rifle-shooting, {40c} and the contests of the Cumberland and Westmorland
wrestlers for silver tankards and snuffboxes.
The tavern (the successor of an older building) was pulled down in 1853,
and the present public-house—No. 89, Regent’s Park Road—was built. The
open fields which formerly led from this site to the slopes of Primrose
Hill are now covered by houses at the back and front of the present
building, and the row of tall houses in Primrose Hill Road would
effectively shut out the view, even if the tavern had still preserved its
garden. A water-colour drawing of about 1830 shows Chalk Farm without
any building intervening between itself and its grassy mount. One side
of the tavern is provided with many windows, and a veranda looks towards
the hill, and close by is the flower-garden. At the back of the house
are fields and a road leading to the lower slopes.
[Authorities in Palmer’s _St. Pancras_, p. 287; _Picture __of London_,
1802–1846; Miller’s _St. Pancras_, p. 201; Walford, _Old and New London_,
v. 289 _f._; newspapers.
Views: Water-colour, _circa_ 1830, showing Primrose Hill and the tavern
(W.); drawing by Matthews, 1834, Crace Cat., p. 671, No. 89; drawing by
T. H. Shepherd, 1853, _ibid._, p. 569; Partington’s _Views of London_,
ii. 181; a view in Dugdale’s _England and Wales_, and water-colour
drawings from this.]
THE EEL-PIE (OR SLUICE) HOUSE, HIGHBURY
THIS tavern on the New River, between Highbury and Hornsey Wood House,
was well known to Cockney visitors from early in the nineteenth century
till its demolition about 1867. {42}
It was famous for its tea and hot rolls, but still more for its excellent
pies made of eels, which were popularly supposed to be natives of Hugh
Myddelton’s stream, though they came in reality from the coast of
Holland. Unambitious anglers of the Sadler’s Wells type frequented the
river near here, and on popular holidays in the twenties and thirties
‘the lower order of citizens’ (as an Islington historian politely calls
them) had breakfast at the Eel-Pie House on their way to gather ‘palms’
in Hornsey Wood or more distant regions. The house had a pleasant garden
till its latest days, but little in the way of gala nights or ballooning.
In the strenuous era of prize-fighting even this quiet place was not
without its excitements. Thus, we read that on one day in January, 1826,
a wrestling-match was announced between Ned Savage and another. Savage’s
opponent (Mr. Pigg) was not forthcoming, and the ‘fancy coves,’ not to be
disappointed, retired to a large room in the Sluice House, and soon
formed a temporary ring with the forms and tables. A dog-fight and a
rat-killing match were then exhibited, and, something ‘of a more manly
character’ being called for, a purse was collected, and Bill Webb of
Newport Market and (an unnamed) Jack Tar were soon engaged. ‘About
twenty rounds were fought; both men received heavy punishment, and both
showed fair game qualities.’ The sailor’s courage was particularly
admired, but he, alas! had to strike his colours, and Bill Webb ‘pocketed
the blunt.’
[_Picture of London_, 1802, and later dates; Cromwell’s _Islington_. The
_Morning Chronicle_, October 17, 1804, announces the sale of the ‘old
Eel-Pie House’ (already evidently well known), together with ‘20 acres of
rich meadow land’ adjoining.
There are several views showing in the foreground the wooden Sluice House
standing over the river, and close behind it the Eel-Pie (or Sluice)
House Tavern; in the distance, Hornsey Wood House (on the site of the
present Finsbury Park). There is a drawing by Mr. H. Fancourt of the
Eel-Pie House Gardens, made in 1867, and kindly presented to the writer.]
WESTON’S RETREAT, KENTISH TOWN
THIS garden in the present Highgate Road had a brief existence _circa_
1858–1865, under the management of Edward Weston, the proprietor of
Weston’s (afterwards the Royal) Music Hall in Holborn. A good deal was
crowded into a small space, for besides the choice flowers, shrubs, and
fruit-trees, there was a conservatory, a cascade, a racquet-court, a
small dancing-platform and orchestra, and a panorama 1,600 feet long,
representing ‘the sea-girt island of Caprera, the home of the Italian
Liberator’ (Garibaldi). This encircled the garden, and was lit at night
by variegated gas-jets, stated—but the garden illuminator always
exaggerates—to be 100,000 in number. The admission was usually only
sixpence.
