too ill to superintend his gardens personally. None the less
preparations were made for the licensing day in October. Petitions were
prepared, and counsel on both sides were engaged. October 5, 1877,
arrived, and the Cremorne case was called on. To the astonishment of
London, Baum’s counsel quietly announced that the lessee had withdrawn
his application, and the licence of Cremorne Gardens lapsed for ever.
John Baum here vanishes from the scene, though we seem to catch a glimpse
of him at the end of the eighties as a waiter at a North London tavern,
discoursing freely to sympathetic customers on the great days when he
owned Cremorne.
The owner of the land, Mrs. Simpson, lost no time in letting it in
building plots, and most of the present rows of small houses made their
appearance in the next year or two. As early as 1880 Cremorne Gardens is
described as ‘already the lawful prey of the Walfords and Cunninghams,’
and brought within ‘the range of practical antiquaries.’ {22} But the
gardens had first to be cleared, and the Cremorne sale took place on
April 8, 1878, and the following days. The buyers and sightseers who
attended the auction found the place already in a neglected state—the
grass uncut, and the canvas coverings and panoramic views rent and blown
about by the winds of the last six months. The sale began with the hotel
and the effects of the sitting-rooms on the first floor known as the Gem,
the Pearl, the Rose, and the Star. Then the public supper-room on the
ground-floor was taken in hand. There was a great stock of wine and
spirits—600 dozens—and a unique opportunity for buying claret cheap. The
grand ballroom with theatre combined, the theatre royal, and the
marionette theatre, were next disposed of, and the circular dancing
platform, about 360 feet in circumference, was sold in thirty-two
sections, including the pagoda orchestra.
[Picture: The Dancing-Platform, Cremorne. From an etching by W. Greaves,
1871]
The elms and poplars and all the growing timber were then offered,
besides numerous portable bay-trees in boxes and about 20,000 greenhouse
plants. The statuary, over and above the Cupids and Venuses and the
‘females supporting gas-burners,’ included some classic masterpieces like
the Laocöon and the Dying Gladiator. With the disposal of the large
reflecting stars, ‘the stalactite rustic, enclosure of the Gypsey’s
Cave,’ and a couple of balloons, Cremorne was completely stripped.
A walk round Cremorne at the present day is a little depressing, though
less so than a visit to the squalid sites of Vauxhall and the Surrey Zoo.
The western boundary of the gardens is, approximately, the present
Ashburnham Road (or Uverdale Road, if we include the Ashburnham annexe of
Cremorne). The eastern boundary was Cremorne Lane, now mainly
represented by Dartrey Street. The southern limit is the present Lots
Road, and a public-house, the Cremorne Arms, is close to the former
Cremorne Pier and the river entrance. The Thames front is now covered
with wharves and tall buildings. The north boundary is still the King’s
Road, the entrance being where the southern continuation of Edith Grove
begins. Stadium Street, Ashburnham Road, Cremorne Road, and the Cremorne
Arms, recall the varying fortunes of the place.
In spite of the builders, a small portion of the gardens has always
remained. Forming a pleasant fringe to the King’s Road is the
nursery-ground of Messrs. Wimsett and Son, which stretches from
Ashburnham Road to the part of Edith Grove which represents the old
entrance of Cremorne, and a grotto or bower surmounted by some of the
plaster goddesses of Cremorne is still to be seen there. {24}
[A collection relating to Cremorne formed by the present writer; a
collection in the British Museum (1880. c. 9). Various details have been
derived from two excellent articles, signed ‘T. E.,’ contributed to the
_West London Press_ for September 18 and October 2, 1896, and based on
material in the Chelsea Public Library; also from an article by G. A.
Sala in the _Daily Telegraph_ for August 7, 1894; Blanchard in _Era
Almanack_, 1871, etc.
Views: Of Cremorne House, various views in Chelsea Public Library (_cf._
Beaver’s _Chelsea_, pp. 155, 157). Of the Stadium grounds, two fairly
common lithographs published by Day and Haghe in 1831. A Stadium bill
(British Museum) has a lithographic view of the house and part of the
grounds as a heading. The _Particulars_ . . . _of the Stadium_ (London,
1834), contains views by G. Cruikshank. Of Cremorne Gardens, many views
in the illustrated papers; also a water-colour by T. H. Shepherd, 1852,
showing orchestra, etc. (Chelsea Public Library), and another by
Shepherd, 1852 (same collection); etchings by W. Greaves of Chelsea,
etc.]
