THE
LONDON PLEASURE GARDENS
OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Drawn in the Gardens, on the night of August
the 19^{th} 1833, by Robert Cruikshank Esq^r._----
C.H. SIMPSON, ESQ^R. M.C.R.G.V.
_For upwards of 36 Years,--with a distant view of his Colossal
Likeness in Variegated Lamps._
_To C. H. Simpson, Esq^r. M.C. of the Royal Gardens
Vauxhall,--this Print, taken in the Sixty Third year of his age,
on the Night of his benefit is, by express permission, most
respectfully dedicated by his obliged and humble Servant,--the
Publisher._
_London. Published by W. Hidd. 14. Chandos St.^t West Strand,
August 20.^{th} 1833._]
THE LONDON
PLEASURE GARDENS
OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
BY
WARWICK WROTH, F.S.A.
OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
ASSISTED BY
ARTHUR EDGAR WROTH
_WITH SIXTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS_
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1896
_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_
“A great deal of company, and the weather and garden pleasant
and it is very cheap and pleasant going thither.... But to hear
the nightingale and the birds, and here fiddles and there a
harp, and here a Jew’s trump, and here laughing and there fine
people walking is mighty divertising.”--SAMUEL PEPYS.
PREFACE
In the following pages an attempt has been made to write, for the first
time, a history of the London pleasure gardens of the last century.
Scattered notices of these gardens are to be found in many histories of
the London parishes and in other less accessible sources, and merely
to collect this information in a single volume would not, perhaps,
have been a useless task. It is one, however, that could not have
been undertaken with much satisfaction unless there was a prospect of
making some substantial additions--especially in the case of the less
known gardens--to the accounts already existing. A good deal of such
new material it has here been possible to furnish from a collection of
newspapers, prints, songs, &c., that I have been forming for several
years to illustrate the history of the London Gardens.[1]
The information available in the writings of such laborious
topographers as Wilkinson, Pinks, and Nelson is, of course,
indispensable, and has not been here neglected; yet even in the
treatment of old material there seemed room for improvement, at
least in the matter of lucidity of arrangement and chronological
definiteness. For, if the older histories of the London parishes have
a fault, it is, perhaps, that, owing to their authors’ anxiety to omit
nothing, they often read more like _materials_ for history than
history itself. Thus, we find advertisements and newspaper paragraphs
set forth at inordinate length and introduced without being properly
assimilated with the context, and the reader is often left to find his
own way through a mass of confusing and trivial detail.
The principal sources of information consulted are named in the notes
and in a section at the end of each notice, and, wherever practicable,
a list has been added of the most interesting views of the various
gardens. The Introduction contains a brief sketch of some of the main
characteristics of the pleasure resorts described in the volume, and
it is only necessary here to add that even our long list of sixty-four
gardens does not by any means exhaust the outdoor resources of the
eighteenth-century Londoner, who had also his Fairs, and his Parks,
and his arenas for rough sport, like Hockley-in-the-Hole. But these
subjects have already found their chroniclers.
In preparing this work for press I have had the assistance of my
brother, Mr. Arthur E. Wroth, who has, moreover, made a substantial
contribution to the volume by furnishing the accounts of Sadler’s
Wells, White Conduit House, Bagnigge Wells, and Hampstead Wells, and
by compiling ten shorter notices. For the remaining fifty notices, for
the Introduction, and the revision of the whole I am myself responsible.
Although the book has not been hastily prepared, and has been written
for pleasure, I cannot hope that it is free from errors. I trust,
however, that the shortcomings of a work which often breaks new ground
and which deals with many miscellaneous topics will not be harshly
judged.
WARWICK WROTH.
LONDON,
_September, 1896_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION 1
I. CLERKENWELL AND CENTRAL GROUP
ISLINGTON SPA, OR NEW TUNBRIDGE WELLS 15
THE PANTHEON, SPA FIELDS 25
THE LONDON SPA 29
THE NEW WELLS, NEAR THE LONDON SPA 33
THE ENGLISH GROTTO, OR GROTTO GARDEN, ROSOMAN STREET 37
THE MULBERRY GARDEN, CLERKENWELL 40
SADLER’S WELLS 43
MERLIN’S CAVE 54
BAGNIGGE WELLS 56
“LORD COBHAM’S HEAD” 68
“SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE” TAVERN AND GARDENS 70
ST. CHAD’S WELL, BATTLE BRIDGE 72
BOWLING GREEN HOUSE, NEAR THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL 75
ADAM AND EVE TEA GARDENS, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD 77
THE PEERLESS POOL 81
THE SHEPHERD AND SHEPHERDESS, CITY ROAD 86
THE SPRING GARDEN, STEPNEY 88