Some of the entertainers of the Polytechnic Institution were engaged to
combine instruction with amusement, and Mr. A. Sylvester exhibited there
his patent optical illusion called—though hardly by Mr. Weston’s
patrons—the Kalospinthechromokrene. {44a}
There were complaints about the way in which this miniature Cremorne was
conducted, and the Sunday opening was particularly objected to by its
respectable neighbours. It appears to be the unnamed ‘Retreat’ which
James Greenwood in one of his books describes in scathing terms. {44b}
Thus, when the Midland Railway Company appeared on the scene, there were
many who welcomed its purchase of Mr. Weston’s pleasure-garden. In
October, 1866, the trees, orchestra, gas-fittings, tea-cups, and
everything belonging to the place, were sold off by auction.
The Retreat was in Fitzroy Place, the entrance being between the present
houses numbered 93 and 97, Highgate Road.
[Article in _St. Pancras Guardian_ for January 3, 1902, by ‘P.’ (Mr. R.
B. Prosser); newspaper advertisements; Walford, _Old and New London_, v.,
p. 320; Greenwood’s _Wilds of London_.]
THE MERMAID, HACKNEY
A FARTHING token of the seventeenth century, issued ‘at the Maremaid
Taverne in Hackeny,’ {46a} is a humble relic of the early days of this
place, which stood on the west side of the High Street.
The assembly-room, connected with the tavern by a covered way, and the
extensive grounds, were much frequented during the last century till the
forties. The grounds consisted of an upper and lower bowling-green—one
of them sometimes used for archery—and an umbrageous ‘dark walk’
encompassing the kitchen-garden, which was on the west side of the brook
which divided the grounds.
Ballooning was for many years a feature of the place, especially in the
thirties. {46b} In September, 1837, Mrs. Graham tried an experiment with
two parachutes: one, a model of Garnerin’s, was found to oscillate
greatly when released from the balloon; the other, Cocking’s parachute,
descended slowly and steadily. A month earlier (August 9, 1837) Mrs.
Graham had delighted the frequenters of the Mermaid Tea-Gardens by an
ascent in the ‘Royal Victoria,’ accompanied by Mrs. W. H. Adams and Miss
Dean. A lithograph of the time shows these ladies, ‘the only three
female aeronauts that ever ascended alone,’ in their best dresses,
cheerfully waving flags to the people below.
An ascent made by Sadler in his ‘G. P. W.’ (George, Prince of Wales)
balloon on August 12, 1811, caused great local excitement. Crowds poured
in from Greenwich, Deptford, and Woolwich, and the road became so blocked
that even ‘families of distinction could not approach within a mile of
the tavern.’ Some fortunate parishioners ascended the tower of the
church, and a jolly tar got astride of the Mermaid sign. In front of the
house an abnormal assemblage of fat men and still fatter women jostled
and pushed and tumbled one over another in a way that delighted the
coarse caricaturists of the period. Sadler’s companion was a naval
officer, Lieutenant (or Captain) Paget, who paid a hundred guineas for
his seat in the car. As the balloon rose, Mr. Paget was ‘for some
minutes deprived of the power of expression and incapable of
communicating his sensations’ to his fellow-traveller, but he did all
that was necessary by keeping quiet and waving a flag to the spectators.
An hour and a quarter passed, and a descent was then made near Tilbury
Fort, and the travellers, who had started at a quarter to three, returned
to Hackney at a few minutes after nine. {47}
The old tavern was pulled down at the end of the thirties, and several
houses were built on its site. The assembly-room and gardens continued
in existence for many years later, but are now also built over.
[_Picture of London_, 1802–1846; newspapers; Robinson’s _Hackney_ (1842),
i., p. 149 _f._
There are several contemporary prints of Sadler’s ascent of August 12,
1811, one a coloured caricature published by Thomas Tegg, ‘Prime Bang-up
at Hackney; or, A Peep at the Balloon.’ Rowlandson’s ‘Hackney Assembly,
1812 (1802)’ caricatures the dancing.]
THE ROSEMARY BRANCH, HOXTON
EARLY in the eighteenth century, in the days when the London archers shot
at rovers {48a} in the Finsbury fields, there stood near Hoxton Bridge
(at the meeting of the parishes of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, and St. Mary,
Islington) an ‘honest ale-house’ named the Rosemary Branch, {48b} which
was doubtless ofttimes visited by the thirsty archer for a mug of beer
and a game of shovel-board. The place has no history for many years,
though in 1764 it emerges for a moment in a newspaper paragraph: {48c}
‘On Sunday night [August 5], about eight o’clock, as a Butcher and
another man were fighting near the Rosemary Branch, the Butcher received
an unlucky blow on the side of his ribs, which killed him on the spot.
