Living in Chelsea

Chelsea is built along the King's Road, which runs from Sloane Square west towards Fulham. The road was the centre of Swinging London in the 1960s and the birthplace of punk fashion in the 1970s; today it is an upmarket shopping street with fashion boutiques, restaurants and cafés, the Saatchi Gallery at its eastern end and the Royal Court Theatre on Sloane Square.

The riverside is quieter and grander. Cheyne Walk and Chelsea Embankment are lined with historic houses facing the Thames, many associated with artists and writers, and the Chelsea Physic Garden, founded in the seventeenth century, sits behind high walls near the river. The Royal Hospital Chelsea, home to the Chelsea Pensioners, hosts the Chelsea Flower Show each May. Battersea Park is directly across Albert Bridge.

Housing includes stucco terraces, garden squares, red-brick mansion blocks, mews houses and, towards World's End, large council estates. The rental market is dominated by expensive flats and houses, many furnished and aimed at international professionals, bankers and families.

Transport is Chelsea's surprising weakness. Sloane Square, on the Circle and District lines, serves the eastern end, and South Kensington is to the north, but much of the King's Road and the western part of Chelsea is a long walk from any tube station, so buses along the King's Road do a lot of work. Stamford Bridge, Chelsea FC's ground, is actually just over the border in Fulham. Chelsea suits people who want a polished, attractive, affluent neighbourhood with shops, restaurants and the river close by, and who are comfortable relying on buses and paying some of the highest rents in London.