195), speaks contemptuously of the canal “as about the size of a
butcher’s tray, where citizens of _quality_ and their spouses
come on Sunday to view the amorous flutterings of a duck and drake.”
This, however, is the opinion of a fashionable gentleman who goes
alternately to Almack’s and Cornelys’s, while Ranelagh (he says)
“affords me great relief.”
The career of the Pantheon was brief; for in March 1774 the building
and its grounds were announced for sale on account of Craven’s
bankruptcy. According to the statement of the auctioneer the place was
then in full trade, and the returns almost incredible, upwards of one
thousand persons having sometimes been accommodated in the Rotunda.
It is uncertain if another proprietor tried his hand, if so he was
probably unsuccessful, for the Pantheon was certainly closed as a place
of amusement in 1776.
In July 1777 the Rotunda, after having been used for a time as a depot
for the sale of carriages, was opened for services of the Church of
England under the name of Northampton Chapel. One of the preachers,
moralising on the profane antecedents of the place, adopted the text,
“And he called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of that city
was called Luz at the first.”
The building was afterwards purchased by the Countess of Huntingdon,
and opened in March 1779 under the name of Spa Fields Chapel as a
place of worship in her connexion. Various alterations were at that
time, and subsequently, made in the building, and a statue of Fame,
sounding a trumpet, which had stood outside the Pantheon on the
lantern surmounting the cupola was removed. The tavern belonging to
the Pantheon, on the east side of the Rotunda, was occupied by Lady
Huntingdon as her residence. It was a large house partly covered by
branches of jessamine.
The gardens, in the rear of the Rotunda, were converted in 1777 into
the Spa Fields burial-ground, which became notorious in 1843 for its
over-crowded and pestilential condition, and for some repulsive
disclosures as to the systematic exhumation of bodies in order to make
room for fresh interments.
Spa Fields Chapel was pulled down in the beginning of 1887, and the
present church of the Holy Redeemer was erected on its site, and
consecrated for services of the Church of England on 13 October, 1888.
Such have been the strange vicissitudes of the Pantheon tea-house and
its gardens.
[Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_; Walford, _O. and N. London_; _The Sunday
Ramble_; Tomlins’s _Perambulation of Islington_, p. 158; _Notes
and Queries_, 1st ser. ii. p. 404; _Spa Fields Chapel and its
Associations_, London, 1884.]
VIEWS.
1. View of Northampton or Spa Fields Chapel, with the Countess
of Huntingdon’s house adjoining. Hamilton, del., Thornton
sculp., 1783. Crace, _Cat._ p. 589, No. 43.
2. Exterior of Chapel and Lady Huntingdon’s house, engraving in
Britton’s _Picture of London_, 1829, p. 120.
3. Later views of the Chapel (interior and exterior) engraved in
Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_, pp. 146, 147.
THE LONDON SPA
The London Spa public-house, standing at the corner of Rosoman Street
and Exmouth Street, marks the site of a seventeenth-century inn called
The Fountain.
A spring of chalybeate water was discovered on the premises of this
inn about 1685, and was a special inducement held out to the public by
the proprietor, John Halhed, vintner, to visit his house. In August
1685, Halhed, in advertising the virtues of the water, stated that no
less an authority than Robert Boyle, the chemist, had adjudged and
openly declared it to be the strongest and very best of these late
found out medicinal waters. The honest vintner, in giving other local
wells their due, maintained that his was equivalent, if not better,
in virtue, goodness, and operation, to that of Tunbridge (so mightily
cry’d up) or any other water yet known. On 14 July, 1685, the house
was solemnly nominated and called the London Spaw, by Robert Boyle, in
the presence of “an eminent, knowing, and more than ordinary ingenious
apothecary ... besides the said John Halhed and other sufficient men.”
The name of the Fountain seems thenceforth to have been superseded by
that of the London Spa. In inviting persons of quality to make a trial
of the spring, Halhed expressed the wish that the greatness of his
accommodation were suitable to the goodness of his waters, although he
was not without convenient apartments and walks for both sexes. The
poor were to be supplied with the water gratis.
For a few years subsequent to 1714 the place appears to have fallen
into neglect; but it afterwards was once more frequented, and in 1720
the author of _May Day_[29] writes:--
Now nine-pin alleys, and now skettles grace,
The late forlorn, sad, desolated place;
Arbours of jasmine fragrant shades compose
And numerous blended companies enclose.
