IF ONLY BUSES were as frequent as football seasons. Barely has one season departed than another is upon us and, with all the hullabaloo of the past couple of months about which city David Beckham would be getting his next haircut in, it seems as if it never left. One of the culprits is the Russian oil tycoon Roman Abramovich, who bought Chelsea Football Club seven weeks ago, sparking tedious debate about which players he planned to acquire. No one has yet thought of building a Tardis to bring back a teenage Pelé to play up front but it can be only a matter of time.

What the club may not have considered as Roman builds his empire is where they will house these new arrivals. Most footballers with London clubs base themselves in Buckinghamshire and Surrey but Frank Lampard and Emmanuel Petit are two Chelsea players who like to live within a hoofed punt of the stadium and, under the Russian’s revolution, Chelski’s cohorts may be expected to be a bit more on hand.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is not a cheap place to live. The average price of a detached home is £2.4 million, and even a poky flat would take up the best part of £400,000. Among the seriously wealthy who have a property here are the inventor James Dyson, who keeps a London pad to vacuum when he isn’t at his country pile, Dodington Park, and Earl Cadogan, who owns 90 acres between Sloane Square and Chelsea Embankment.

The architect Lord Rogers of Riverside lives on Royal Avenue, which was planned by Sir Christopher Wren as a grand boulevard stretching from the Thames to Kensington Palace, only to peter out after a hundred yards because of planning problems. As someone who had to wait six years before getting planning approval for his latest project, Heathrow Terminal 5, Lord Rogers probably appreciates better than most that some things don’t change. Other Chelsea celebrities include Sir David Frost, Felicity Kendal and Rowan Atkinson, not to mention all the bland blondes whose fathers are something in the City and spend their days shopping and their nights flirting with footballers. Once Barbour-clad Sloane Rangers, now they are known, according to Tatler, as “Chessex Girls”, with all the wealth of SW3 and the taste of Dagenham. Their natural habitats are the swanky bars and clubs of the King’s Road area.

For aesthetes, there are plenty of fine examples of Georgian and Victorian architecture in Chelsea. The actress Jane Asher lives in a £6 million Georgian home on Cheyne Walk with her husband, the satirical cartoonist Gerald Scarfe. She also owns a bespoke cake shop in Chelsea.

Cheyne Walk is one of Chelsea’s most historic and expensive roads and prices can reach £15 million. No 47, a Queen Anne Grade II listed house, is a relative snip at £3.9 million and is selling through Aylesford. As well as five bedrooms, a wine cellar and library, the property has a swimming pool — a novelty even for here. Anyone who buys on Cheyne Walk will be joining a select group. Famous former residents include the writers Elizabeth Gaskell (No 93), George Eliot (No 4) and Bram Stoker (No 27), the former Prime Minister David Lloyd George (No 10), the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (No 16) and the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (No 98).

The most expensive roads in the area are The Boltons and Tregunter Road — very much Chelsea fringes — but Andrew Buchanan, of John D. Wood & Co, says that Chelsea Square is becoming more and more popular. The square, which was built by the Cadogan estate in 1929 on the grounds of the Chelsea Lawn Tennis Club, is particularly private and peaceful and filled with an interesting mix of properties.

One of these is No 25, which John D. Wood is selling for £3.65 million. The six-bedroom family house has a spacious drawing room and dining room, but footballers may find there’s not enough space in the garden for a kickabout.

Aylesford 020-7351 2383; John D. Wood & Co 020-7352 1484

Explore Property

• Buying & Selling

• Investment

• New Homes

• Overseas

• Interiors

• Gardens

• Cool In Your Code

• Specials

Times recommends

• Analysis: frustration for everyone - except investors
• Spanish property: why it's crunch time on the Costa del Sol
• Buy-to-let: professional investors cash in on the credit crunch