Chapter XII: Introduction (5)

Belsize became a fashionable rendezvous. In July 1721 the Prince and Princess of Wales, attended by several persons of rank, dined at the house, and were entertained with hunting and other diversions. In June, 1722, on the occasion of a wild deer hunt, three or four hundred coaches brought down the “Nobility and Gentry” from town. Athletic sports were introduced, and the proprietor gave a plate of several guineas to be run for by eleven footmen (1721). Gambling and intrigue were the less wholesome results of this influx of the nobility and gentry. In May 1722 the Justices took steps to prevent the unlawful gaming, while in the same year “A serious Person of Quality” published a satire called _Belsize House_, in which he undertook to expose “the Fops and Beaux who daily frequent that Academy,” and also the “characters of the women who make this an exchange for assignations.”

This house, which is a nuisance to the land
Doth near a park and handsome garden stand
Fronting the road, betwixt a range of trees
Which is perfumed with a Hampstead breeze.
The Welsh Ambassador has many ways
Fool’s pence, while summer season holds, to raise.
For ’tis not only chocolate and tea,
With ratafia, bring him company.
Nor is it claret, Rhenish wine or sack
The fond and rampant Lords and Ladies lack
Or ven’son pasty for a certain dish
With several varieties of fish;
But hither they and other chubs resort
To see the Welsh Ambassador make sport,
Who in the art of hunting has the luck
To kill in fatal corner tired buck,
The which he roasts and stews and sometimes bakes,
Whereby His Excellency profit makes.
He also on another element
Does give his choused customers content
With net or angling rod, to catch a dish
Of trouts or carp or other sorts of fish.

The Welsh Ambassador was the nickname of the proprietor, James Howell, an enterprising though not very reputable person, who had once been imprisoned for some offence in Newgate.

Races[203] and similar amusements continued for several years to be provided, and music was performed every day during the season. In the spring of 1733 (31 May) a race was advertised for ponies twelve hands six inches high. The length of the race was six times round the course; “Mr. Treacle’s black pony,” which distinguished itself by winning the plate at Hampstead Heath in the previous year, being excluded.

In 1736 a fat doe was advertised to be hunted to death by small beagles, beginning at nine in the morning, and sportsmen were invited to bring their own dogs, if “not too large.” In the same year (16 September) a boys’ race was run, beginning at three o’clock, six times round the course: a prize of one guinea was given to the winner, and half a guinea to the second runner. “Each person to pay sixpence coming in, and all persons sitting on the wall or getting over will be prosecuted.”

For an afternoon in August 1737, there was announced a running match six times round the park, between “the Cobler’s Boy and John Wise the Mile-End Drover,” for twenty guineas. In 1745 there were foot-races in the park, and this is the last notice we have of Belsize as a place of amusement.

The mansion falling into a ruinous state[204] was pulled down at the close of the eighteenth century (before 1798), and a large, plainly-built house was erected in its stead. From 1798–1807 this new Belsize House was tenanted by the Right Hon. Spencer Perceval and others. In the autumn of 1853 the house was pulled down (cp. _The Illustrated London News_ for 9th September, 1854, p. 239), and the buildings of the Belsize Estate were subsequently erected on the site of the Park.

The present Belsize Avenue (on the west side of Haverstock Hill) is the representative of a beautiful avenue of elms, which originally led up to the old Belsize House, the site of which was near the present St. Peter’s Church.

[Palmer’s _St. Pancras_, 227, ff.; Baines’s _Hampstead_; Walford
v. 494, ff.; Howitt’s _Northern Heights_; Lambert’s _London_,
1806, iv. 256; Thorne’s _Environs of London_, s.v. “Hampstead”;
Park’s _Hampstead_; newspaper advertisements, W. Coll.]

VIEWS.

1. Old Belsize House. A view on a Belsize House advertisement,
_circ._ 1721? and a view by Maurer, 1750; cp. Howitt’s
_Northern Heights_ and C. Knight’s _Old England_, ii.
fig. 2404.

