In 1977 The Queen's Silver Jubilee was marked with celebrations at every level throughout the country and Commonwealth.
The actual anniversary of The Queen's accession on 6 February 1952 was commemorated in church services throughout that month. The Queen spent the anniversary weekend at Windsor with her family and the full jubilee celebrations began in the summer of 1977.
On 4 May at the Palace of Westminster both Houses of Parliament presented loyal addresses to The Queen, who in her reply stressed that the keynote of the jubilee was to be the unity of the nation.
During the summer months The Queen embarked on a large scale tour, having decided that she wished to mark her jubilee by meeting as many of her people as possible. No other Sovereign had visited so much of Britain in the course of just three months - the six jubilee tours in the UK and Northern Ireland covered 36 counties. The home tours began in Glasgow on 17 May, with greater crowds than the city had ever seen before. The tours continued throughout England and Wales - in Lancashire over a million people turned out on one day - before culminating in a visit to Northern Ireland.
Official overseas visits were also made to Western Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji, Tasmania, Papua New Guinea, Canada and the West Indies. During the year it was estimated that The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh travelled 56,000 miles.
The climax of the national celebrations came in early June. On the evening of Monday 6 June, The Queen lit a bonfire beacon at Windsor which started a chain of beacons across the country. On Tuesday 7 June, vast crowds saw The Queen drive in the Gold State Coach to St Paul's Cathedral for a Service of Thanksgiving attended by heads of state from around the world and former prime ministers of the UK.
Afterwards The Queen and members of the Royal Family attended a lunch at the Guildhall, in which The Queen made a speech. She declared, "My Lord Mayor, when I was twenty-one I pledged my life to the service of our people and I asked for God's help to make good that vow. Although that vow was made in my salad days, when I was green in judgement, I do not regret nor retract one word of it."
An estimated 500 million people watched on television as the procession returned down the Mall. Back at Buckingham Palace The Queen made several balcony appearances. Street parties and village parties started up all over the country: in London alone 4000 were reported to have been held.
The final event of the central week of celebrations was a river progress down the Thames from Greenwich to Lambeth on Thursday 9 June, emulating the ceremonial barge trips of Elizabeth I. After The Queen had opened the Silver Jubilee Walkway and the new South Bank Jubilee Gardens, the journey ended with a firework display, and a procession of lighted carriages took The Queen back to Buckingham Palace for more balcony appearances to a cheering crowd.
Dovehouse Green is a former burial ground for Chelsea parish church on land given by Sir Hans Sloane in 1733. It was closed for burials by 1882, and became a garden for inmates of the adjacent workhouse. Following war damage it was developed as a garden, with a small part open to the public. It was named Dovehouse Green in 1977 when it was re-landscaped for the Silver Jubilee and laid out with cruciform paths, an obelisk and seating. Some tombstones remain on the perimeter. In 2003 it was refurbished for the Queen's Golden Jubilee and re-opened on 12 June 2003.
The land for the King's Road burial ground to serve Chelsea Parish Church of St Luke's (Chelsea Old Church q.v.) was originally given to the parish in 1733 by Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753). Sloane had purchased the former Chelsea Manor House (once owned by Henry VIII) in 1712 from William Lord Cheyne, but did not live there until 1742; he was responsible for development along the riverside from c.1717. The burial ground was consecrated in 1736 and later enlarged in 1790. It became known as the Old Burial Ground after provision for parish burials was supplemented in 1813 by the opening of a new burial ground, now the site of St Luke's Church and Gardens (q.v.). Among those buried here were Italian painter and engraver Giovanni Battista Cipriani (d.1785), and botanist John Martyn (d.1768), best known for his 'Historia Plantarum Rariorum' (1728-37) and who practiced as a physician in Chelsea. By the 1880s the King's Road burial ground was in a poor state; in 1882 a mortuary was constructed here and the remaining ground was laid out as a garden for the recreational use of the inmates of the adjoining workhouse, and fragments of an old chapel and graveyard were found. This represents an early example of the change of use from a burial ground to a garden.
After war damage in WWII, a scheme of 1947-50 developed the garden, with a small part opened to the public, at which time most of the gravestones were removed and the mortuary demolished. In 1977 it was renamed Dovehouse Green when it was re-landscaped for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, at the instigation of the Chelsea Society, which was also celebrating its Golden Jubilee that year. The landscaping included cruciform paths, areas of grass but largely paved to King's Road; it contained an obelisk, some tombstones on the perimeter and seating. In 2003 it was again refurbished for the Queen's Golden Jubilee and now has Victorian-style lighting columns and lanterns, York stone paths and traditional park benches. The refurbishment project was again suggested by the Chelsea Society and supported by the Rector of St Luke's and Christ Church. The work was carried out by RBKC with funding from the Golden Jubilee Celebrations; it was re-opened on 12 June 2003 at a ceremony officiated by the Mayor and other local dignitaries. There are good displays of daffodils in the spring and the garden provides a quiet area to sit among trees and shrubs. In the north corner is the entrance to Chelsea Farmers Market.