Blakes Hotel

The Paris Pullman is a former arthouse cinema, in the Brompton district, of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea London, England. It was closed and the building sold for redevelopment in 1983.

Bolton's Theatre Club in Drayton Gardens, Brompton, London launched in 1947 in a building originally opened in 1911 as the Radium Picture Playhouse. By operating as a club where membership was obligatory, the theatre was able to stage plays which might otherwise be prohibited under the Theatres Act 1843. Many of its plays transferred to the West End.After closure and conversion the building was reopened in 1955 as the Paris Pullman Cinema, which showed art-house films until its final closure and demolition in 1983. James Quinn was one of its directors.

Roland Gardens is a street in South Kensington, London SW7. It runs north to south from Old Brompton Road to Drayton Gardens at its southern end, where it becomes Evelyn Gardens.

Drayton Gardens is a residential street linking the areas of Chelsea and South Kensington, London SW10. It runs roughly north to south from Old Brompton Road to Fulham Road.

Hollywood Road is a residential street in the Brompton area, London, SW10. It runs roughly north to south from Tregunter Road to Fulham Road. The area is now located inside the Boltons Conservation Area, set up in 1970 by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. Hollywood Road was put up early in the 1860s, before the more famous Hollywood in California was settled.

The National Laboratory of Psychical Research was established in 1926 by Harry Price, at 16 Queensberry Place, London. Its aim was "to investigate in a dispassionate manner and by purely scientific means every phase of psychic or alleged psychic phenomena". The honorary president was Lord Sands, K.C., LL.D., acting president was H. G. Bois, and the honorary director was Harry Price. In 1930 the Laboratory moved from Queensberry Square, where it had been a tenant of the London Spiritualist Alliance to 13 Roland Gardens. In 1938, its library was transferred on loan to the University of London.The National Laboratory of Psychical Research was a rival to the Society for Psychical Research. Price had a number of disputes with the SPR, most notably over the mediumship of Rudi Schneider. Price paid mediums to test them, the SPR criticised Price and disagreed about paying mediums for testing.In 1934 the Laboratory was replaced by the University of London Council for Psychical Investigation (not an official body of the University) under the Chairmanship of C. E. M. Joad with Harry Price as Hon. Secretary. John Flügel, Cyril Burt, Cecil Alec Mace and Francis Aveling were members of the Council. Price suspended the operations of the Council in 1938. It was never revived.

Evelyn Gardens is a garden square in Chelsea, London, England.

Harley Gardens is a residential street in Chelsea, London SW10. It runs roughly north to south from Priory Walk to Milborne Grove, parallel to the west of Drayton Gardens, and lies just north of Fulham Road.

The Royal Society of Sculptors is a British charity established in 1905 which promotes excellence in the art and practice of sculpture. Its headquarters are a centre for contemporary sculpture on Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, London. It is the oldest and largest organisation dedicated to sculpture in the UK. Until 2017 it was the Royal British Society of Sculptors.The Royal Society of Sculptors is a registered charity with a selective membership of around 700 professional sculptors, promoting excellence in the art and practice of sculpture. It aims to inspire, inform and engage people of all ages and backgrounds with sculpture, and to support sculptors' development of their practice to the highest professional standards.

St Yeghiche Armenian Church (Armenian: Սուրբ Եղիշե եկեղեցի) is the largest church of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Great Britain. It faces Cranley Gardens, South Kensington, London. The church was privately built in 1867 as St Peter's Anglican Church by highly successful developer, Charles James Freake, whose widow came to live later in life in one of the adjacent houses. It became the Church of England parish church of Kensington (St Peter's).By an Order in Council of December 1972 Saint Peter's was declared redundant with the intention that the building be leased to the Armenian Orthodox Church. Anglican services ceased in January 1973.The building was purchased by a benefactor in 1998 and restored, with the addition of features required by the Armenian Divine Liturgy. Another Armenian church in Kensington, of the traditional Armenian style, is St Sarkis.

The Budokwai (The Way of Knighthood Society) (武道会, Budōkai, Society of the Martial Way) in London is the oldest Japanese martial arts club in Europe. It was founded in 1918 by Gunji Koizumi and initially offered tuition in jujutsu, kendo, and other Japanese martial arts. It was the first judo club in Europe.

Parsons Restaurant (full name: Parsons Old Spaghetti Factory and Coffee House) at 311 Fulham Road in London opened on 2 December 1970 and closed on 3 August 1997. It was started by two architects, Alexander Neel and Michael Tickner, who had met while doing a year out of their course in San Francisco – they were impressed with a restaurant there called The Old Spaghetti Factory and Coffee House and decided that it was exactly what London needed in 1970. Michael Tickner, one of the two architects, designed the "look" – large Victorian mirrors, Victorian tip-top tables, bentwood chairs, potted palms, hanging ferns, ceiling fans, swan-neck lamps, and butterflies on the walls. Tickner had previously designed the first Biba.Very few eateries in London in the 1960s had been designed for young people. Two of them were just down the road: the first PizzaExpress (Peter Boizot), and The Great American Disaster (Peter Morton) who later founded the Hard Rock Cafe with Isaac Tigrett), which was the first place in London to sell authentic American burgers. Parsons was one of the leaders in this trend for casual dining, becoming instantly fashionable, with queues forming in the street outside and strangers sharing tables inside. The waiting staff were as young and trendy – some of them also from America, dodging the Vietnam draft – as the clientele, and the atmosphere in the evenings was glamorous and electric, a constant party to the background of loud funky music and the "in" crowd hosted by Tickner at one of the large tables in the shopfront. The theatrical setting was as much the attraction as the food. The concept was much copied, in particular by Browns Restaurants in Brighton in 1973, which even adopted the unusual shape of the menu, and was subsequently replicated as a formula by Browns in a number of other cities in the UK.Early reviews of the food were not particularly enthusiastic; Quentin Crewe praised the décor but was lukewarm about the spaghetti. In 1972 Humphrey Lyttelton liked the friendliness of the staff and the good value. The décor and ambience were praised by Vogue and Time Out.As the business matured the food improved, and it was an early adopter of the idea of traceability, buying all its meat from the mid 1980s from the Lower Hurst Farm herd of Herefords and Texels in Derbyshire, well before BSE became a problem. Jonathan Meades, writing for The Times stated "If one is going to eat hamburgers – and this one usually isn’t – Parsons is probably the place to do it."One of the other reasons that Parsons endured was the very low turnover of staff at a time when restaurants were a byword for "bus-stop" labour. It was not unusual for them to remain for 10 years or more, possibly because the working environment was enjoyable. One Moroccan kitchen worker, "Benma" Benhmadouch, employed as a washer-up on day one, was Head Chef by the time the restaurant closed, and his brother Ahmed was also employed for nearly twenty years; together with four others they served over 100 man years at Parsons.Number 311 was on a stretch of the Fulham Road popularly known as "The Beach". The origin of this name is a classic urban myth; first used as a humorous reference to the fashionable flaneurs of the area by Pat Connolly, who supplied meat to the restaurant prior to Lower Hurst Farm, it was relayed as established fact during an interview with Jonathan Meades, who then included the "fact" in a review, and the term became common currency.