Worlds End Estate Area
At the western end of the King’s Road lies World’s End, a district of Chelsea, London. Once a slum area during Victorian times, council houses were constructed here during the 20th century, including the brutal style World’s End Estate.
History
Located in Chelsea, London, World’s End. The next image is Cary’s New And Accurate Plan of London (1868). This is a detailed map of South London and Westminster.
The area can be traced back to the 17th century public house of that name, The World’s End. The origins of the names of public houses are obscure, as is the case with the area named Elephant and Castle. The modern connotations of the phrase will likely mislead attempts to explain the name World’s End. An alternative explanation is that the word “end” simply refers to a field in Old English. There are many villages and hamlets in Britain that have been called World’s End since medieval times, suggesting that the name is simply agricultural.
Near Milman Street, on the King’s Road, there is a bar called “The World’s End.” Throughout the reign of Charles II this was a notable house of entertainment. The tea-gardens and grounds were extensive, and decorated in a style suitable for the reception of company. This house is commonly referred to as “The World’s End” due to its great distance from London, and the very bad state of the roads and paths leading to it.
Granny Takes a Trip, a fashion boutique owned by the trendy set at the end of the Kings Road, became the perfect location for the trendy set to locate his high-end boutique Granny Takes a Trip. World’s End was home to several hippie shops, like Gandalf’s Garden, which sold candles, incense, and self-help books. Sophisticat specialized in selling re-conditioned pine furniture and housed Christian, a lion cub. There was a sweet store you could shop at at 28 Blantyre Street. By the way it was located in Carnarvon. Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton and Keith Richards were frequent customers of the shop.
Housing
In the late 1960s, the Chelsea Borough Council erected some new social housing, which was named after an ancient garden that once stood on the same site. The Cremorne Estate was a particular example. World’s End red brick towers destroyed several more Victorian terraced houses beginning in the 1970s. Designed by Jim Cadbury-Brown and Eric Lyons, the estate also features brutalist architecture.