II. MARYLEBONE GROUP
MARYLEBONE GARDENS 93
§ 1. _Origin of Marylebone Gardens_ 93
§ 2. _Marylebone Gardens_, 1738–1763 95
§ 3. _The Gardens under Thomas Lowe_ 101
§ 4. _Later History_, 1768–1778 103
THE QUEEN’S HEAD AND ARTICHOKE 111
THE JEW’S HARP HOUSE AND TEA GARDENS 113
THE YORKSHIRE STINGO 115
BAYSWATER TEA GARDENS 117
III. NORTH LONDON GROUP
PANCRAS WELLS 123
ADAM AND EVE TEA GARDENS, ST. PANCRAS 127
THE ASSEMBLY HOUSE, KENTISH TOWN 129
WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE 131
DOBNEY’S BOWLING GREEN, OR PROSPECT HOUSE 141
BELVIDERE TEA GARDENS, PENTONVILLE ROAD 145
THE CASTLE INN AND TEA GARDENS, COLEBROOKE ROW,
ISLINGTON 147
THREE HATS, ISLINGTON 148
BARLEY MOW TEA HOUSE AND GARDENS, ISLINGTON 153
CANONBURY HOUSE TEA GARDENS 154
COPENHAGEN HOUSE 156
HIGHBURY BARN 161
THE DEVIL’S HOUSE, HOLLOWAY 167
HORNSEY WOOD HOUSE 169
THE SPRING GARDEN, STOKE NEWINGTON 172
THE BLACK QUEEN COFFEE HOUSE AND TEA GARDENS, SHACKLEWELL 173
IV. HAMPSTEAD GROUP
HAMPSTEAD WELLS 177
THE SPANIARDS 184
NEW GEORGIA 187
BELSIZE HOUSE 189
KILBURN WELLS 194
V. CHELSEA GROUP
RANELAGH HOUSE AND GARDENS 199
§ 1. _Origin of Ranelagh_ 199
§ 2. _The Rotunda_ 201
§ 3. _The Entertainments and the Company_ 203
§ 4. _Annals of Ranelagh_, 1742–1769 208
§ 5. _Later History_, 1770–1805 212
STROMBOLO HOUSE AND GARDENS 219
STAR AND GARTER TAVERN AND GARDENS, CHELSEA 220
JENNY’S WHIM, PIMLICO 222
CROMWELL’S GARDENS, AFTERWARDS FLORIDA GARDENS, BROMPTON 225
VI. SOUTH LONDON GROUP
BERMONDSEY SPA GARDENS 231
ST. HELENA GARDENS, ROTHERHITHE 238
FINCH’S GROTTO GARDENS 241
CUPER’S GARDENS 247
“THE FOLLY” ON THE THAMES 258
BELVEDERE HOUSE AND GARDENS, LAMBETH 261
RESTORATION SPRING GARDENS, ST. GEORGE’S FIELDS 263
THE FLORA TEA GARDENS (OR MOUNT GARDENS) WESTMINSTER
BRIDGE ROAD 265
THE TEMPLE OF FLORA 266
APOLLO GARDENS (OR TEMPLE OF APOLLO) 268
DOG AND DUCK, ST. GEORGE’S FIELDS (ST. GEORGE’S SPA) 271
THE BLACK PRINCE, NEWINGTON BUTTS 278
LAMBETH WELLS 279
MARBLE HALL, VAUXHALL 281
THE CUMBERLAND TEA GARDENS, VAUXHALL (SMITH’S TEA GARDENS) 283
VAUXHALL GARDENS 286
§ 1. 1661–1728 286
§ 2. 1732–1767 290
§ 3. 1768–1790 305
§ 4. 1791–1821 311
§ 5. 1822–1859 316
INDEX 327
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“C. H. Simpson, Esq., M.C.R.G.V.” _Frontispiece_.
(Coloured print published by W. Kidd,
1833; Robert Cruikshank del. W. cp.
_infra_, “Vauxhall Gardens,” pp. 319, 320.)
“A Tea Garden” _To face page_ 6
(G. Morland pinxit; Mlle. Rollet
sc. W.)
Plan showing distribution of the London Pleasure
Gardens „ 12
“Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham” „ 17
(Mezzotint. G. Kneller pinx.; Faber
fecit 1732. W.)
“Vincent Lunardi, Esq.” „ 79
R. Cosway del.; F. Bartolozzi sc., frontispiece
to Lunardi’s _An Account of the First Aërial
Voyage in England_. London, 1784. W.)
“William Defesch” „ 97
(Soldi pinx.; F. Morellon le Cave sc.,
1751. W.)
“Ann Catley” „ 105
(Lawrenson pinx.; Evans sc., published
by Matthews and Leigh, 1807.)
“South-east View of Copenhagen House,”
1783 „ 157
(_See_ Views, Copenhagen House, No. 2.)
The Rotunda at Ranelagh, _circ._ 1751 „ 202
(From the 1754 ed. of Stow’s _Survey_.)
The Chinese House, the Rotunda and the
Company in Masquerade in Renelagh (_sic_)
Gardens” „ 205
(A coloured print, Bowles del. et sc.,
1751. W.)
“St. Helena Tavern and Tea Gardens” „ 239
(_See_ Views, St. Helena Gardens, No. 1.)
“Mrs. Baddely” „ 243
(Mezzotint. Zoffany pinx.; R. Lowrie
sc. [1772]. W.)
“View of the Savoy, Somerset House and the
water entrance to Cuper’s Gardens” „ 249
(_See_ Views, Cuper’s Gardens, No. 1.)
General Prospect of Vauxhall Gardens, 1751 „ 301
(From the 1754 ed. of Stow’s _Survey_.)
The Rotunda (Music Room), Vauxhall, 1752 „ 303
(Printed for Tho. Bowles, 1752. W.)
Admission ticket to the Vauxhall Jubilee Ridotto,
29 May, 1786. With the seal and autograph
of Jonathan Tyers the younger. W. „ 305
“Vauxhall” „ 307
(From Rowlandson’s drawing engraved by
R. Pollard, aquatinted by F. Jukes, 1785.
W. For details, _see_ Grego’s _Rowlandson_,
I. p. 62f. and p. 156f.)
“Vauxhall on a Gala Night” „ 311
(Pugh del.; Rhodes sc., published by
Richard Phillips, 1804.)
“Mrs. Martyr” „ 313
(Engraved by W. Ridley for Parson’s
_Minor Theatre_, 1794.)
Plan of Vauxhall Gardens in 1826 „ 318
(From Allen’s _Lambeth_.)
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
PAGE
Islington Spa in 1733 19
(_See_ Views, Islington Spa, No. 2.)
May Day at the London Spa, 1720 31
(_See_ Views, London Spa, No. 2, Brit. Mus. Library.)
A View of the English Grotto near the New River Head,
_circ._ 1760 38
(_See_ p. 37, note 1, No. 1, _infra_. W.)
Sadler’s Wells Anglers, 1796 46
(Woodward del. Cruikshank sc. Coloured print
[W.] “New River Head, Islington,” in Woodward’s
_Eccentric Excursions_, 1796.)
Sadler’s Wells in 1792, and as it was before 1765 49
(_See_ Views, Sadler’s Wells, No. 3.)
Spinacuti’s Monkey at Sadler’s Wells, 1768 51
(“The curious and uncommon performances of a
monkey as they will be introduc’d every evening at
Sadler’s Wells by Signor Spinacuta” (_sic_). Engraved
placard, _circ._ 1768. W.)