2. Belsize House in 1800 (Walford, v. 492).

KILBURN WELLS

The spring known as Kilburn Wells was situated in the Abbey Field near the site of the old Kilburn Priory, and in the rear of the Bell Tavern. It attracted public notice about the middle of the last century;[205] and some endeavours were made, probably by the proprietor of the Bell, to bring Kilburn Wells into vogue: at any rate, in 1752 it is referred to as a place in some respects akin to Sadler’s Wells:--

Shall you prolong the midnight ball
With costly supper at Vaux Hall,
And yet prohibit earlier suppers
At Kilburn, Sadler’s Wells or Kupers?[206]

About 1773 Kilburn Wells began to be more widely known, and the proprietor’s advertisement of 17 July in that year announced that the water was then in the utmost perfection, the gardens enlarged and greatly improved, and the house and offices “repainted and beautified in the most elegant manner.” The Great Room was described as specially adapted for “the use and amusement of the politest companies” who might require it for music, dancing, or entertainments. “This happy spot is equally celebrated for its rural situation, extensive prospects, and the acknowledged efficacy of its waters; is most delightfully situated on the site of the once famous Abbey of Kilburn on the Edgware Road, at an easy distance, being but a morning’s walk from the metropolis, two miles from Oxford Street; the footway from Marybone across the fields still nearer. A plentiful larder is always provided, together with the best of wines and other liquors. Breakfasting and hot loaves.”

An account of the medicinal water drawn up by the usual “eminent physician” was given away to visitors, and in one of the rooms was a long list of the diseases said to have been cured. Tn 1792 Godfrey Schmeisser made a careful analysis of the water. It was a mild purgative, milky in appearance, and had a bitterish saline taste. The use of the water for curative purposes appears to have ceased in the early part of the present century (before 1814), but the Old Bell, or Kilburn Wells as the place was generally denominated, enjoyed popularity as a tea-garden as late as 1829.[207]

About 1863 the Old Bell was pulled down, and the present Bell public-house erected on the spot. A brick reservoir long enclosed the spring, but some years ago it was demolished and built over. It stood immediately behind the Bank at the corner of Belsize Road.

[Thorne’s _Environs of London_; Lambert’s _London_, iv. 288;
Howitt’s _Northern Heights_; Baines’s _Hampstead_; Park’s
_Hampstead_; Walford, v. 245, ff.]

VIEWS.

1. The Bell Inn, Kilburn, 1750 (Walford, v. 246).

2. The Bell Inn, Kilburn, from a mezzotint, 1789, reproduced in
Baines’s _Hampstead_.

3. View of the Old Bell Inn at Kilburn on the Edgware Road.
Rathbone del. Prestal sculp. 1789. Crace, _Cat._ p. 670,
No. 76.

4. An engraved handbill, describing the waters, at the top of
which is a print of the Long Room, by F. Vivares; mentioned in
Park’s _Hampstead_, p. xxxi*, additions.

V

CHELSEA GROUP

RANELAGH HOUSE AND GARDENS

§ 1. _Origin of Ranelagh_

About the year 1690 Richard, Viscount (afterwards Earl of) Ranelagh, Paymaster-General of the Forces, built for himself on the east side of Chelsea Hospital a private residence known as Ranelagh House, and laid out a garden. In 1691[208] the house is described as “very fine within, all the rooms being wainscotted with Norway oak,” and the garden plats and walks were “curiously kept and elegantly designed.” Bowack in 1705 says that the gardens were “esteemed to be the best in England, the size considered.” Here Lord Ranelagh lived till his death in 1712.

In 1733 the property was sold, and at that time Lacy, patentee of Drury Lane Theatre, made arrangements for forming Ranelagh into a place of public amusement. Nothing decisive was done till 1741, when a large circular building, the famous Rotunda (at first generally called the Amphitheatre), was erected in the Ranelagh grounds by William Jones, architect to the East India Company.[209]

The capital for the undertaking was furnished by a few shareholders, and was divided into thirty-six shares of £1,000 each. The principal shareholder and manager was Sir Thomas Robinson, Bart., M.P., whose gigantic form was for many years familiar to all frequenters of the Rotunda: a writer of 1774 calls him its Maypole and Garland of Delights.[210]

