To spot Chapel House, just look for the large, three-storey red-brick Georgian house on your left with tall windows, surrounded by a low brick wall and a slightly leaning tree up front.
Welcome to Chapel House, or as it’s also been known, Tennyson House and Holyrood House! Take in that early Georgian brickwork-this building has seen its fair share of famous faces and stories. Picture the year 1721: Captain John Gray, a retired naval officer, supervises the final brick being laid. The Captain even had his own private chapel built nearby. If you listen closely, you might just imagine the soft clatter of horse-drawn carriages outside, coming to a halt at this quiet, grand address.
But it’s not just old sailors who fell for this house’s charms. Step into the 1850s, and imagine the poet Alfred Tennyson peering anxiously through these windows. Tennyson was so desperate to live here that he wrote a grumpy letter to a friend when he thought he’d lost it to someone else! “The most lovely house with a beautiful view in every room… all for 50 guineas! A lady has taken it. I cursed my stars!” Luckily, the fates smiled on the poet, and Tennyson and his family moved in just a year later. He wrote every morning, perhaps right behind one of those pine-panelled walls, while his infant son Hallam was born upstairs.
Just think-in these rooms, Tennyson penned his famous “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.” That’s some serious poetic mojo floating about. But life wasn’t always peaceful, even in such an idyllic spot. After the family moved away to the Isle of Wight, Tennyson’s mother Elizabeth moved in, carrying on the tradition of keeping the house full of stories.
Let the time machine spin forward again, and the famous blue plaque out front now reminds you: “Tennyson lived here.” Chapel House has always had a knack for attracting interesting residents. Flash forward to the 1980s, and into these grand halls marches Pete Townshend, principal songwriter for The Who, guitar in hand and maybe just a bit more rock’n’roll than his poetic predecessors. Pete raised his children here, and if you head down the garden path, you’ll find a cottage at the end-a secret retreat where Townshend wrote, recorded, and even filmed a music video! Let’s picture the gentle creak of old wooden stairs upstairs and the distant hum of a melody drifting from the garden studio.
But life didn’t always play a sweet tune here. In 2005, disaster struck when a fire tore through the house during renovations. Sirens wailed, firemen rushed in, and although the main structure survived, the restored woodwork had to fight another day. Now, thanks to careful and loving restoration, both Tennyson’s and Townshend’s spirits linger in snug panelling and under painted ceilings.
One last thing: Chapel House’s story isn’t just found at No. 15. Neighboring houses have their own tales, too-antiquarian Joseph Skelton lived next door and the poet Walter de la Mare once gazed from his windows, even getting a wartime warning for failing to block out his lights! Apparently, he wanted his poems to be seen from outer space.
So, as you stand here and gaze up, you’re not just looking at a house, you’re sharing the pavement with poets, rock stars, artists and their ghosts-each one leaving a trace on Montpelier Row.