MANOR-HOUSE BATHS AND GARDENS, CHELSEA
TOWARDS the end of the thirties there stood in the King’s Road, Chelsea,
between the present Radnor Street and Shawfield Street, a deserted
mansion known as the Manor-House. It was spacious, if not lofty, and had
apparently nothing to do with the two historical manor-houses of Chelsea.
{25a} For some years it had been unoccupied; its windows were broken,
its railings rusty, and weeds luxuriated in its front-garden.
[Picture: Manor-House Garden, Chelsea, circa 1809]
Behind the house there had once been a fine garden and orchard, and
groves of fruit-trees still bore mulberries, apples, and pears, which
were the natural prey of the Chelsea youth. {25b} The mansion had some
reputation as a haunted house, and at nightfall unearthly sounds were
heard by passers-by, which possibly proceeded from the depredators of the
orchard. But one day in the autumn of 1837 some workmen were observed on
the premises, and it became difficult to get access to the orchard.
The old Manor-House was, in truth, in process of transformation. A
certain Mr. Richard Smith, described as ‘a pleasant, portly gentleman,’
and said to have made money by an official connexion with Crockford’s
Club, had taken the place in hand. The suburbs—or, at least, the suburb
of Chelsea—were destitute of public baths, and Mr. Smith proposed to
supply the want by erecting on the site of the house, or near it, a
capacious building. His baths were opened in 1838, and the popular
orchard was utilized as a garden promenade, which he provided with an
orchestra and a room for concerts and dancing. In imitation of the
panoramas of the Surrey Zoological Gardens, the ‘Taking of Fort
Bhurtpore’ was reproduced in the grounds, and the fireworks and crackers
of Professor Tumour rendered the capture of the fortress by the English a
lifelike spectacle.
[Picture: Admission Tickets, New Ranelagh, Pimlico, circa 1812]
The place was a good deal advertised in 1838 and 1839, and well puffed in
papers like _The Town_; but it was not a success. A frank critic, who
was well acquainted with the ‘New Vauxhall,’ as the proprietor named it,
says that the company ‘consisted chiefly of local sweethearts,’ who
preferred to treat each other to apples and pears snatched from the
branches rather than expend superfluous cash in shilling goblets of hot
negus. The concerts took place on three evenings in the week, and some
‘grand galas’ and ‘night fêtes’ were announced. On certain days the boys
from the Military School close by promenaded the grounds with their band;
but neither the concerts nor the baths were acceptable, and in 1840 Smith
discontinued the concerts, and built a small theatre on part of the
orchard. ‘The Royal Manor-House Theatre’ could hold an audience of 500
paying 2s. and 1s. The Green Room was the emptied tank of the
swimming-bath. The first lessee was Charles Poole, previously manager of
the Chichester Theatre, and the plays light one-act pieces. Poole soon
got into money difficulties, and Smith made a curious application to
Edward Leman Blanchard, the well-known dramatic critic, for his
assistance. Blanchard was then hardly twenty, but he managed to keep the
theatre open for nearly a year. The company had not been quite
disbanded, and contained good material. Thus, Mr. A. Sidney (afterwards
the well-known actor Alfred Wigan) was ready to sing sentimental songs
between the acts. Signor Plimmeri, a clever posturer and man-monkey, and
Richard Flexmore (later the famous clown) were also available, and the
younger members of the Smith family formed a troupe of four
supernumeraries. Blanchard produced a farce of his own—_Angels and
Lucifers_—which ran for thirty-one representations, and himself appeared
at one entrance as the hero and at another as the comic countryman. The
theatre apparently closed in 1841, {28a} and Smith proceeded in a
businesslike way to build Radnor Street on the grounds, with a
public-house (the Commercial Tavern, 119, King’s Road) at the corner,
which is still standing. {28b}
[Picture: Admission Ticket, New Ranelagh, Pimlico, 1809]
[‘Some Managerial Memories,’ by E. L. Blanchard in the _Theatre Annual_
for 1886, reprinted in Blanchard’s _Life_, i., p. 20 _f._; _Era
Almanack_, 1870, p. 18; newspaper advertisements, etc.; _Bell’s Life_,
May 3, 1840.]
BATTY’S HIPPODROME AND SOYER’S SYMPOSIUM, KENSINGTON
THE Great Exhibition of 1851 was indirectly responsible for the existence
in Kensington of two short-lived institutions—a circus and a restaurant.
They are rather outside our subject, but, as having something of an
open-air character, may be briefly described.
In the autumn of 1850 William Batty, a famous circus proprietor, acquired
some land within five minutes’ walk of the new world-wonder, the ‘Crystal
Palace,’ and erected thereon an elliptical-roofed pavilion which
accommodated many thousands of spectators, and had a large arena open to
the sky.