The Rotunda and Gardens were first opened on 5 April, 1742, with a public breakfast, and a visit to Ranelagh became the vogue. Of the early fortunes of the place the best chronicler is Horace Walpole. On April 22, 1742, he writes to Mann:--“I have been breakfasting this morning at Ranelagh Garden: they have built an immense amphitheatre, with balconies full of little ale-houses: it is in rivalry to Vauxhall and costs above twelve thousand pounds.”[211]

On May 26[212] he again describes the “vast amphitheatre, finely gilt, painted and illuminated; into which everybody that loves eating, drinking, staring, or crowding, is admitted for twelvepence.” In 1744,[213] Mr. Walpole goes “every night constantly” to Ranelagh, “which has totally beat Vauxhall.” “Nobody goes anywhere else; everybody goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it, that he says he has ordered all his letters to be directed thither.” “The floor is all of beaten princes”; “you can’t set your foot without treading on a Prince or Duke of Cumberland.” In 1748,[214] “Ranelagh is so crowded, that going there t’other night in a string of coaches, we had a stop of six and thirty minutes.”

In 1745 Mr. Thomas Gray had written to a friend[215] that he had no intention of following the stream to Ranelagh, and he touched a weak spot in the delights of the London Pleasure Gardens--the uncertainty of the London weather. “I have never been at Ranelagh Gardens since they were opened.... They do not succeed: people see it once, or twice, and so they go to Vauxhall. Well, but is it not a very great design, very new, finely lighted? Well, yes, aye, very fine truly, so they yawn and go to Vauxhall, and then it’s too hot, and then it’s too cold, and here’s a wind and there’s a damp.” But in August 1746 we find Gray declaring[216] that his evenings lately have been chiefly spent at Ranelagh and Vauxhall.

Other literary people, at least as interesting, as Walpole’s Dukes and Princes, frequented Ranelagh. The learned Mrs. Carter was there in 1748, and found the gardens very pleasant on a June evening, though she did not relish such “tumultary torchlight entertainments.” Goldsmith and Reynolds used to go there together about 1771, and Dr. Johnson “often went to Ranelagh,” which he deemed, as the Rev. Dr. Maxwell apologetically observes, “a place of innocent recreation.”

§ 2. _The Rotunda_

The guide-books abound with architectural details of the Ranelagh Rotunda.[217] A sufficient idea of its general appearance may be gained by glancing at some of the contemporary prints and by noticing a few salient features. Writers of the time compare it to “the Pantheon at Rome”: the Londoner of to-day will think rather of the British Museum Reading Room which it resembled in size and, to some extent, in general appearance. The circumference was 555 feet and the internal diameter 150 feet. It was entered by four Doric porticoes opposite one another, and the interior architecture corresponded with the exterior.

On the exterior was an arcade encircling the building, and above this arcade was a gallery reached by steps placed at the porticoes.

In the interior was a circle of fifty-two[218] boxes, separated by wainscotting. Each box had its “droll painting” and its bell-lamp with candles; and in each seven or eight people could be accommodated with refreshments. Benches covered with red baize were dispersed about the area, and the plaster floor was covered with matting.

Above the circle of boxes was a gallery containing a similar range of boxes which were entered by folding-doors from the gallery outside the building. The Rotunda was lighted by sixty windows, and the chief material used in its construction was wood.

The ceiling was painted an olive colour, with a rainbow round the extremity, and there hung from it numerous chandeliers, each ornamented with a gilt crown and containing crystal bell-lamps of candles. When all the candles were lighted, the sight, we are told, was “very glorious.”

In the centre of the building was a remarkable square erection supporting the roof, and made up of pillars and arches elaborately decorated. This “grand and elegant structure” was nothing more or less than a fireplace containing a chimney and an open fire. On cold days in February and March the best place was “one of the hot blazing red-cloth benches” by the fire. This fireplace structure had originally contained the orchestra, but after a few years the orchestra was, for acoustic reasons, moved to the side of the Rotunda. Behind the orchestra was an organ by Byfield, set up in 1746.[219]

_The Inside View of the Rotunda in Renelagh Gardens with the
Company at Breakfast._

_Vue de la Compagnie à Dejeuner dans la Rotonde au
Mellieux des Jardines de Renelagh._

THE ROTUNDA AT RENELAGH, _circ._ 1751.]

