Chelsea is a mixture of Victorian terraces, some Edwardian flats and an assortment of older buildings, including Crosby Hall, the Old Rectory and Beaumont House, which break-up the area’s consistent pattern. Paultons Square and Carlyle Square are the area’s two major green spaces, though there is also a linear park in between the Chelsea Embankment and Cheyne Walk. The area’s predominant function is residential, but has considerable restaurants and pubs scattered fairly evenly. There is also the Jamahiriya School, located near the Old Rectory, a property owned by numerous wealthy magnates over the years. It is a relatively isolated area, which has its own characteristics, with a well-organised, quiet community.

Chelsea Centre is the core of historical Chelsea, with the first of the grand houses built here in 1520 (Beaumont House). King Henry VIII bought a manor here, as he enjoyed Chelsea, and later built a new one on what is today Cheyne Walk. The area would come to be filled with grand retreats, and then fine houses (mostly by literary and scientific figures), but the vast majority of them have disappeared over the years. The area would lose them as lodges and townhouses replaced them, sprawling out from Westminster.

Sir Alexander Fleming lived on 20a Danvers Street. He was the famous discoverer of penicillin, and also won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 1999, he was also named one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, and voted the third ‘greatest Scot’.

The area is quite isolated from rail transport – with the closest station being Sloane Square on the Circle and District lines, and Imperial Wharf on the Overground, both of which can be at least a 20-minute walk away.

Crossrail 2, if approved, would cut through the area and connect it to the rest of London, being minutes from Victoria, Tottenham Court Road and Euston, as well as Clapham Junction and Tooting Broadway down south. The portion going through Chelsea would be fully underground. That said, the Crossrail 2 initiative has suffered a number of challenges and uncertainties. It was hoped that the line would become operational in the 2030s, but now it is expected that detailed plans and studies for it would not start until later in the 2020s, with construction only beginning in the 2030s. That said, the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have for now placed to project on hold.