On May-day the milkmaids and their swains danced in the gardens to the
music of the fiddler. Holiday folk flocked to test the virtues of the
spring, and from this time onwards, the London Spa enjoyed some degree
of popularity. In the summer of 1733, _Poor Robin’s Almanack_
records how--
Sweethearts with their sweethearts go
To Islington or London Spaw;
Some go but just to drink the water,
Some for the ale which they like better.
The annual Welsh fair, held in the Spa Field hard by, must have brought
additional custom to the tavern, and in 1754 the proprietor, George
Dodswell, informed the public that they would meet with the most
inviting usage at his hands, and that during the fair there would be
the “usual entertainment of roast pork with the oft-famed flavoured
Spaw ale.” From this date onwards the London Spa would appear to have
been merely frequented as a tavern.[30] The present public-house was
built on the old site in 1835.
[Illustration: MAY DAY AT THE LONDON SPA. 1720.]
[The London Spaw, an advertisement, August 1685, folio sheet in
British Museum; Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_.]
VIEWS.
1. A view of the London Spa in Lempriere’s set of views,
1731; Crace, _Cat._ p. 588, No. 41. Cp. Pinks’s
_Clerkenwell_, p. 168.
2. Engraving of the Spa garden, T. Badeslade, inv.; S.
Parker, sculp.; frontispiece to _May Day, or the Origin of
Garlands_, 1720.
THE NEW WELLS, NEAR THE LONDON SPA
Houses in Lower Rosoman Street,[31] Clerkenwell, west side, about one
hundred yards from the London Spaw public-house, now occupy the site of
this place of amusement.
The New Wells commanded a pleasant prospect of the fields and country
beyond; but nothing is known of the medicinal waters, and the prominent
feature of the place was a theatre, probably intended to rival Sadler’s
Wells, in which entertainments, consisting of dancing, tumbling,
music and pantomime were given from 1737 (or earlier[32]) till 1750.
The purchase of a pint of wine or punch was generally the passport
necessary for admission, and the gardens were open on Sunday as well as
on week-day evenings. The entertainments usually began at five o’clock,
and concluded about ten. In 1738, there were comic songs and dancing,
an exhibition of views of Vauxhall, and a whimsical, chymical and
pantomimical entertainment called the _Sequel_.
During the next year (1739) similar entertainments were given, and
Mr. Blogg sang the “Early Horn,” and “Mad Tom” with a preamble on the
kettledrums by Mr. Baker. At this time the place possessed a kind of
Zoological Gardens, for there was then to be seen a fine collection of
large rattlesnakes, one having nineteen rattles and “seven young ones,”
a young crocodile imported from Georgia, American darting and flying
squirrels, “which may be handled as any of our own,” and a cat between
the tiger and leopard, perfectly tame, and one of the most beautiful
creatures that ever was in England. This show could be seen for a
shilling.
In 1740 a Merlin’s Cave was added to the attractions of the gardens
(cp. “Merlin’s Cave,” _infra_), and there was displayed a firework
representation of the siege of Portobello by Admiral Vernon. On 3
July, 1742,[33] Monsieur and Madame Brila from Paris and their little
son, three years old, exhibited several curiosities of balancing, and
the two Miss Rayners, rope-dancing. There were songs and dancing; a
hornpipe by Mr. Jones of Bath, who played the fiddle as he danced,
and an exhibition of views of the newly opened Rotunda at Ranelagh.
In June 1744 there was a pantomime, _The Sorceress, or Harlequin
Savoyard_; the part of Harlequin being sustained by Mr. Rosoman. A
dance of Indians in character concluded an entertainment witnessed by a
crowded and “polite” audience of over seven hundred persons. In August
of the same year a Mr. Dominique jumped over the heads of twenty-four
men with drawn swords; Madam Kerman performed on the tight-rope, danced
on stilts, and (according to the advertisements) jumped over a garter
ten feet high.
Next came to the Wells (1745) a youthful giant seven feet four inches
high, though under sixteen years of age, who occasionally exhibited his
proportions on the rope. In 1746 there appeared a Saxon Lady Giantess
seven feet high, and the wonderful little Polander, a dwarf two feet
ten inches in height, of the mature age of sixty, “in every way
proportionable, and wears his beard after his own country’s fashion.”