Johnson declared that “the _coup d’œil_” of Ranelagh was “the finest thing he had ever seen.”[220] When Johnson first entered Ranelagh and its brilliant circle, it gave, as he told Boswell,[221] “an expansion and gay sensation” to his mind, such as he had never experienced anywhere else. Miss Lydia Melford, in _Humphry Clinker_, wrote about Ranelagh to her ‘dear Willis’ with an enthusiasm less restrained, and without Dr. Johnson’s moralising comment:--“Alas, Sir, these are only _struggles_ for happiness.” “Ranelagh (she writes) looks like the enchanted palace of a genio, adorned with the most exquisite performances of painting, carving, and gilding, enlightened with a thousand golden lamps that emulate the noonday sun; crowded with the great, the rich, the gay, the happy and the fair; glittering with cloth of gold and silver, lace, embroidery, and precious stones. While these exulting sons and daughters of felicity tread this round of pleasure, or regale in different parties, and separate lodges, with fine imperial tea and other delicious refreshments, their ears are entertained with the most ravishing delights of music, both instrumental and vocal.”

§ 3. _The entertainments and the company._

The usual charge for admission was half a crown,[222] which always included the ‘regale’ of tea, coffee and bread and butter. Foote called Ranelagh the Bread and Butter Manufactory, and, except on ball nights, no other refreshments seem to have been procurable.

The place was usually open on three days in the week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.[223] The regular season for the evening concerts and garden-promenade began at Easter, but the Rotunda was often open in February, or earlier, for the dances. In the early days of Ranelagh the public breakfastings and the morning concerts at twelve were a constant feature. About 1754 the proprietors of Ranelagh were refused a license for music, and the breakfasting took place that year without concerts: these breakfasts and morning concerts do not appear to have been subsequently renewed.

The evening concerts (from May 1742, onwards) generally began, at 6.30 or 7. Between the Acts the company walked in the gardens to the music of horns and clarinets, and a garden-orchestra was erected about 1764. The gardens were illuminated, but fireworks did not become a prominent feature till about 1767.

The gardens themselves were somewhat formally laid out. There were several gravel walks, shaded by elms and yews; a flower-garden, and “a beautiful octagon grass plat.” The principal walk led from the south end of Ranelagh House to the bottom of the gardens, where there was a circular Temple of Pan. At night the walks were prettily lit with lamps attached to the trees. There was also a canal with a Temple indifferently described as the Chinese House and the Venetian Temple.

In its earliest as well as in its latest days masquerades attracted many to the Rotunda and the gardens, but the chief diversion was the promenade in the Rotunda. A guide-book of 1793 states that “walking round the Rotundo” was “one of the pleasures of the place.” We hear much at all periods of “the circular labour” of the company and “the ring of folly.”[224] Matthew Bramble found one half of the company “following one another’s tails in an eternal circle like asses in an olive mill while the other half are drinking hot water under the denomination of tea.” Mr. Bramble exacted much from places of amusement, but it is to be suspected from other testimonies that there was an atmosphere of dulness, a note of ennui, about the ordinary diversions of this fashionable rendezvous. “There’s your famous Ranelagh (says ‘Evelina’) that you make such a fuss about; why what a dull place is that!” A Frenchman describing Ranelagh about 1800--foreigners were always expected to visit it--calls it “le plus insipide lieu d’amusement que l’on ait pu imaginer,” and even hints at Dante’s Purgatory. Another Frenchman writing much earlier, _circ._ 1749, briefly comments “on s’ennuie avec de la mauvaise musique, du thé et du beurre.”

Samuel Rogers (_Table Talk_), who must have known Ranelagh from about 1786 till its close, was struck by the solemnity of the whole thing: “all was so orderly and still that you could hear the whishing sound of the ladies’ trains as the immense assembly walked round and round the room.” An “affray” of the kind familiar at Vauxhall and not infrequent at Marylebone was practically unknown at Ranelagh. On May 6th, 1752, Dr. John Hill was caned in the Rotunda by an angry gentleman, and the newspapers and caricaturists were momentarily excited, chiefly because Hill’s injuries were supposed to be a sham. One almost welcomes a scene at Ranelagh. On the 12th of May, 1764, four footmen were charged before Sir John Fielding with riotous behaviour at Ranelagh House, “hissing several of the nobility, relative to their not giving or suffering vails to be taken, pelting several gentlemen with brick-bats and breaking the windows.”[225]

