The Royal Hospital in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, designed as a retirement and nursing home for some 400 English soldiers unfit for duty because injury or old age, opened in 1692.
The medieval tradition of monastic care for disabled and maimed soldiers had been destroyed by the Reformation. Parliament debated the health and rehabilitation problem for more than a century without any satisfactory conclusion, despite the demands inflicted by bloody conflicts, which included the English Civil War. It was not until the reign of Charles II, with the establishment of a regular army, that plans were implemented. There is a legend (with no supporting evidence) that the hospital was suggested to the King by his long-term mistress, the ‘orange wench’ Nell Gwyn.
The Council Chamber – designed by Wren, embellished by Robert Adam – exhibits top artistry and craftsmanship: a heavily moulded ceiling, displaying James II’s cipher, is the work of the master plasterer John Grove, the wainscoting was produced by joiner William Cleere and the lime wood carving above the fireplace is by leading woodcarver William Emmett.
What is clear is that the concept of a military hostel-hospital was inspired by Les Invalides in Paris. Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned as architect. The architectural scale and scope of the Royal Hospital was, for the 1680s, hugely impressive, and today it is viewed as a Wren masterpiece.
Running parallel between the Thames and the road from Chelsea to Westminster, the four-storey dark-red brick edifice contains a huge dining hall and chapel separated by a vestibule crowned with a central cupola. There are red brick window dressings, and a central portico supported by four Doric columns whose pediment is pierced by a central clock.
The hospital’s vestibule or entrance, standing between the Great Hall and the chapel, is octagonal in design, while the octagon itself supports the hospital’s cupola and lantern, which rises to a height of about 130 ft (40 m). The vestibule is lit by a large south window above the doorway, along with the upper lantern, allowing so much light in that the area glows like a candlelit cathedral.
The octagonal ceiling of the vestibule rises into an eight-sided dome, with cupola and lantern.
That main building and its two corresponding wings combine around three sides of the hospital’s great open quadrangle, while many acres of parkland sweep down towards the Thames. Adjoining this central group there are smaller two-storey buildings exuding an aura of rural domesticity. Here is a cloistered walk giving access to side courts while trapping the benefits of sunlight for the old soldiers.
The state apartments consist of two main rooms: the Council Chamber and the Anteroom. The Council Chamber, an oak-panelled room designed by Wren and embellished by Robert Adam, was designed as a dining room for visiting dignitaries.
In the apartments are a painting of Charles I and his family, attributed to the school of Van Dyke, and portraits of Charles II, Queen Catherine, James, Duke of York, the Earl of Ranelagh, Sir Stephen Fox and Sir Christopher Wren are by Kneller, Lely and Van Dyke himself.
The ceiling of the chapel is a semi-circular barrel vault of creamy white plaster divided into geometrical sections, whose elaborate stucco ornaments comprise fruit, flowers and cherubim. The walls are punctuated with high semi-circular windows, the floor is laid with black and white diagonal squares and the Corinthian-style Irish oak altar screen is attributed to Grinling Gibbons. A large gilded cross adorns the altar as do a fine pair of gilt candlesticks, and a mahogany pulpit looks down at a congregation that might number up to a few hundred.
The entrance to the Christopher Wren chapel.
The Great Hall, the Royal Hospital’s biggest room, is used as a communal dining facility for the Chelsea Pensioners. Its many paintings include portraits of Sir Christopher Wren, Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington.
The Great Hall’s west wall is dominated by a painting of Charles II on horseback surrounded by allegorical figures, executed by Antonio Verrio and completed by Henry Cooke; captured colours displayed along the side walls include French, Dutch and American flags.
At the centre of Wren’s original architectural design lies an area called Figure Court, and this is oldest part of the Royal Hospital. Bordered by the state apartments, chapel and Great Hall, the courtyard space is dominated by a statue of Charles II that was presented to the King in 1682.
Nearly all the buildings at Chelsea that gain attention today were designed by Wren, but that was not always the case. Just over a hundred years after the hospital was built, Sir John Soane was appointed Clerk of Works and this distinguished architect designed several new buildings, including an enlarged infirmary, as the Royal Hospital grew to keep pace with the demands generated by the Napoleonic Wars. Soane’s infirmary fell victim to a V-2 rocket in 1944 and has been twice since been supplanted by modern buildings. The full extent of the Wren garden, which once went down to the river, cannot be appreciated since the creation of the Chelsea Embankment.
A bronze one-and-a-half life size statue of a Pensioner, commissioned by the Royal Hospital for the millennium, depicts an old soldier in a three-quarter length coat, adorned with campaign medals, and a tricorn hat. His right hand holds a walking stick raised in defiance of the world, his left hand clutches an oak branch referring to the Battle of Worcester (after which Charles I took refuge in an oak tree).