The cause of the quarrel was this: Some boys having a skiff with which
they were sailing in a pond near the aforesaid place, the Butcher
endeavouring to take it from them, a well-dressed man that was passing
expostulated with the man, and putting the question to him, how he should
like to be served so if he was in the lads’ stead? On which the Butcher
struck the gentleman, who defended himself, and gave the deceased a blow
on the temple, and another under his heart, of which he died. His body
was carried to Islington Churchyard for the Coroner to sit on it, and
yesterday the said gentleman was examined before the sitting Justices at
Hicks’s Hall touching the said affair, and admitted to bail.’
In 1783 the old inn was demolished, or was, at any rate, absorbed in the
premises of some white-lead manufacturers, who erected (1786–1792) two
mills—conspicuous as _wind_mills—in the vicinity. A new tavern was built
in front of the mills, with small grounds—about three acres—attached to
it. The Rosemary Branch was now frequented as a tea-garden, one of the
attractions being ‘the pond near the aforesaid place,’ which was used for
boating and skating till, to the disgust of the Sunday visitors, it
suddenly dried up about the year 1830.
John Cavanagh, the fives player (died 1819), whose exploits have been
commemorated by William Hazlitt, sometimes found his way to the Rosemary
Branch, though most of his matches took place in the neighbourhood at
Copenhagen House. By trade he was a house-painter, and one day, putting
on his best clothes, he strolled up to the gardens for an afternoon
holiday. A stranger proposed to Cavanagh a match at fives for half a
crown and a bottle of cider. The match began—7, 8, 10, 13, 14 all. Each
game was hotly contested, but Cavanagh somehow just managed to win. ‘I
never played better in my life,’ said the stranger, ‘and yet I can’t win
a game. There, try that! That is a stroke that Cavanagh could not
take.’ Still the play went on, and in the twelfth game the stranger was
13 to his opponent’s 4. He seemed, in fact, to be winning, when a
new-comer among the bystanders exclaimed: ‘What! are _you_ there,
Cavanagh?’ The amateur fives player let the ball drop from his hand, and
refused to play another stroke, for all this time he had only ‘been
breaking his heart to beat Cavanagh.’ {49}
[Picture: The Tea-Gardens, Rosemary Branch, 1846]
Early in the thirties, the proprietor, a Mr. McPherson, began to provide
‘gala nights’ for the inhabitants of the district, and advertised his
‘Branch’ as the Islington Vauxhall. In 1835 he is said to have spent
£4,000 on the place, but for some mysterious reason chose this moment for
retiring from business. In October, 1836, the gardens were offered for
sale—three acres only, but provided with ‘elevated terrace-walks’
screened by trees, and with ground for rackets and skittles. The place
was taken by a new proprietor, who continued the fireworks and
illuminations, and introduced (1837) Mrs. Graham and her balloon, in
which she ascended with the gallant Colonel of the Honourable Lumber
Troop.
[Picture: Admission Ticket, Rosemary Branch, 1853]
A view of about the middle of the forties depicts the gardens as entirely
surrounded by alcoves and trees, with two rope ascents and a pony race
{50} going on in the arena simultaneously, like Barnum’s Circus. An
admiring youth, a lady in an ample shawl and hat, and two gentlemen posed
in the manner of tailors’ models, occupy the foreground, while a crowd of
onlookers stand in front of the circle of boxes. Festoons of coloured
lamps, a minute balloon, a small theatre, and an orchestra, are also
symbolic of the attractions of the Islington Vauxhall.
Early in the fifties the spirited proprietor (William Barton) was
advertising his ball-room and monster platform, and introduced Moffatt’s
Equestrian Troupe and the Brothers Elliot, two clever acrobats from
Batty’s Hippodrome. {51} The Chinese Exhibition, transplanted from Hyde
Park, was expounded by a native interpreter, ‘whose pleasing description
of the manners and customs of these Eastern people was in itself highly
instructive and amusing.’ John Hampton, a noted balloonist of the time,
was also engaged for many ascents.
On July 27, 1853, the timber circus caught fire, and an ill-fated troupe
of trained dogs and seven horses perished. I do not suggest that these
seven horses constituted the whole of the garden stud, but after this
time we happen to hear little of the Rosemary Branch as an open-air
resort. It was always a place for visitors of humble rank, the admission
being sixpence or a shilling. A ticket of 1853 notifies that persons not
‘suitably attired’ will be excluded. It was, moreover, announced that
the M.C.’s (Messrs. Franconi and Hughes) ‘keep the strictest order,’ and
a policeman or two hovered in the background. All, therefore, should
have gone well.
