Chelsea is an affluent neighborhood in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, England. Known to the Anglo-Saxons as Cealchytð ("landing place for chalk"), Chelsea was home to a medieval Norman manor which was acquired by King Henry VIII in 1536. Henry's wives Catherine Parr and Anne of Cleves lived at the manor house, as did Queen Elizabeth I of England; Thomas More lived roughly next door at Beaufort House. In 1682, King Charles II of England founded Royal Hospital Chelsea, and, by 1694, Chelsea was a wealthy village with a population of 3,000. Chelsea continued to serve London as a market garden until the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century led to Chelsea becoming an artists' colony; Chelsea acquired a reputation as a bohemian neighborhood and was a center of the Swinging Sixties during the 1960s. By 2011, Chelsea had a population of 41,440 people, and Chelsea - in spite of its history as an alternative neighborhood - was a Conservative Party stronghold.
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