“The Bread and Butter Manufactory,” Bagnigge Wells,
1772 59
(_See_ Views, Bagnigge Wells, No. 2, mezzotint. W.)
Frontispiece for the _Sunday Ramble_ 63
(_See_ Views, Bagnigge Wells, No. 5. W.)
“Summer Amusement” 69
(An engraving printed for Bowles and Carver. W.)
Bill of Peerless Pool, _circ._ 1846 83
(_See_ Views, Peerless Pool, No. 3. W.)
Marybone Gardens, 1755–1761 99
(_See_ Views, Marylebone Gardens, No. 2; published
by J. Ryall. W.)
Thomas Lowe 102
(“Mr. Lowe at Sadler’s Wells.--_With early Horn
salute the morn._” Engraving in _The Vocal Magazine_,
1778, song 1091. W.)
Jew’s Harp House, 1794 114
(From a water-colour copied from Crace Coll., _Cat._
p. 569, No. 106.)
The Bayswater Tea Gardens, 1796 118
(_See_ Views, Bayswater Tea Gardens. Coloured
prints. W.)
Bill of Pancras Wells, _circ._ 1730, showing the Wells, and
the “Adam and Eve” tavern, near St. Pancras Church
est end) 125
(Photographed from a drawing in Crace Coll., reproducing
engraved bill of _circ._ 1730: _see_ Views, Pancras
Wells, No. 1.)
White Conduit House 136
(Engraving published 1 May, 1819, by R. Ackermann.)
“A representation of the surprising performances of Mr.
Price” at Dobney’s, _circ._ 1767 142
(_See_ Views, Dobney’s Bowling Green, No. 2.)
Johnson at the Three Hats, 1758 149
(_See_ Views, Three Hats, No. 3. W.)
Highbury Barn in 1792 163
(_See_ Views, Highbury Barn, No. 2. W.)
A view of ye Long Room at Hampsted, 1752 179
(_See_ Views, Hampstead Wells, No. 3.)
South View of The Spaniards, 1750 185
(_See_ Views, The Spaniards, No. 1. W.)
Belsize House and Park 190
(From a water-colour drawing by F. Kornman, after
an eighteenth-century engraving.)
The Attack on Dr. John Hill at Ranelagh, 6 May, 1752 207
(A print published by H. Carpenter, 1752. W.)
Regatta Ball at Ranelagh, 1775 214
(Admission ticket, G. B. Cipriani inv.; F. Bartolozzi
sc. W.)
A West View of Chelsea Bridge, showing Jenny’s Whim,
1761 223
(_See_ Views, Jenny’s Whim, No. 2. W.)
Orchestra and Dancing-platform, St. Helena Gardens, _circ._
1875 239
(_See_ Views, St. Helena Gardens, No. 3.)
Admission ticket, Finch’s Grotto 242
(From Wilkinson’s _Londina Illustrata_.)
Plan of Cuper’s Gardens, 1746 255
(From Wilkinson’s _Londina Illustrata_.)
“The Folly,” before _circ._ 1720 259
(Drawn by F. Anderson (1896) from the engraving
“Somerset House, La Maison de Somerset.” W. _See_
Views, “The Folly,” No. 2.)
“Labour in Vain” (St. George’s Spa in background), 1782 275
(_See_ Views, Dog and Duck, No. 4. W.)
The Black Prince, Newington Butts, 1788 278
(Printed for C. Bowles, 1788. W.)
Waterside entrance to Cumberland Gardens 284
(_See_ Views, Cumberland Gardens.)
Vauxhall ticket by Hogarth (“Amphion”) 291
(From a silver ticket in the British Museum.)
Vauxhall ticket by Hogarth (“Summer”) 294
(From a silver ticket in the British Museum.)
The Citizen at Vauxhall, 1755 297
(A plate in the _Connoisseur_ published by Harrison and
Co., Aug. 12, 1786, illustrating “The Citizen at
Vauxhall” in 1755. W.)
Title-page of a Collection of Hook’s Songs, 1798. W. 309
Charles Dignum 313
(An engraving by Jas. Heath from a painting by
Augs. Callcot, forming frontispiece to _Vocal Music_
... _composed and adapted by Charles Dignum_, London,
1803. W.)
Madame Saqui 315
(An engraving by Alais published 1820. W.)
Darley in the Orchestra at Vauxhall 317
(An engraving, _circ._ 1792. W.)
Admission ticket for Green’s Balloon Ascent, 31 July, 1850 321
(Ticket with Green’s autograph. W.)
Vauxhall in 1850 323
(Doyle’s View from _Punch_, July, 1850.)
“The Farewel to Vaux Hall” 325
(From Bickham’s _Musical Entertainer_, 1733 &c. W.)
THE
LONDON PLEASURE GARDENS
OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THE
LONDON PLEASURE GARDENS
INTRODUCTION
An entry in the diary of Samuel Pepys records how on the 7th of June,
1665, “the hottest day (he says) that ever I felt in my life,” he took
water to the Spring Garden at Foxhall and there stayed, pleasantly
walking, and spending but sixpence, till nine at night. The garden that
he visited was that which formed the nucleus of those Vauxhall Gardens
which, seventy or eighty years later, became the most favoured summer
resort of pleasure-seeking Londoners. Vauxhall with its great concourse
of high and low, its elaborate concerts, its lamps and brightly painted
supper-boxes, is far removed from the simple garden in which Mr. Pepys
delighted to ramble, but not only Vauxhall, but several other pleasure
gardens of the eighteenth century may be traced to comparatively humble
beginnings in the period between the Restoration and the reign of
Anne.[2]
In the early days of these gardens no charge was made for admission,
but a visitor would naturally spend a trifle in cheese-cakes and
syllabubs for the ladies, and would order for himself some bottle-ale
and such substantial viands as were afforded by the tavern or
the master’s dwelling-house attached to the garden. The musical
entertainments that afterwards became a feature of the principal
gardens were originally of little account. The Wells of Lambeth (1697)
and Hampstead (1701) provided a concert of some pretensions, but Mr.