The successor of the Rosemary Branch is a public-house, the Rosemary
Branch and Shepperton Distillery, No. 2, Shepperton Road, N., lying
between Rosemary Street and Brunswick Place. Houses now occupy the space
behind the building. In the background the tall chimney of the
white-lead works (Messrs. Campion, Druce, No. 35, Southgate Road) has
taken the place of the windmills.
[Tomlins’ _Islington_, p. 151; Cromwell’s _Islington_; _Era Almanack_,
1871, p. 6; _Theatrical Journal_ for 1852; newspaper advertisements, and
bills.
Views: _Crace Catalogue_, p. 599, No. 135 (water-colour by Storer);
_ibid._, p. 599, No. 136, a woodcut showing the gardens with pony-racing,
etc., 1846; an engraving (1812) of the white-lead mills taken from the
garden of the Rosemary Branch shows the boating on the pond.]
SIR HUGH MYDDELTON’S HEAD
THIS was a picturesque old inn, built, it is said in 1614, standing by
the water-side opposite the New River Head and Sadler’s Wells. It is
shown in Hogarth’s ‘Evening’ (1738)—a gable-ended, vine-clad house with
the portrait of the great Sir Hugh as its pendent sign. It will be
remembered that this picture represents a portly dame, accompanied by an
evidently ill-used husband and two crying children, passing by the
tavern, wherein a merry drinking-party is seen through the open window.
Perhaps the mantling vine is not a natural feature of the place, but
bitter Hogarthian symbolism—‘Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon
the walls of thy house.’ On the other hand, Clerkenwell has still its
Vine Yard Walk, and twenty years ago in one or two of the gardens in a
square near Sadler’s Wells, there might be found a vine which produced a
passable grape.
The banks of the New River at this time—and, indeed, till near the middle
of the nineteenth century—were lined with tall poplars and graceful
willows, and were frequented by anglers, young and old. Hood, in his
_Walton Redivivus_ (1826), describes Piscator fishing near the
Myddelton’s Head without either basket or can, sitting there (as Lamb
expresses it) like Hope, day after day, ‘speculating on traditionary
gudgeons.’ The covering in of the New River in 1861–1862 ended the
Sadler’s Wells angling for ever.
The house was the favourite haunt of the Sadler’s Wells company, and old
Rosoman, the proprietor of the theatre; Maddox, the wonderful man who
balanced a straw while dancing on the wire; Harlequin Bologna, Dibdin,
and Jo. Grimaldi, smoked many a pipe in its long room or in an arbour in
the garden. In the fifties, a parlour denominated the ‘Crib’ was set
apart for certain choice spirits, who, according to Mr. E. L. Blanchard,
were so uncommonly select that they demanded ‘an introduction and a fee’
from all newcomers.
The tavern, having fallen into decay, was replaced in 1831 by a plain,
ugly building, surmounted by a bust of Myddelton. The ‘grounds,’ chiefly
from the twenties to the fifties, formed a miniature tea-garden with
‘boxes,’ shrubs, and flowers. They were improved in 1852 by Deacon, who
succeeded Edward Wells as proprietor. The house, which stood at the west
end of Myddelton Place, close to Thomas Street and opposite Arlington
Street, was swept away for the formation of Rosebery Avenue.
[Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_, pp. 406–408; Hone’s _Every Day Book_, 1826, p.
344; Partington’s _Views of London_, ii., p. 186 (showing the later
tavern); Blanchard’s _Life_, i., p. 83 _f._; _Theatrical Journal_, 1852,
p. 237 (_cf._ p. 376); a drawing of the tavern by C. H. Matthews, 1849,
in _Crace Catalogue_, No. 93, p. 594.]
THE PANARMONION GARDENS, KING’S CROSS
THE formation of the pleasure-garden that we know as Earl’s Court out of
the coal-yards of the North End Road has a parallel in the origin of some
ephemeral gardens which arose at Battle Bridge (King’s Cross) on or near
the site of mountainous heaps of dust and ashes. The place was recalled
by the ‘Literary Dustman’ when he sang:
‘My dawning genus fust did peep
Near Battle Bridge, ’tis plain, sirs;
You recollect the cinder-heap
Vot stood in Gray’s Inn Lane, sirs.’
