Chelsea Garden Squares: Paultons Square

By Lydia Mansi on October 1st 2010

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Paultons Square was one of the first of Chelsea’s garden squares to be initiated after the opening of the Kings Road and also one of the only to be fully completed at that time, whereas many of the others took a number of decades to be fully completed. The name of Paultons originates from another family connection with lord of the manor, Sir Hans Sloane. This part of the manor had been passed to Sloane’s daughter, Sarah, who married George Stanley, whose country seat was Paultons in Hampshire.

Prior to the building of Paultons Square, the area was part of the gardens to one of the early Chelsea palaces, Danvers House, which was the former home of Sir John Danvers in the 16th and 17th centuries. The northern section was also linked with the kitchen gardens of another of the large country houses, Beaufort House, which had been the home of Sir Thomas More during the 16th century. However, by the early 19th century, this area had become Shepherd’s nursery garden.

The 1851 census shows that early residents of Paultons Square were from the affluent professional classes, with lawyers, merchants, engineers, surveyors, government clerks and military men, as well as civil servants, house agents, a surgeon and an ‘artist on glass’.

Today, Paultons Square is Grade II listed and features stucco on the ground floor and cornices, arched ground floor windows and wrought iron balconies. The western row of terraces facing the Kings Road was called Stanley Terrace, and still retains the plaque ‘Stanley Terrace 1840’. During the 1960s it was threatened with demolition, but fortunately was saved through a London County Council preservation order.

Paultons Square has been described as ‘one of the most gracious of Chelsea squares’ and has been preserved as a complete late Georgian Square. In 1961, shortly after it had received a preservation order, former president of the Royal Academy, Sir Albert Richardson, described Paultons Square as “practically unspoilt and constitutes one of the most pleasant features in the district”.

Paultons Square has been the home of artist and etcher, William Walter Burgess; official war artist, Paul Nash, who lived at No.19 until May 1912; writer and lexicographer, Henry Watson Fowler (1858-1933) who lived at No.14 Paultons Square; and historian, Mary Dorothy George lived at No.51 Paultons Square until 1971.

The square was also the home of painter and art historian, Sir Lawrence Burnett Gowing, who also later moved to No.25 Wellington Square; novelist and translator, Wilhelmina Johnston Muir (pseudonym Agnes Neill Scott) (1890-1970) lived in the basement of No.47A Paultons Square; poet and literary scholar, Kathleen Jessie Raine lived at No.47 Paultons Square; and sculptor, Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (1924-2005) lived in a flat in Kathleen’s house.

Chelsea Garden Squares: Paultons Square

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