Throughout its career of more than a hundred and sixty years, Ranelagh fairly maintained its position as a fashionable resort, but at all periods the company was a good deal mixed. Philomides, “a gentleman of sprightly wit, and very solid judgment,” has described[226] the frequenters of the place four or five years after it was first opened. My Lord (he says) was sure to meet his tailor there, and Statira would see her toyman “cursing himself for letting this Statira have a service of very fine Dresden china, which she assured him her Lord would pay for immediately.” The ubiquitous Templar was easily recognised--a pert young fellow in a fustian frock, and a broad-brimmed hat “in an affected impudent cock.” There was an Oxford scholar, a political pamphleteer and a spruce military spark smelling of lavender water. A coxcomb just returned from his travels was more absurd. He had set up as virtuoso, and brought home a headless Helen and a genuine ‘Otho’ coined at Rome two years ago. He might now be heard talking Italian in a loud voice and “pronouncing the word Gothic fifty times an hour.”

In 1760 a fashionable lady complains that there were too many tradesmen’s wives at Ranelagh. But compared with Vauxhall it was fashionable, at least according to a lady’s maid in “High Life Below Stairs” (_circ._ 1759, Act I. sc. 2):--

_Lady Charlotte’s Maid_: Well, I say it again, I love Vauxhall.

_Lady Bab’s Maid_: Oh, my stars! Why, there is nobody there but filthy citizens--_Runelow_ for _my_ money.

From about 1774 it was considered fashionable to arrive at the Rotunda about 11 P.M., one hour after the concert was over. In 1777, according to Walpole, the company did not arrive till twelve. “The people of the true ton,” says the satirical “Harlequin in Ranelagh,”[227] (1774), “come in about eleven, stare about them for half an hour, laugh at the other fools who are drenching and scalding themselves with coffee and tea ... despise all they have seen, and then they trail home again to sup.” The citizens, on the other hand, came to stare at the great, at the Duke of Gloucester or Lady Almeria Carpenter, or whoever it might be. They came to see how the great folks were dressed, how they walked and how they talked. Some worthy men were compelled by their wives to wear swords, and in the circling promenade found it hard “to adjust the spit to the humour of those behind and before” them. The ‘Harlequin’ enlarges on some unpleasant characters who haunted Ranelagh, Baron H----g (for instance), who trails about like a wounded worm, and Lord C----y who “runs his nose under every bonnet.” It is not to be denied that Ranelagh, though on the whole decorous, had a tolerable reputation as a place of assignation.

§ 4. _Annals of Ranelagh 1742–1769._

From this general sketch of Ranelagh and its frequenters, we may pass on to some details of its amusements year by year.

The principal performer at the concerts in the earliest days (1742–_circ._ 1760) was the well-known actor and vocalist Beard, who was considered by Dibdin to be, “taken altogether, the best English singer.” Giulia Frasi, young and interesting, with her “sweet clear voice,” was heard in 1751 and 1752. Michael Festing at first led the band, and was succeeded (about 1752) by Abram Brown, a performer who (according to Burney) had “a clear, sprightly and loud tone, with a strong hand,” but who was deficient in musical knowledge and feeling. Parry, the Welsh harper (1746), and Caporale, the violoncello player, were also among the earlier performers.[228]

At first, choruses from oratorios (this was still the case in 1763) were a feature of the concerts, but the performances soon came to differ little from those of Vauxhall and Marylebone. In 1754 an entertainment of recitation, with a procession, was given under the name of Comus’s Court. In 1757 “Acis and Galatea” was performed for the benefit of the Marine Society. On 10 June, 1763[229] Bonnell Thornton’s ‘Burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day’ was performed, “adapted (by Burney) to the antient British music, viz.: the salt-box, the Jew’s-harp, the marrow-bones and cleavers, the hum-strum or hurdy-gurdy, etc., etc.” The performers sang the recitative, airs and choruses in masquerade dresses, and the salt-box song was especially successful. The fun must have been rather forced, though Johnson, who read the Ode when printed, “praised its humour,” seemed much diverted with it, and repeated the lines:--

In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join,
And clattering and battering and clapping combine;
With a rap and a tap while the hollow side sounds,
Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling rebounds.

