Arthur Ransome has been honoured with an English Heritage London Blue Plaque for one of his first homes in the city. He lived at No. 1 Gunter Grove, Chelsea, in the front ground-floor room, between the spring of 1904 and October 1905.

The English Heritage plaque was ‘unveiled’, virtually, this month (April), by means of a press release, and the following quote from the Nancy Blackett Trust’s Patron Dame Ellen MacArthur, who has often cited Ransome’s stories as one of the inspirations behind her passion for sailing:

“What I loved about Arthur Ransome’s books was not just the spirit of adventure, but the way he conveyed it. He was able, somehow, to step into the minds of each of the characters quite individually, and not only bring them to life, but give them real personalities. His books are a real joy to read as a child or an adult, and encapsulate a time of freedom, simplicity and adventure which I believe should not be forgotten.”

No. 1 Gunter Grove was not Arthur Ransome’s first London address, but was the first to be mentioned by name in his autobiography. It was also where his first book of essays, The Souls of the Streets, was delivered to him on publication. 

Edward Thomas took another room in the house for a few weeks, and some of the Collingwoods, including Dora and Barbara, stayed in a flat that Ransome found for them nearby in Edith Grove.

“Those were wonderful days in the winter of 1904,” Ransome wrote. “With the Collingwoods just round the corner, I had the lake country with me here in London, and a whole family who shared the simple view that, so long as it was possible to pay one’s way without actually starving, work was what mattered and money of no importance whatever. I never starved but I was always hungry.”

It was here that Ransome also perfected his method of cooking a haddock (pour boiling water over it and read for another ten minutes) and from where, in October 1905, that he was to move to Carlyle Studios.