The Royal Hippodrome was opened in May, 1851, with a French troupe
brought over from the Hippodrome at Paris. The performances generally
took place in the evening, and the lowest price of admission was
sixpence. Two brass bands of a rather blatant character enlivened the
proceedings. Favourite features of the entertainment were a Roman
chariot race and a ‘triumphal race of the Roman Consuls,’ who were
represented by the three brothers Debach, each guiding six horses. Why
Roman Consuls should race is not explained, and probably did not matter.
Another excitement of the evening was the Barbary Race of twelve
unmounted horses, who dashed headlong to the goal with distended nostrils
and eyes of fire. Other attractions were balloon ascents {30} and F.
Debach’s journey on the Arienne Ball up and down a narrow inclined plank.
The Hippodrome closed with the Exhibition, and only lived for one other
season, in 1852. Subsequently, and in the sixties, it was used as a
riding-school. The site lay nearly opposite the broad walk of Kensington
Gardens, between part of Victoria Road and Victoria Walk and the present
Palace Gate. De Vere Gardens mainly occupy the site.
[Newspapers: _John Bull_, September, 1850, p. 582; _Theatrical Journal_,
1851; views of the Hippodrome in _Illustrated London News_ for 1851.]
* * * * *
The founder of the restaurant, of which, it was hoped, the Great
Exhibition would make the fortune, was Alexis Soyer, the former chef of
the Reform Club, one of the best-known cooks—though by no means the
greatest—of the classic ages of dining. Soyer was a man of inventive
genius and resource, but one who (as the author of the _Art of Dining_
dryly remarked) ‘was more likely to earn immortality by his soup-kitchen
than by his soup.’ {31}
In the early part of 1851 he took Gore House, the famous home of Lady
Blessington at Kensington, and fantastic skill and showy decoration soon
made the old-fashioned stucco-fronted building the wonder of a London as
yet unfamiliar with palatial restaurants. The newspapers and a
prospectus printed on satin paper with green-tinted edges announced the
advent of ‘Soyer’s Universal Symposium,’ a single ticket for which was to
cost a guinea, and a family ticket—your family might consist of
five—three guineas. Every room in the house was provided with a
seductive name: the Blessington Temple of the Muses; the Salle des Noces
de Danae; the glittering Roscaille of Eternal Snow; the Bower of Ariadne;
and the Celestial Hall of Golden Lilies.
The Grand Staircase had its walls painted with a ‘Macédoine of all
Nations,’ a monstrous medley of animals, politicians, and artists, the
_chef d’œuvre_ of George Augustus Sala, who for a time acted as Soyer’s
assistant.
The Cabinet de Toilette à la Pompadour (Lady Blessington’s boudoir) led
to the Danae saloon, which was embossed in gold and silver with showers
of ‘tears’ or ‘gems.’ The Bower of Ariadne was painted with vines and
Italian landscapes, and the Celestial Hall was in the Chinese taste.
The garden—a delightful adjunct to a London restaurant—contained some
fine trees, walnut and mulberry trees among them, which had been the
pride of the good William Wilberforce when he lived in Gore House, before
the coming of the gorgeous Countess. The meadow or ‘park’ of the
domain—really a grazing-meadow hired from a Kensington cow-keeper—was
adroitly styled the Pré d’Orsay, and here was erected the Encampment of
All Nations, which was the public dining-hall, 400 feet long, ‘with a
monster tablecloth, 307 feet long, of British manufacture.’
The garden, reached by flights of steps from the back of the house, had
natural beauties of its own—Lady Blessington’s great rose-tree and
Wilberforce’s thick-foliaged trees, Soyer added fountains and statuary, a
grotto of Ondine, a little pavilion of many-hued stalactites with a
crystal roof, and a statue of Hebe dispensing ambrosial liquors through
the shafts of the temple. Here also stood the Baronial Hall, a building
(not unsuggestive of Rosherville) 100 feet long, with a stained-glass
roof. It was hung with pictures by Soyer’s wife (Emma Jones), and with
the more interesting crayon portraits by Count d’Orsay. The American Bar
and the Ethiopian Serenaders were perhaps more suited to Cremorne.
The Symposium opened on May 1, 1851, and the Metropolitan Sanitary
Association and other festively inclined societies began to banquet in
its halls. The average attendance was 1,000 a day, and the takings
amounted to £21,000; but none the less the great chef was £7,000 out of
pocket, and the Symposium closed suddenly and for ever on October 14,
1851. There had, in fact, been many complaints of bad dinners and
imperfect management. It is not easy—or was not in those days—to provide
simultaneously sightseers’ luncheons and dinners for epicures. Even at
this remote period, and without aspiring to the Bower of Ariadne, one is
appalled at the idea of dining in an Encampment of All Nations at a table
307 feet long. The roasting of a bullock whole, which took place in the
Pré d’Orsay on May 31, no doubt brought many shillings to the treasury,
but was reminiscent of Battersea Fields or of a Frost Fair on the Thames.
