King's Road

This is the King's Road, Chelsea's classic cultural artery. Here are ten mini-posts about the famous street and what I saw there yesterday. 1) The King in question was Charles II who had it built as a private road to speed his passage to Kew Palace. Access was later extended to the nobility but only if they were in possession of a special token, with plebs forced to travel via the parallel Fulham Road instead. Only in 1830 was the King's Road fully opened up to allcomers, kickstarting wider development in Chelsea, and it's remained a tad posh ever since. 2) It goes on a bit, over a mile and a half, not just the full width of Kensington & Chelsea but a deep nudge into Hammersmith & Fulham. The east end is at Sloane Square and by the time you get to the other end at Sands End the house/shop numbers are up to 646. It then switches to being New King's Road and ends up in the 400s, but Mary Quant barely troubled the Fulham end so I'm ignoring that. 3) King's Road might one day have a…