During this year Miss Rayner performed the feat of walking up an
inclined rope, one hundred yards long, extending from the stage to the
upper gallery, having two lighted flambeaux in her hands.
The same year (1746) witnessed the celebration at Sadler’s Wells and
other places of entertainment in London of the victory of the Duke of
Cumberland at Culloden. At the New Wells were given representations
of the battle, and the storming of Culloden House. Mr. Yeates[34] (or
Yates), the manager at this time, in acknowledging his gratification
at the applause manifested, regretted that on the appearance of
Courage (the character symbolising the Duke of Cumberland) several
hearty Britons exerted their canes in such a torrent of satisfaction
as to cause considerable damage to his benches. About this period
Mrs. Charlotte Charke (the youngest daughter of Colley Cibber the
dramatist) appeared at the Wells as Mercury in the play of _Jupiter
and Alcmena_.
From 1747 to 1750 the theatre and gardens remained closed, but after
having been considerably improved they were re-opened on 16 April,
1750. Towards the close of this year, Hannah Snell made her appearance
and went through a number of military exercises in her regimentals.
This warlike lady, who had served under the name of James Gray as a
marine at the siege of Pondicherry, and who had been several times
wounded in action, was one of the first party that forded the river,
breast high, under the enemy’s fire. She worked laboriously in the
trenches, and performed picket duty for seven nights in succession.
The entertainments at the New Wells appear to have ceased about 1750.
In 1752 the proprietor, Yeates, let the theatre to the Rev. John
Wesley, and in May of that year, it was converted into a Methodist
tabernacle. A few years later the theatre was removed, probably in
1756, when Rosoman Row (now Rosoman Street) was formed.
[Cromwell’s _Clerkenwell_, p. 254; Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_;
newspaper advertisements, W. Coll.].
THE ENGLISH GROTTO, OR GROTTO GARDEN, ROSOMAN STREET
The English Grotto was in existence in 1760, and is described as
standing in the fields, near the New River Head. A view of that
date[35] represents it as a small wooden building resembling the London
Spa. A flag is flying from the roof, and some well-dressed people are
seen walking near it. A garden, with a curious grotto and water-works,
were probably its only attractions.
It may be conjectured that this English Grotto is identical with
the Grotto Garden in Rosoman Street, which was kept in (or before)
1769[36] by a man named Jackson, a successful constructor of grottoes,
and contrivances of water-works. In 1769 he advertised the place
as his Grand Grotto Garden, and gold and silver fish Repository.
In the garden was a wonderful grotto; an enchanted fountain; and
a water-mill, invented by the proprietor, which when set to work
represented fireworks, and formed a beautiful rainbow. A variety of
gold and silver fish, “which afford pleasing ideas to every spectator”
might be purchased at this repository. Sixpence was sometimes charged
for admission, and a number of people are said to have resorted there
daily. The place was still in Jackson’s possession in 1780.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH GROTTO NEAR THE NEW RIVER
HEAD.
_Circ._ 1760.]
The house and Grotto Garden were at the north-east corner of Lower
Rosoman Street (originally Rosoman Row), almost facing the London Spa.
About 1800 the house, or its later representative, was No. 35, Lower
Rosoman Street, and in its garden were some remains of the wonderful
grotto. From the windows there was still a pleasing prospect of the
country for many miles. In this house Mr. Pickburn, the printer, first
published _The Clerkenwell News_ in 1855, and continued to print
the newspaper there until 1862.
[For authorities and views, see notes.]
THE MULBERRY GARDEN, CLERKENWELL
The Mulberry Garden in Clerkenwell, the site of which was afterwards
occupied by the House of Detention, was open in 1742, but contrary
to the usual practice, the proprietor (W. Body) made no charge for
admission, relying for profit on the sale of refreshments.