Pepys at the Spring Garden was content with the harmony of a harp, a
fiddle, and a Jew’s trump.
In some places, however, a Long (or Great) Room was at an early period
built for the dancing that generally took place there in the morning
or the afternoon; and booths and raffling-shops were set up for the
benefit of card-players and gamblers. The quiet charm of a garden
was, moreover, sometimes rudely broken by the incursion of gallants
like “young Newport” and Harry Killigrew--“very rogues (says Pepys)
as any in the town.” At last, about 1730–40, the managers of the
principal public gardens found it desirable to make a regular charge
for admission: they requested gentlemen “not to smoak on the walks,”
sternly prohibited the entrance of servants in livery, and, generally,
did their best to exclude improper characters.
The author of the _Sunday Ramble_, a little guide-book of the last
century often quoted in this work, visited, or says that he visited, on
a single Sunday all the best known gardens near town. But it would have
required an abnormally long life and a survey far less hurried to make
acquaintance with all the open-air resorts that flourished during the
whole, or part, of the eighteenth century. Such a long-lived Rambler
who wished to know his gardens at first hand would probably have
visited them (as in this volume we invite the reader to do) in five or
six large groups, paying little heed to what might seem the pedantry of
Parishes and Hundreds.
Beginning in what are now the densely populated districts of
Clerkenwell and central London, he would find himself in the open
fields and in a region abounding in mineral springs. Islington Spa
(1684–1840) and its opposite neighbour Sadler’s Wells (from 1683)
had chalybeate springs that claimed to rival the water (“so mightily
cry’d up”) of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and if the water itself was
unpalatable, the adjoining pleasure gardens and Long Rooms, with their
gay company, tended to make the drinking of medicinal water both
pleasant and seductive. At no great distance from Sadler’s Wells were
the Wells of Bagnigge (from 1759), the London Spa (from 1685), St.
Chad’s Well, and Pancras Wells (from _circ._ 1697); and a walk to
Old Street would be rewarded by a plunge in the clear waters of the
Peerless Pool, or by a basket of carp and tench caught in the fish pond
close by.
Behind the Foundling Hospital there might be found a bowling green;
at the Mulberry Garden (Clerkenwell) a skittle-ground and an evening
concert; in Rosoman Street, a wonderful grotto and an enchanted
fountain[3] and (at the New Wells, _circ._ 1737–1750), a complete
“variety” entertainment.
Sunday afternoon, if you did not mind the society of prentices and
milliners, might be spent in Spa Fields at the Pantheon tea-house and
garden (1770–1776), or at the Adam and Eve Gardens at Tottenham Court.
Farther west lay the Marylebone Bowling Green and Garden, developed in
1738 into the well-known Marylebone Gardens, and in this neighbourhood
were several humbler places of entertainment, the Jew’s Harp House, The
Queen’s Head and Artichoke, and The Yorkshire Stingo.
Islington and North London were full of rural resorts, the Sunday
haunts of the London “cit” and his family. In Penton Street was the
renowned White Conduit House, and near it Dobney’s Bowling Green, both
visited in early days for their delightful prospects of the distant
country. The Three Hats in Islington attracted visitors who wished to
see the surprising horsemanship of Sampson and of Johnson “the Irish
Tartar.” Canonbury, Highbury, Kentish Town, and Hornsey were pleasant
places farther afield.
Still farther north were Belsize House, with its fashionable gambling
and racing; the popular Wells of Hampstead, and the Kilburn Wells. The
Spaniards, and New Georgia with its maze and mechanical oddities, were
Sunday attractions in Hampstead for the good wives and daughters of
tradesmen like Zachary Treacle.[4]
Chelsea could boast of at least two gardens in addition to the famous
gardens and Rotunda of Ranelagh. In Pimlico was Jenny’s Whim. At
Brompton, the Florida (or Cromwell’s) Gardens, a pleasant place, half
garden, half nursery, where you could gather cherries and strawberries
“fresh every hour in the day.”
London south of the Thames was not less well provided for. Nearly
opposite Somerset House were Cuper’s Gardens (_circ._ 1691–1759).
Lambeth had its wells and its Spring Garden (Vauxhall Gardens). In St.
George’s Fields and Southwark were the mineral springs of the notorious
Dog and Duck; the Restoration Spring Gardens, and Finch’s Grotto
Gardens. Farther east were the Bermondsey Spa, and the St. Helena
Gardens at Rotherhithe.
Such was the geographical distribution of the London pleasure gardens.
“A mighty maze--but not without a plan.” Or, at least a clue to their
intricacies may be found by arranging them in three groups, each with
its distinctive characteristics.
In our first division we may place pleasure resorts of the Vauxhall
type, beginning with the four great London Gardens--Cuper’s Gardens,
the Marylebone Gardens, Ranelagh, and Vauxhall itself. These were
all well-established in popular favour before the middle of the last
century, and all depended for their reputation upon their evening
concerts, their fireworks,[5] and their facilities for eating and
drinking. Ranelagh relied less on the attractions of its gardens
than did the other resorts just mentioned. Here the great Rotunda
overshadowed the garden, and the chief amusement was the promenade
in an “eternal circle” inside the building. Except on gala nights of
masquerades and fireworks, only tea, coffee and bread and butter were
procurable at Ranelagh; and a Frenchman about 1749 hints at more than a
suspicion of dulness in the place when he comments “on s’ennuie avec de
la mauvaise musique, du thé, et du beurre.”
Imitations of the principal gardens were attempted in various parts
of London. Thus the Mulberry Garden (_circ._ 1742), the Sir
John Oldcastle and the Lord Cobham’s Head in Clerkenwell had their
fireworks, and their concerts by local celebrities, described in the
advertisements as a “Band of the best Masters.” Finch’s Grotto Garden
in Southwark (1760–_circ._ 1773), though not a fashionable resort,
was illuminated on certain evenings of the week, and provided very
creditable concerts, in which performers of some repute occasionally
took part. Bermondsey Spa, from about 1784, had, like Vauxhall, its
Grand Walk and coloured lamps, and kept its own poet and musical
composer (Jonas Blewitt, the organist).[6] Two places called the
Temple of Apollo (or Apollo Gardens) and the Temple of Flora, in the
Westminster Bridge Road, also endeavoured to acquire something of
a Vauxhall tone, at least to the extent of having painted boxes,
illuminations and music, and a variety of (imitation) singing-birds.