Now, when these historic dust-heaps were carted off to Russia—the story
is a true one—and utilized in rebuilding the walls of Moscow, they left a
void which even the London builder could not immediately fill. In the
twenties there was still a large vacant space near the corner of Gray’s
Inn Lane, bounded by (the present) Liverpool, Manchester, and Argyle
Streets, and reaching nearly to the Euston Road. This space became the
property of a company which, in 1829, invited the public by prospectus to
subscribe about £20,000 for its development. {54} The worthy historian
of Clerkenwell describes this company as the ‘Pandemomium’ (_sic_), but
as a matter of fact it called itself the Panarmonion, and had nothing
demoniac in its objects, but rather the laudable purpose of converting a
dusty wilderness into a garden and temple of the Muses. The promoter was
a certain Signor Gesualdo Lanza, who presided over a school for acting
and singing in the neighbourhood. Lanza proposed to establish—and
displayed in lithographic plans—a great ‘Panarmonion Institution,’
consisting of a theatre, a concert-hall, a ‘refectory,’ a reading-room,
and even an hotel. These buildings were to rise in a pleasaunce
encircled by trees and alcoves, and adorned with a great fountain and
cascade.
[Picture: Suspension Railway, Panarmonion Gardens. From an engraving,
circa 1830]
In March, 1830, the place was opened, but the dreams of the prospectus
were never realized. A shilling was charged for admission to the
gardens, but it does not appear that they were ever properly laid out,
and the only attraction was a tour of the grounds in a peculiar
‘Suspension Railway,’ the invention of Mr. H. Thorrington. This railway
consisted of a boat-shaped car suspended from a substantial level bar,
along which it travelled on small wheels set in motion by a wheel in the
car worked by hand. {55a} For the more adventurous visitors,
hobby-horses (rudimentary ‘cycles’) were likewise suspended from the bar,
and worked in the same way as the boat. The theatre, of which a noble
elevation by ‘Stephen Geary, architect,’ {55b} had been shown in the
prospectus, turned out to be a small and narrow building, originally
erected for an auction-room, which Lanza opened in March, 1830, with an
amateurish performance of the opera of _Artaxerxes_. The enterprise was
a failure from the first; the lease of the theatre was offered for sale
in August, {56} and we hear no more of the gardens.
In May, 1832, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, of the Adelphi, and W. H. Williams, the
comic actor and singer, tried their hands, and reopened the Panarmonion
theatre as the ‘Royal Clarence,’ decorating it in the style of a Chinese
pavilion. It is claimed that many well-known actors learnt their art at
this bijou theatre. What is certain is that it often changed its
name—being called, for instance, the Cabinet, and, in its latest days,
the King’s Cross Theatre—and that both actors and audiences steadily
deteriorated. During the greater part of its existence its boards were
trodden by stage-struck amateurs; at one time it was used as a tobacco
manufactory; and in the eighties or nineties its entrance-front might be
seen plastered with bills announcing a mission-service or a temperance
meeting. At last, early in 1897, Messrs. Reggiori, the proprietors of
the neighbouring restaurant (Nos. 1 and 3, Euston Road) took the little
theatre bodily into their premises, of which it now forms an additional
dining-saloon. The old entrance-front (in Liverpool Street) has been
smartened up with stucco and stained-glass windows.
It seems likely that the vanished gardens gave a hint for the laying out
of Argyle Square, which covers a considerable portion of their site.
[Prospectuses and lithographs of the Panarmonion; newspapers of 1829 and
1830; Clinch’s _Marylebone_, etc., p. 182 _f._; Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_;
Baker’s _London Stage_, ii., p. 260; _Era Almanack_, 1868, advt., p. vii;
1869, p. 34. The annals of the theatre may also be sought in the pages
of the _Theatrical Journal_.]
THE EAGLE AND GRECIAN SALOON
THE Eagle tavern and Grecian theatre which stood till lately at the
corner of the dreary City Road and Shepherdess Walk were developed out of
a quiet eighteenth-century pleasure-garden known as the Shepherd and
Shepherdess, which had its arbours, skittle-ground, and small
assembly-room. {57a} About 1822 a rather remarkable man, named Thomas
Rouse (born in 1784), came into possession of the premises. {57b} He is
said to have begun life as a bricklayer; at any rate, he had a turn for
building, and in later days indulged himself in saloons, pavilions, and
Cockney gardening. He rebuilt the tavern, or, at any rate, renamed it
the Eagle, and from 1824 onwards the Eagle lawn was the scene of some of
Green’s balloon ascents, and of annual tournaments of the Devon and
Cornish wrestlers and single-stick players. One of the earliest balloon
ascents, on May 25, 1824, gave a melancholy advertisement to the place.
A balloonist named Thomas Harris ascended from the grounds, accompanied
by a young lady named Sophia Stocks, who was described by the journalists
as ‘an intrepid girl’ who entered the balloon ‘with but slight appearance
of fear.’ The balloon took the direction of Croydon, but by its fall to
the earth in Beddington Park, Harris was killed and his companion
severely injured. {58a}