In February, 1852, the place was dismantled, and the Hall and the
Encampment were sold by auction. The Gore estate was purchased the same
year by the Commissioners of the Exhibition, and the grounds in later
years formed part of those of the Royal Horticultural Society. {33}
[Volant and Warren, _Memoirs of Alexis Soyer_; Davis’s _Knightsbridge_,
p. 142; Walford, _Old and New London_, v., p. 118 _f._; _Illustrated
London News_, May 10 and 17, 1851 (views of the garden and the Baronial
Hall); ‘Gore House,’ a water-colour by T. H. Shepherd, _circa_ 1850, in
Kensington Public Library; Timbs’s _Clubs_, quoting Sala’s account from
_Temple Bar Magazine_.]
THE HIPPODROME, NOTTING HILL
THIS was a race-course of some two and a half miles in circuit. In 1837
a Mr. John Whyte had turned his attention to the slopes of Notting Hill,
and to the Portobello meadows west of Westbourne Grove, and prepared a
course, not for golf, but for horse-racing and steeple-chasing, with the
accompaniments of a training-ground and stables for about eighty horses.
The Hippodrome was opened on June 3, 1837. The public were admitted for
a shilling, and those who could not enter the carriage enclosure mounted
a convenient hill from which a splendid view of the racing—also of much
adjacent country—could be obtained. No gambling-booths or
drinking-booths were permitted, but iced champagne, or humbler beverages
were to be obtained on this eminence. Lord Chesterfield and Count
d’Orsay were the first stewards, and the Grand Duke of Russia, the Duke
of Cambridge, the Duke of Brunswick, and many noble personages,
condescended to visit this London Epsom, to which gay marquees and
‘splendid equipages’ lent éclat on a race-day.
These races were held for four years, and were duly recorded in _Bell’s
Life_, with the usual details of horse, owner, and jockey. Cups of fifty
and a hundred guineas were offered. The proceedings generally began at
two, and on one occasion lasted till nine.
One drawback to the selectness of the Hippodrome (and the proprietor’s
profits) was a path across the enclosure through which the public had a
right-of-way. The footpath people seem, as a rule, to have been orderly
enough, but gipsies, ‘prigs,’ and hawkers did not neglect the opportunity
of mingling with the nobility and gentry. In March, 1838, an attempt was
made in Parliament to block this footpath by a measure entitled the
Notting Hill Enclosure Bill; but this harmless title was speedily
perceived to conceal an attempt to legalize horse-racing in London.
‘Strong public feeling’ (particularly strong in Bayswater and Notting
Hill) was excited, and many reasons, wise and foolish, were urged against
the measure. One objection was that the young ladies in the
boarding-schools of Kensington would be unable to take their usual walks
abroad. On the other hand—so different are points of view—a writer in
the _Sporting Magazine_ declared that the Hippodrome was ‘a necessary of
London life, of the absolute need of which we were not aware until the
possession of it taught us its permanent value.’ A reading of the Bill
passed the Commons early in 1838 by a majority of 26, but by September
the Notting Hill Enclosure Bill had been quietly dropped. Next year the
proprietor enclosed his course so as to exclude the obnoxious path, but
at a considerable sacrifice of space. The last race was run in June,
1841. The proprietor had lost heavily, not so much, perhaps, through
mismanagement as on account of a fatal defect in the course, which had a
strong clay soil, and was so damp that it could only be used for training
horses during part of the year.
[Picture: The Hippodrome, Bayswater (Notting Hill), circa 1838]
In 1845 a Mr. J. Connop, described as ‘the lessee of the Hippodrome,’
made his appearance in the Insolvent Debtors’ Court. He owed a trifle of
£67,000, though, of course, there were the usual assets of £10,000, if
only the property ‘be properly worked.’ The potent name of Ladbroke
appears in these proceedings as the ground-landlord.
A good idea of the course can be gained from the accompanying plan,
published in 1841. It will be found that Ladbroke Terrace and Norland
Square roughly define its lower limits. Ladbroke Grove, Lansdown Road,
and Clarendon Road now cut through it northwards. The ‘hill for
pedestrians’ is crowned by St. John’s Church (built 1845) in Lansdown
Crescent and Ladbroke Grove.
Part of the course was preserved as late as 1852 with some rough turf and
a few hedges, at which adventurous lady-riders practised their horses.