These Temples were set up late in the eighteenth century, and came to a
bad end.
To a second division belong the gardens connected with mineral springs.
Several of these, as we have already seen, date from the end of the
seventeenth century--Islington Spa, Sadler’s Wells, and the Wells of
Pancras, Hampstead, and Lambeth. The Dog and Duck, Bagnigge Wells, and
other springs did not become well known till the eighteenth century.
Such places were usually day resorts, opening early in the morning and
providing something in the way of breakfasting, dancing, and music. The
waters were advertised, and by many accepted, as Universal Medicines. A
rising of the vapours, a scorbutic humour, an inveterate cancer could
all be cured (as “eminent physicians” constantly testified) by drinking
these unpleasant, but probably harmless, beverages--if possible, on the
spot, or at any rate in bottles sent out by the dozen and stamped with
the proprietor’s seal. Islington Spa became the vogue in 1733 when the
Princess Amelia regularly attended it. The Dog and Duck waters were
recommended to Mrs. Thrale by Dr. Johnson, and many cures vouched for
by a physician attested the efficacy of the purging and chalybeate
Wells of Bagnigge.
But the adventitious attractions of these places had a tendency to
obscure their importance as spas. Bagnigge Wells and, to some extent,
Islington Spa became after a time little more than tea-gardens.
Sadler’s lost sight of its Wells early in the eighteenth century, and
relied for profit on the development of the rope-dancing and pantomime
in its theatre. The Dog and Duck (St. George’s Spa) became at last a
tea-garden and a dancing-saloon which had to be suppressed as the haunt
of “the riff-raff and scum of the town.” Finch’s Grotto and Bermondsey
Spa, on the other hand, when their springs had ceased to attract,
developed (as we have shown) into minor Vauxhalls.
[Illustration: _A tea Garden._]
The third division of the London gardens consists of those that were
mainly tea-gardens. Many of these though small and unpretending
possessed a distinctly rural charm. Such were Highbury Barn, and the
Canonbury House tea-gardens, Hornsey with its romantic wood, and
Copenhagen House standing alone in the hay-fields. Bagnigge Wells
and White Conduit House, the classic tea-gardens of London, were
prettily laid out and pleasantly situated, but in their later days
became decidedly cockneyfied. The great day at these gardens was
Sunday, especially between five and nine o’clock. The amusements were
of a simple kind--a game of bowls or skittles, a ramble in the maze,
and a more or less hilarious tea-drinking in the bowers and alcoves
which every garden provided. In the Long Rooms of Bagnigge Wells,
White Conduit House, and the Pantheon the strains of an organ, if the
magistrates allowed the performance, might also be enjoyed.
The season at most of the London gardens began in April or May, and
lasted till August or September. The principal gardens were open during
the week (not, regularly, on Sundays) on three or more days, and those
of the Vauxhall type were usually evening resorts. Much depended, it
need hardly be said, upon the state of the weather, and sometimes the
opening for the season had to be postponed. When the rain came, the
fireworks were hopelessly soaked and people took refuge as they could
under an awning or a colonnade or in a Great Room. A writer in _The
Connoisseur_ of 1755 (May 15th) only too justly remarks that our
Northern climate will hardly allow us to indulge in the pleasures of a
garden so feelingly described by the poets: “We dare not lay ourselves
on the damp ground in shady groves or by the purling stream,” unless
at least “we fortify our insides against the cold by good substantial
eating and drinking. For this reason the extreme costliness of the
provisions at our public gardens has been grievously complained of by
those gentry to whom a supper at these places is as necessary a part of
the entertainment as the singing or the fireworks.” More than seventy
years later Tom Moore (_Diary_, August 21st, 1829) describes
the misery of a wet and chilly August night at Vauxhall--the gardens
illuminated but empty, and the proprietor comparing the scene to the
deserts of Arabia. On this occasion, Moore and his friends supped
between twelve and one, and had some burnt port to warm themselves.
The charge for admission at Vauxhall, Marylebone Gardens, and Cuper’s
was generally not less than a shilling. Ranelagh charged half-a-crown,
but this payment always included “the elegant regale” of tea, coffee,
and bread and butter. The proprietors of the various Wells made a
regular charge of threepence or more for drinking the water at the
springs and pump rooms. At some of the smaller gardens a charge of
sixpence or a shilling might be made for admission, but the visitor on
entering was presented with a metal check which enabled him to recover
the whole or part of his outlay in the form of refreshments.
Vauxhall, Marylebone, Cuper’s, and Ranelagh often numbered among
their frequenters people of rank and fashion, who subscribed for
season-tickets, but (with the possible exception of Ranelagh) were by
no means exclusive or select. The Tea-gardens, and, as a rule, the
Wells, had an aristocracy of aldermen and merchants, young ensigns and
templars, and were the chosen resorts of the prentice, the sempstress,
and the small shop-keeper.
The proprietors of gardens open in the evening found it necessary to
provide (or to announce that they provided) for the safe convoy of
their visitors after nightfall. Sadler’s Wells advertised “it will be
moonlight,” and provided horse patrols to the West End and the City.
The proprietor of Belsize House, Hampstead, professed to maintain
a body of thirty stout fellows “to patrol timid females or other.”
Vauxhall--in its early days usually approached by water--seems to
have been regarded as safe, but Ranelagh and the Marylebone Gardens
maintained regular escorts.
