys, for a resident remembers that when he was a 

 youngster about thirty years ago he was at this nursery on an 

 evening visit, and on a sudden alarm being given that there 

 were depredators amongst the fruit he and others rushed out 

 — half in jest, half in earnest — to scare them off, armed with 

 pokers, sticks, and whatever missiles were easily attainable. 

 The ground, now much enclosed by houses and overshadowed 

 by a factory, is below tho level of the adjacent land, insuffi- 

 ciently drained ; but Mr. Little does not cultivate much save 

 under the protection of glass, and the generation will soon rise 

 up when one might seek in vain for traces of this nursery. 

 Probably it only awaits the expiration of a lease to vanish, as 

 did the establishment of Mr. Rolls, formerly near Chelsea 

 Vestry Hall, not many steps beyond Little's Nursery, and re- 

 ported to have fronted the road where Argyll House now 

 stands. This was but a small establishment in proximity to 

 it, and on the opposite or north side of the road was the more 

 extensive property for many years in the possession of the 

 Hutchins family. 



The history of the Hntchins goes back a long way in tho 

 eighteenth century. There were market gardeners of this name 

 in the Five Fields, and also at Kensington ; at the latter place 

 there was ground belonging to a Mr. Hutchins subseciuent to the 

 occupancy of the Chelsea land by houses and other buildings. 

 At one period this property was called " Chelsea Farm," hut it 

 must be distinguished from another Chelsea farm farther west, 

 and close to the river. The market gardens belonging to Mr. 

 Hutchins seem to have occupied that block in the King's Road 

 which lies between Robert and Church Streets; just by the 

 latter, where the market garden ended, the road narrowed 

 considerably, and a bar was fixed across, there being a path 

 for foot passengers only upon one side. Oakley (now Carlyle) 

 Square, probably Chelsea Workhouse, and two or three lines of 

 streets cross the former site of these market gardens, a small 

 strip of which— situate between Robert and Arthur Streets, and 