[Newspaper notices; _Bell’s Life_, _John Bull_, etc.; plan and view of
the Hippodrome (W.); Walford, _Old and New London_, v., p. 182; Loftie’s
_Kensington_, p. 267 _f._]
[Picture: Plan of the Hippodrome, Notting Hill, 1841]
THE ROYAL OAK, BAYSWATER
IN the twenties this was still a rural inn, with sloping, red-tiled roof
and dormer windows, standing quite alone. {37a} A visitor coming from
Paddington Green passed to it by a quiet field-path—the Bishop’s Walk,
now Bishop’s Road—through a region of pleasant pastures and hedgerow
elms. A weeping ash and the sign of the Boscobel Oak stood on a green in
front of the house, and there were benches for the wayfarer and a
tea-garden.
In 1837, with the advent of the Great Western Railway, all these country
surroundings began to disappear, and the fields were soon cut up for
roads. The house was now brought forward so as to stand nearer the road,
and the tea-gardens were sold for building. {37b} The present Royal Oak
public-house, standing more forward than its predecessor, is 89, Bishop’s
Road and No. 1, Porchester Road.
A Welsh landlord (apparently in the early twenties) named Davies paid a
£50 rent, which he could not get back by catering for his few local
customers, chiefly nurserymen. At the present day the property is said
to have changed hands for £24,000.
[Henry Walker, in the _Bayswater Annual_ for 1885; also in the
_Paddington_, _Kensington_, _and Bayswater Chronicle_ for May 31, 1884,
with a woodcut from a drawing of the Royal Oak in 1825. _Cf._ Rutton in
_Home Counties Magazine_, ii., p. 21.]
In the thirties and forties the Bayswater district was full of small
tea-gardens, one of which, the Princess Royal, {38} ‘opposite Black Lion
Lane, now called Queen’s Road,’ may be mentioned. It was kept in the
forties by James Bott, previously of the Archery Tavern, Bayswater. Mr.
Bott had a bowling-green and tea-rooms, an elegant fish-pond well stocked
with gold and silver fish, and ‘an extensive archery ground, 185 feet
long, and wide enough for two sets of targets.’ His advertisements hold
out two special attractions—one that any gentleman fond of archery might
practise there from nine o’clock in the morning till two in the afternoon
for ten shillings a year; the other that the grounds led by the nearest
way to the Kensal Green Cemetery.
CHALK FARM
THIS was a favourite tea-garden from the latter part of the eighteenth
century till the fifties. An inn, originally called the White House, had
long existed near the foot of Primrose Hill, and probably first gained
custom by its proximity to the hill, which (about 1797) is described {39}
as a ‘very fashionable’ Sunday resort of the modern citizens, who usually
‘lead their children there to eat their cakes and partake of a little
country air’—a truly idyllic performance. Chalk Farm had also its more
martial customers, for towards the close of the eighteenth century the
St. Pancras Volunteers used to march thither to fire at a target at the
foot of the hill for a silver cup. The duels, moreover, for which a
field adjoining the inn was notorious began at least as early as 1790,
and lasted till the twenties. As they are hardly to be reckoned among
the amusements of the place, I need not record their painful details.
The famous interrupted duel of Tom Moore and Francis Jeffrey—when ‘Bow
Street myrmidons stood laughing by’—occurred in 1806. Byron treats it as
ludicrous, but the meeting was not without its pathos. ‘What a beautiful
morning it is!’ said Jeffrey, on seeing his opponent. ‘Yes,’ answered
Moore; ‘a morning made for better purposes.’ To which Jeffrey’s only
response was ‘a sort of assenting sigh.’ Another famous duel took place
on February 16, 1821, by moonlight, between John Scott, the editor of the
_London Magazine_, and Mr. Christie. Scott was badly wounded, and was
carried on a shutter to the tavern, where he died in a fortnight. This
was practically the last of the Chalk Farm duels, {40a} and, curiously
enough, it is the _London Magazine_ {40b} that about a year later
furnishes a long and most philosophical account of the tea-drinking at
this very garden. What the writer notices is the _seriousness_ of the
ordinary frequenter of the garden, who drinks and smokes with no approach
to the least flexibility of limb or feature. There are three plain
citizens sitting stolidly in one alcove without uttering a word. In
another box, over a glass of punch, are a prim tradesman and his wife and
a sickly-looking little boy, who wants to play with the other children on
the lawn, but who is not allowed to ‘wenture upon the nasty vet grass.’
The same observer also notes the occasionally successful efforts of the
Cockney sportsmen to shoot wretched sparrows let out of a box at twenty
yards’ distance.