Have you noticed this structure just off the King’s Road at the end of Dovehouse Street? It is a flight of stairs leading nowhere used to train firemen to deal with fires in blocks of flats. There are more beautiful buildings in Chelsea, two of which have a military heritage.
This is a view I always enjoy, looking south from the King’s Road to the Royal Hospital, home to Chelsea pensioners. A little nearer Sloane Square is the Duke of York’s barracks, now home to the Saatchi Gallery and with an adjacent residential development.
Its military heritage is commemorated in part by this, I think poignant, plaque.
The Royal Hospital was, of course, designed by Christopher Wren after the Restoration. It has a connection with Turks Row in that in the 18th century many impoverished soldiers came to live in slum conditions here, trying to get assistance from the Royal Hospital.
The Duke of York’s Barracks was designed by John Sanders, a pupil of John Soane. Sanders also designed the Old College at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the similarity is marked.
My walk along the King’s Road was the prelude to an enjoyable lunch in the Duke of York’s Square.
The firemens’ stairs & all those grand buildings you mention were on my cycle route to work for many years so of course I enjoyed them but I have never notice the War memorial so when I go to COLLECT tomorrow I shall look. Or, if the light is too dim, when I go to BADA in mid-March