Portals to the Past

On a quiet Chelsea street between the River Thames and the bustling King’s Road, the odd passer-by pauses to ponder two small blue plaques set into the red-brick walls of numbers 30 and 34. Once home to the composer Philip Arnold Heseltine and wit and dramatist Oscar Wilde respectively, the circular signs serve as a reminder of these famous names and help us make the imaginative leap that connects us with the past.

Tite Street, as this particular street is called, was a fashionable location for those of an artistic disposition in the late 19th century, and its most famous resident, Wilde, moved into number 34 with his wife in 1884. The house’s plaque, like others all over London,