In the principal gardens, watchmen and “vigilant officers” were always
supposed to be in attendance to keep order and to exclude undesirable
visitors. Unsparing denunciation of the morals of the chief gardens,
such as is found in the lofty pages of Noorthouck, must, I am
inclined to think, be regarded as rhetorical, and to a great extent
unwarranted. On the other hand, one can hardly accept without a smile
the statement of a Vauxhall guide-book of 1753, that “even Bishops
have been seen in this Recess without injuring their character,” for
it cannot be denied that the vigilant officers had enough to do. There
were sometimes scenes and affrays in the gardens, and Vauxhall and
Cuper’s were favourite hunting-grounds of the London pickpocket. At
the opening Ridotto at Vauxhall (1732) a man stole fifty guineas from
a masquerader, but here the watchman was equal to the occasion, and
“the rogue was taken in the fact.” At Cuper’s on a firework night a
pickpocket or two might be caught, but it was ten to one that they
would be rescued on their way to justice by their confederates in St.
George’s Fields.
The dubious character of some of the female frequenters of the best
known gardens has been necessarily indicated in our detailed accounts
of these gardens, though always, it is hoped, in a way not likely to
cause offence. The best surety for good conduct at a public garden
was, after all, the character of the great mass of its frequenters,
and it is obvious that they were decent people enough, however wanting
in graces of good-breeding and refinement. Moreover, from the end of
the year 1752, when the Act was passed requiring London gardens and
other places where music and dancing took place to be under a license,
it was generally the interest of the proprietor to preserve good order
for fear of sharing the fate of Cuper’s, which was unable to obtain a
renewal of its license after 1752, and had to be carried on as a mere
tea-garden. The only places, perhaps, at which disreputable visitors
were distinctly welcome were those garish evening haunts in St.
George’s Fields, the Dog and Duck, the Temples of Flora and Apollo and
the Flora Tea-Gardens. All these were suppressed or lost their license
before the end of the eighteenth century.
Of the more important gardens, Marylebone and Cuper’s ceased to exist
before the close of the last century. Ranelagh survived till 1803 and
Vauxhall till 1859. Finch’s Grotto practically came to an end about
1773 and Bermondsey Spa about 1804. Many of the eighteenth-century
tea-gardens lasted almost to our own time, but the original character
of such places as Bagnigge Wells (closed 1841), White Conduit House
(closed 1849), and Highbury Barn (closed 1871) was greatly altered.
During the first thirty or forty years of the nineteenth century
numerous gardens, large and small, were flourishing in or near London.
Some of these, like Bagnigge Wells, had been well-known gardens in the
eighteenth century, while the origin of others, such as Chalk Farm,
Camberwell Grove House, the Rosemary Branch Gardens at Islington,
or rather Hoxton, the Mermaid Gardens, Hackney, and the Montpelier
Gardens, Walworth, may be probably, or certainly, traced to the last
century. These last-mentioned places, however, had little or no
importance as public gardens till the nineteenth century, and have not
been described in the present work.
Many new gardens came into existence, and of these the best known are
the Surrey Zoological Gardens (1831–1856); Rosherville (established
1837); Cremorne (_circ._ 1843–1877); and the Eagle Tavern and
Gardens (_circ._ 1825–1882), occupying the quiet domain of the old
Shepherd and Shepherdess.
The sale of Vauxhall Gardens in August 1859, or perhaps the closing of
Highbury Barn in 1871, may be held to mark the final disappearance of
the London Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century. “St. George’s
Fields are fields no more!” and hardly a tree or shrub recalls these
vanished pleasances of our forefathers. The site of Ranelagh is still,
indeed, a garden, and Hampstead has its spring and Well Walk. But the
Sadler’s Wells of 1765 exists only in its theatre, and its gardens
are gone, its spring forgotten, and its New River covered in. The
public-house, which in London dies hard, has occupied the site, and
preserved the name of several eighteenth-century gardens, including the
London Spa, Bagnigge Wells, White Conduit House and the Adam and Eve,
Tottenham Court, but the gardens themselves have been completely swept
away.
Vauxhall, Belsize House, and the Spa Fields Pantheon, none of them in
their day examples of austere morality, are now represented by three
churches. From the Marylebone Gardens, the Marylebone Music Hall may
be said to have been evolved. Pancras Wells are lost in the extended
terminus of the Midland Railway, and the Waterloo Road runs over the
centre of Cuper’s Gardens. Finch’s Grotto, after having been a burial
ground and a workhouse, is now the headquarters of our London Fire
Brigade. Copenhagen House with its fields is the great Metropolitan
Cattle Market. The Three Hats is a bank; Dobney’s Bowling Green, a
small court; the Temple of Apollo, an engineer’s factory, and the sign
of the Dog and Duck is built into the walls of Bedlam.
[Illustration: _PLAN_
_showing distribution of the_
_London Pleasure Gardens._]
I
CLERKENWELL AND CENTRAL GROUP
ISLINGTON SPA, OR NEW TUNBRIDGE WELLS
A poetical advertisement of the year 1684[7] refers to “the sweet
gardens and arbours of pleasure” at this once famous resort, situated
opposite the New River Head, Clerkenwell. The chalybeate spring in
its grounds was discovered at or shortly before that date, and the
proprietor in 1685 is described in the _London Gazette_[8] as
“Mr. John Langley, of London, merchant, who bought the rhinoceros and
Islington Wells.”
The original name of the Spa was Islington Wells, but it soon acquired
(at least as early as 1690) the additional title of New Tunbridge, or
New Tunbridge Wells, by which it was generally known until about 1754,
when the name of Islington Spa came into use, though the old title, New
Tunbridge, was never quite abandoned.[9]
Although the place could not at any period boast of the musical and
“variety” entertainments of its neighbour Sadler’s Wells, it soon
acquired greater celebrity as a Spa, and from about 1690 to 1700 was
much frequented. The gardens at this period[10] were shaded with limes
and provided with arbours; and, in addition to its coffee-house, the
Spa possessed a dancing-room and a raffling shop.[11] The charge for
drinking the water was threepence, and the garden was open on two or
three days in the week from April or May till August.
As early as seven o’clock in the morning a few valetudinarians might be
found at the Well, but most of the visitors did not arrive till two or
three hours later. Between ten and eleven the garden was filled with a
gay and, in outward seeming, fashionable throng. The company, however,
was extraordinarily mixed. Virtue and Vice; Fashion and the negation
of Fashion had all their representatives. Sir Courtly Nice drove up to
the gate in his gilt coach, and old Sir Fumble brought his lady and
daughter. Modish sparks and fashionable ladies, good wives and their
children, mingled with low women and sempstresses in tawdry finery;
with lawyers’ clerks, and pert shopmen; with sharpers, bullies, and
decoys. A doctor attended at the Well to give advice to the drinkers,
not a few of whom came for the serious purpose of benefiting their
health.