It was a somewhat extensive garden with a large pond, gravelled walks,
and avenues of trees. From the seats placed beneath the shade of a
great mulberry tree, probably one of those introduced into England
in the reign of James I., the players in the skittle-alley might
often be watched at their game. The garden was open from 6 p.m. in
the spring and summer, and, especially between 1742 and 1745, was
advertised in the newspapers with extravagant eulogy. “Rockhoutt[37]
(the proprietor declared) has found one day and night’s Al Fresco in
the week to be inconvenient; Ranelagh House, supported by a giant
whose legs will scarcely support him[38]; Mary le Bon Gardens, down
on their marrow-bones; New wells[39] at low water; at Cuper’s[40]
the fire almost out.” The attractions offered were a band of wind
and string instruments in an orchestra in the garden and occasional
displays of fireworks and illuminations. The proprietor professed (6
April, 1743) to engage British musicians only, maintaining that “the
manly vigour of our own native music is more suitable to the ear and
heart of a Briton than the effeminate softness of the Italian.” On
cold evenings the band performed in the long room. On 2 September,
1742, the proprietor excused himself from a pyrotechnic display on the
ground that it was the doleful commemoration of the Fire of London. On
9 August, 1744, there was a special display of fireworks helped out by
the instrumental music of the “celebrated Mr. Bennet.” At this fête
“honest Jo Baker” beat a Trevally on his side drum as he did before the
great Duke of Marlborough when he defeated the French at the Battle of
Malplaquet. This entertainment must have been popular, for beyond the
sixteen hundred visitors who were able to gain admission, some five
hundred others are said to have been turned away. On 25 August, in the
same year, another firework display was given, and on this occasion
the proprietor condescended to make a charge of twopence per head for
admission.
The gardens do not appear to have been advertised between 1745 and
1752, during which period they were probably kept by a Mrs. Bray, who
died on 1 March, 1752, “with an excellent good character.” Beyond this,
her obituary only records that she “is thought to have been one of the
fattest women in London.” In 1752 the gardens were in the hands of
Clanfield, the firework engineer of Cuper’s Gardens, who every summer
evening provided vocal and instrumental music, from six o’clock, and
fireworks at nine.[41] The admission was sixpence with a return of
threepence in refreshments.
Fashionable gentlemen appear to have played an occasional game of
ninepins or skittles in the Mulberry Garden, but on the whole the place
enjoyed only a local celebrity among tradesmen and artisans, and its
proprietor, in elegant language,[42] made his appeal to “the honest
Sons of trade and industry after the fatigues of a well-spent day,” and
invited the Lover and the jolly Bacchanalian to sit beneath the verdant
branches in his garden.
Nothing is known of the garden subsequent to 1752. The site was used
about 1797 as the exercising ground of the Clerkenwell Association of
Volunteers, and the House of Detention (now replaced by a Board School)
was subsequently built on it.
[Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_.]
VIEWS.
Two engravings, probably contemporary, showing well-dressed
gentlemen playing at ninepins near the mulberry tree: Guildhall
Library, London (_Catal._ p. 210). One of these views is
engraved in Pinks, p. 128.
SADLER’S WELLS
Towards the close of the seventeenth century there stood on the site of
the present Sadler’s Wells Theatre (Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell), a
wooden building of a single story erected by Sadler, a surveyor of the
highways, as a Music House. The house stood in its own grounds, and the
New River flowed past its southern side.
It was in the garden of this house that in 1683 some workmen in
Sadler’s employ accidentally unearthed an ancient well, arched over
and curiously carved. Sadler, suspecting the water to have medicinal
properties, submitted it for analysis to a doctor, who advised him to
brew ale with it. This he did with such excellent results that the
ale of Sadler’s Wells became, and long remained, famous. In 1684,
Dr. Thomas Guidot issued a pamphlet setting forth the virtues of the
water which he described as a ferruginous chalybeate, akin to the
waters of Tunbridge Wells, though not tasting so strongly of steel and
having more of a nitrous sulphur about it. Being neither offensive
nor unpleasant to taste, a man was able to drink more of it than of
any other liquor. It might be taken with a few carraway comfits, some
elecampane, or a little preserved angelica to comfort the stomach. A
glass of Rhenish or white wine might also accompany the tonic, and
habitual smokers would find it very convenient to take a pipe after
drinking.
Sadler lost no time in advertising his Wells,[43] and in preparing
for the reception of the water-drinkers. He laid out his garden with
flowers and shrubs, and constructed in the centre a marble basin to
receive the medicinal water. Posturers, tumblers and rope-dancers,
performing at first in the open-air, were engaged. A Mrs. Pearson
played on the dulcimer on summer evenings at the end of the Long Walk,
and visitors danced to the strains of a band stationed on a rock of
shellwork construction. The place soon became popular, and hundreds of
people came daily to drink the water.
