2 Carlyle Mansions
Walter Seckham Witherington
1886
Cheyne Walk/Lawrence Street, Chelsea
Carlyle Mansions, named in honour of the sage, who had lived nearby, has earned the tongue-in-cheek sobriquet "The Writers' Block." Henry James (no. 21), T.S. Eliot (no. 19) and other writers have lived in this six-storey apartment building close to the Chelsea Embankment. James, who called it "the haunt of the sage and the seagull" (qtd. in Tagholm 42), died here in 1916.
Photograph and text 2006 by Jacqueline Banerjee.
On the south-west side of the building, on Lawrence Street, are ten paired white-painted stone relief panels of birds, wild flowers etc. These are listed by the Public Monument and Sculpture Association, and dated 1888 (despite the date over the doorway, which is 1886). The decorative panels over the doorway itself, depicting vases of flowers, are more formal in design. Possibly they were done by someone else. The work is very eye-catching against the red of the bricks, and completely in keeping with the atmosphere of this artistic quarter of London, where Smollett, Sterne, Leigh Hunt, Rossetti, Swinburne, George Eliot, George Gissing, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker and others lived at one time or another.
Left: Decorative panels on the Lawrence Street side of Carlyle Mansions. Right: tone panel on the front of Carlyle Mansions. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Related Material
Reference
Tagholm, Roger. Walking Literary London: 25 Original Works through London's Literary Heritage. London: New Holland, 2001.
Last modified 31 December 2005