[Illustration: _Richard Temple_
[Illustration]
_Viscount Cobham, &c._
Walker & Equtall Ph Sc]
But the chief attraction was the Walks; the promenade where the beau
strutted with his long sword beribboned with scarlet, and ladies
fragrant with Powder of Orange and Jessamine discussed one another
and the fashions:--
Lord! madam, did you e’er behold
(Says one) a dress so very old?
Sure that commode was made, i’ faith,
In days of Queen Elizabeth;
Or else it was esteemed the fashion
At Charles the Second’s coronation:
The lady, by her mantua’s forebody,
Sure takes a pride to dress like nobody.[12]
Others of more plebeian estate preferred the seclusion of an arbour
shaded with climbing shrubs and sycamore, where sweethearts could chat,
or, if so minded, enjoy a late breakfast of plum-cake and ale. Older
people retired to the coffee-house to smoke and talk politics over
their coffee, but the man about town and his female friends were to be
found deep at play in the raffling shop, or speculating in the Royal
Oak Lottery.[13] Again and again it was the _Board_ that won,
while the projector and the man with cogged dice in his pocket looked
cynically on. At about eleven a.m. the dancing began. Music for dancing
all day long was advertised in 1700 for every Monday and Thursday of
the summer season. But the music of that period seems to have been only
the harmony of three or four by no means accomplished fiddlers, and
it is doubtful if the dancing ever continued beyond the morning and
afternoon.
In the early years of the eighteenth century the Spa seems to have gone
out of fashion,[14] and in 1714 _The Field Spy_ speaks of it as a
deserted place:--
The ancient drooping trees unprun’d appear’d;
No ladies to be seen; no fiddles heard.
The patronage of royal personages at last revived its fortunes. In
the months of May and June 1733, the Princess Amelia, daughter of
George II., and her sister Caroline came regularly to drink the
waters. On some occasions the princesses were saluted by a discharge
of twenty-one guns, and the gardens were thronged. On one morning the
proprietor took £30, and sixteen hundred people are said to have been
present. New Tunbridge Wells once more, for a few years, became the
vogue. Pinchbeck, the toyman, prepared a view of the gardens which he
sold as a mount for his fans. A song of the time, _The Charms of
Dishabille_, which George Bickham illustrated with another view of
the gardens, gives a picture of the scene (1733–1738):--
Behold the Walks, a chequer’d shade,
In the gay pride of green array’d;
How bright the sun! the air how still!
In wild confusion there we view
Red ribbons grouped with aprons blue;
Scrapes, curtsies, nods, winks, smiles and frowns,
Lords, milkmaids, duchesses and clowns,
In their all-various dishabille.
The same mixed company thus frequented the Spa as of old, and when my
Lord Cobham honoured the garden with a visit, there were light-fingered
knaves at hand to relieve him of his gold repeater. The physician who
at this time attended at the Well was “Dr.” Misaubin, famous for his
pills, and for his design to ruin the University of Cambridge (which
had refused him a doctor’s degree) by sending his son to the University
of Oxford. Among the habitués of the garden was an eccentric person
named Martin, known as the Tunbridge Knight. He wore a yellow cockade
and carried a hawk on his fist, which he named Royal Jack, out of
respect to the Royal Family.
[Illustration: ISLINGTON SPA IN 1733. BY GEORGE BICKHAM.]
Fashion probably soon again deserted the Spa; but from about 1750 to
1770 it was a good deal frequented by water-drinkers and visitors who
lodged for a time at the Wells. One young lady of good family, who
was on a visit to London in June 1753, wrote home to her friends[15]
that New Tunbridge Wells was “a very pretty Romantick place,” and
the water “very much like Bath water, but makes one vastly cold and
Hungary.” A ticket costing eighteenpence gave admission to the public
breakfasting[16] and to the dancing from eleven to three. It was
endeavoured to preserve the most perfect decorum, and no person of
exceptionable character was to be admitted to the ball-room.[17] This
invitation to the dance reads oddly at a time when the Spa was being
industriously recommended to the gouty, the nervous, the weak-kneed,
and the stiff-jointed.[18]
In 1770 the Spa was taken by Mr. John Holland, and from that year, or
somewhat earlier, the place was popular as an afternoon tea-garden.
The “Sunday Rambler” describes it as genteel, but judging from George
Colman’s farce, _The Spleen; or Islington Spa_ (first acted in
1776), its gentility was that of publicans and tradesmen. “The Spa
(says Mrs. Rubrick) grows as genteel as Tunbridge, Brighthelmstone,
Southampton or Margate. Live in the most social way upon earth: all
the company acquainted with each other. Walks, balls, raffles and
subscriptions. Mrs. Jenkins of the Three Blue Balls, Mrs. Rummer and
family from the King’s Arms; and several other people of condition, to
be there this season! And then Eliza’s wedding, you know, was owing to
the Spa. Oh, the watering-places are the only places to get young women
lovers and husbands!”
In 1777, Holland became bankrupt, and next year a Mr. John Howard
opened the gardens in the morning and afternoon, charging the
water-drinkers sixpence or threepence, or a guinea subscription. He
enriched the place with a bowling-green[19] and with a series of
“astronomical lectures in Lent, accompanied by an orrery.” A band
played in the morning, and the afternoon tea-drinking sometimes (1784)
took place to the accompaniment of French horns.[20] Sir John Hawkins,
the author of _The History of Music_, frequented the Spa for his
health in 1789. On returning home after drinking the water one day in
May (Wednesday 20th, 1789) he complained of a pain in his head and died
the next morning of a fever in the brain. “Whether (as a journalist of
the time observes) it was owing to the mineral spring being taken when
the blood was in an improper state to receive its salubrious effect, or
whether it was the sudden visitation of Providence, the sight of the
human mind is incompetent to discover.”