Epsom and Tunbridge Wells (in Kent) saw in Sadler’s Wells a serious
rival to their own spas, and in 1684 a tract was issued protesting
against this “horrid plot” laid to persuade people that “Sadler’s
Musick House is South-Borrow and Clarkenwell Green Caverley Plain.”
Was it possible for water from such a source to “bee effectual as our
wonder-working fountains that tast of cold iron, and breathe pure nitre
and sulphur”? Audacious and unconscionable Islington should surely be
content with its monopoly from time immemorial of the sale of cakes,
milk, custards, stewed prunes, and bottled ale. But even if the waters
“could be conceited somewhat comparable, where is the air? Where the
diversions? Where the conveniences?”
Possibly this tirade was not ineffectual; at any rate, about 1687
the place was comparatively deserted and the well fell into disuse.
“Sadler’s excellent steel waters” were, however, again advertised in
1697 as being as full of vigour, strength and virtue as ever they
were and very effectual for curing all hectic and hypochondriacal
heat, for beginning consumptions and for melancholy distempers. The
water-drinking appears to have finally ceased early in the eighteenth
century;[44] though the place, surrounded by fields till quite late in
the century, remained a pleasant resort for Londoners.
There you may sit under the shady trees
And drink and smoke fann’d by a gentle breeze.[45]
There pleasant streams of Middleton
In gentle murmurs glide along
In which the sporting fishes play
To close each wearied Summer’s day.
And Musick’s charms in lulling sounds
Of mirth and harmony abounds;
While nymphs and swains with beaux and belles
All praise the joys of Sadler’s Wells.
The herds around o’er herbage green
And bleating flocks are sporting seen
While Phœbus with its brightest rays
The fertile soil doth seem to praise.[46]
As late as 1803 mention is made of the tall poplars, graceful willows,
sloping banks and flowers of Sadler’s Wells; and the patient London
fisherman, like his brethren of the angle of the eighteenth century,
still stood by the stream.[47]
From about 1698 the gardens ceased to be a prominent feature of
Sadler’s Wells, and the fortunes of the place from that time to the
present day mainly concern the historian of the Theatre and the Variety
Stage, and can only be dealt with briefly in the present work.
[Illustration: SADLER’S WELLS ANGLERS. 1796.]
In 1698 (23 May) a vocal and instrumental concert was given, and
the company enjoyed such harmony as can be produced by an orchestra
composed of violins, hautboys, trumpets and kettledrums. This was
one of the concerts given in the Music House twice a week throughout
the season and lasting from ten o’clock to one. In 1699 James Miles
and Francis Forcer (_d._ 1705?), a musician, appear to have been
joint proprietors of Sadler’s Wells, which was for some years styled
Miles’s Music House. In this year (1699) there was an exhibition of
an “ingurgitating monster,” a man, who, for a stake of five guineas,
performed the hardly credible feat of eating a live cock. This
disgusting scene was witnessed by a very rough audience, including
however some beaux from the Inns of Court. A brightly painted gallery
in the saloon used for the entertainments appears to have been occupied
by the quieter portion of the audience, who were able from thence
to survey the pit below, which was filled, according to Ned Ward
(_circ._ 1699), with butchers, bailiffs, prize-fighters, and
housebreakers. The audience smoked and regaled themselves with ale and
cheese-cakes; while the organ played, a scarlet-clad fiddler performed,
and a girl of eleven gave a sword dance.
In 1712, Miles’s Music House was the scene of a fatal brawl in which
Waite, a lieutenant in the Navy, was killed by a lawyer named French,
“near the organloft.” In 1718 it is mentioned as the resort of
“strolling damsels, half-pay officers, peripatetic tradesmen, tars,
butchers and others musically inclined.”
Miles died in 1724 and probably about that time Forcer’s son, Francis
Forcer, junior (_d._ 1743), an educated man of good presence,
became proprietor and improved the entertainments of rope-dancing
and tumbling. The neighbourhood of Sadler’s Wells about this period
was infested by footpads. It was consequently a common sight to see
link-boys with their flaming torches standing outside the theatre, and
horse patrols were often advertised (_circ._ 1733–1783) as escorts to
the City and the West End. Occasionally the play-bills announced:--“It
will be moonlight.”