The Spa continued to be resorted to till the beginning of the
present century when the water and tea-drinking began to lose their
attractions. The author of _Londinium redivivum_, writing about
1803,[21] speaks, however, of the gardens with enthusiasm as “really
very beautiful, particularly at the entrance. Pedestals and vases
are grouped with taste under some extremely picturesque trees, whose
foliage (is) seen to much advantage from the neighbouring fields.” At
last, about 1810, the proprietor, Howard, pulled down the greater part
of the old coffee-house,[22] and the gardens were curtailed by the
formation of Charlotte Street (now Thomas Street). At the same time the
old entrance to the gardens, facing the New River Head, was removed
for the building of Eliza Place.[23] A new entrance was then made in
Lloyd’s Row, and the proprietor lived in a house adjoining. A later
proprietor, named Hardy, opened the gardens in 1826 as a Spa only. The
old Well was enclosed, as formerly, by grotto work and the garden walks
were still pleasant. Finally in 1840, the two rows of houses called Spa
Cottages were built upon the site of the gardens.
A surgeon named Molloy, who resided about 1840–1842 in the proprietor’s
house in Lloyd’s Row, preserved the Well, and by printed circulars
invited invalids to drink the water for an annual subscription of one
guinea, or for sixpence each visit. In Molloy’s time the Well was
contained in an outbuilding attached to the east side of his house.
The water was not advertised after his tenancy, though it continued to
flow as late as 1860. In the autumn of 1894, the writers of this volume
visited the house and found the outbuilding occupied as a dwelling-room
of a very humble description. Standing in this place it was impossible
to realise that we were within a few feet of the famous Well. A door,
which we had imagined on entering to be the door of a cupboard, proved
to be the entrance to a small cellar two or three steps below the level
of the room. Here, indeed, we found the remains of the grotto that had
once adorned the Well, but the healing spring no longer flowed.[24]
Eliza Place was swept away for the formation of Rosebery Avenue, and
the two northernmost plots of the three little public gardens, opened
by the London County Council on 31 July, 1895,[25] as Spa Green, are
now on part of the site of the old Spa. The Spa Cottages still remain,
as well as the proprietor’s house in Lloyd’s Row, and beneath the
coping-stone of the last-named the passer-by may read the inscription
cut in bold letters: ISLINGTON SPA OR NEW TUNBRIDGE WELLS.
[Besides the authorities cited in the text and notes and in
the account in Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_, p. 398, ff., the
following may be mentioned:--_Experimental observations on
the water of the mineral spring near Islington commonly called
New Tunbridge Wells._ London, 1751, 8vo; another ed., 1773,
8vo (the Brit. Mus. copy of the latter contains some newspaper
cuttings); Dodsley’s _London_, 1761, s.v. “Islington”;
Kearsley’s _Strangers’ Guide_, s.v. “Islington”; Lewis’s
_Islington_; _Gent. Mag._ 1813, pt. 2, p. 554, ff.;
advertisements, &c., in Percival’s Sadler’s Wells Collection and
in W. Coll.; Wheatley’s _London_, ii. 268, and iii. p. 199.]
VIEWS.
1. View of the gardens, coffee-house, &c., engraved
frontispiece to Lockman’s poem, _The Humours of New Tunbridge
Wells at Islington_, London, 1734, 8vo (cp. Pinks, 401, note,
and 402).
2. View of the gardens, well, coffee-house, &c., engraved by G.
Bickham, jun., as the headpiece of “The Charms of Dishabille
or New Tunbridge Wells” (Bickham’s _Musical Entertainer_,
1733, &c., vol. i. No. 42).
3. Engravings of the proprietor’s house in Lloyd’s Row;
Cromwell’s _Clerkenwell_, 352; Pinks, 405. The house is
still as there represented.
THE PANTHEON, SPA FIELDS
The Spa Fields Pantheon stood on the south side of the present Exmouth
Street, and occupied the site of the Ducking Pond House,[26] a wayside
inn, with a pond in the rear used for the sport of duck-hunting.
The Ducking Pond premises having been acquired by Rosoman of Sadler’s
Wells, were by him sub-let to William Craven, a publican, who, at a
cost of £6,000, laid out a garden and erected on the site of the old
inn a great tea-house called the Pantheon, or sometimes the Little
Pantheon, when it was necessary to distinguish it from “the stately
Pantheon” in Oxford Street, built in 1770–1771, and first opened in
January 1772.[27]
The Spa Fields Pantheon was opened to the public early in 1770, and
consisted of a large Rotunda, with two galleries running round the
whole of the interior, and a large stove in the centre.
The place was principally resorted to by apprentices and small
tradesmen, and on the afternoon and evening of Sunday, the day when
it was chiefly frequented, hundreds of gaily-dressed people were to
be found in the Rotunda, listening to the organ,[28] and regaling
themselves with tea, coffee and negus, or with supplies of punch and
red port. A nearer examination of this crowded assembly showed that it
consisted of journeymen tailors, hairdressers, milliners and servant
maids, whose behaviour, though boisterous, may have been sufficiently
harmless.
The proprietor endeavoured to secure the strict maintenance of order by
selling nothing after ten o’clock in the evening. But his efforts, it
would seem, were not entirely successful. “Speculator,” a correspondent
of the _St. James’s Chronicle_, who visited the place in May 1772,
“after coming from church,” looked down from his vantage-ground in
one of the galleries upon what he describes as a dissipated scene. To
his observation the ladies constituted by far the greater part of the
assembly, and he was shocked more than once by the request, “Pray, Sir,
will you treat me with a dish of tea?”
A tavern with tea-rooms for more select parties stood on the east of
the Rotunda. Behind the buildings was a pretty garden, with walks,
shrubs and fruit trees. There was a pond or canal stocked with fish,
and near it neat boxes and alcoves for the tea-drinkers. Seats were
dispersed about the garden, the attractions of which were completed by
a summer-house up a handsome flight of stone steps, and a statue of
Hercules, with his club, on a high pedestal. The extent of the garden
was about four acres.