In 1762–1764 the principal singer was the Italian Tenducci,[230] whose voice, according to Miss Lydia Melford, was “neither man’s nor woman’s; but it is more melodious than either, and it warbled so divinely, that while I listened I really thought myself in Paradise.”

On 29 June, 1764, Mozart, then eight years old, performed on the harpsichord and organ several of his own compositions. On 12 May, 1767,[231] Catches and Glees were rendered with instrumental parts by Arne, an addition considered necessary on account of the size of the Rotunda. This was stated to be the first public performance of the kind in England.

In 1769 Dibdin was a singer of ballads, and on 12 May of this year there was a Jubilee Ridotto, an event at which we may pause to recall some of the earlier masquerades and balls which, from time to time, enlivened the routine of Ranelagh.

The most famous of these entertainments was the “Grand Jubilee Masquerade, in the Venetian taste,” that took place on Wednesday, 26 April, 1749, to celebrate the proclamation of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The Masquerade (says Horace Walpole[232]) “had nothing Venetian in it, but was by far the best understood and prettiest spectacle I ever saw; nothing in a fairy tale ever surpassed it.... It began at three o’clock; at about five, people of fashion began to go; when you entered, you found the whole garden filled with masks and spread with tents, which remained all night very commodely. In one quarter was a Maypole dressed with garlands, and people dancing round it to a tabor and pipe, and rustic music, all masked, as were all the various bands of music that were disposed in different parts of the garden; some like huntsmen with French-horns, some like peasants, and a troop of harlequins and scaramouches in the little open temple on the mount. On the canal was a sort of gondola, adorned with flags and streamers, and filled with music, rowing about. All round the outside of the amphitheatre were shops, filled with Dresden china, Japan, &c., and all the shopkeepers in mask. The amphitheatre was illuminated, and in the middle was a circular bower, composed of all kinds of firs in tubs, from twenty to thirty feet high; under them, orange trees, with small lamps in each orange, and below them all sorts of the finest auriculas in pots; and festoons of natural flowers hanging from tree to tree. Between the arches, too, were firs, and smaller ones in the balconies above. There were booths for tea and wine, gaming-tables, and dancing, and about two thousand persons. In short, it pleased me more than the finest thing I ever saw.”

Later masquerades, though attended by fashionable people, were less select, as appears, for example, from an advertisement which a gentleman inserted in the _Public Advertiser_ of 8 March, 1753[233]:--“This is to inform the Lady that was in a wite mask, red Beard and Ey’s at the last Masquereade but one, in a brown and silver flora Pethecoat and head-dress, remarkable gentle, very finely maid, who lost her company and walked with several masks, perticuler with one, who in raptorous heared her declare a dislike to gameing and the intention of Maskquerdes ... on which he asked, wathere single or ingaged, and under whos care that Night? the lady pointing to a tall gentleman in black and a bag wigg, said his, my Brother.” His intentions were honourable, and he begged to see her face. In reply, “she repetted Part out of the Orphin ‘Trust not a man’; said he had taken notice enough of her to know her again; bid him look sharp at the next Makquered, at wich and all other Places he as been dispionted of seeing her; he therefore hops (if not ingaged) will get her Brother or some Friend to call on him” as he feels assured he could be happy for life with her.

On the occasion of the Jubilee Ridotto on 12 May, 1769, the gardens and the Chinese House were illuminated. “A large sea-horse stuck full of small lamps floated on the Canal, and had a very agreeable aspect.” A favourite Ranelagh ‘serenata,’ Dibdin’s ‘Ephesian Matron,’ was performed at ten, and the Rotunda and gardens were gradually filled by a brilliant company. The Dukes of York and Cumberland were there, and one of the prettiest characters was “a rural nymph in rose-coloured sattin, trimmed with silver.” The tickets, which cost a guinea, included the supper. Unfortunately, the wine and sweetmeats were not immediately forthcoming, and some gentlemen broke open the wine cellar and helped themselves. Sir Thomas Robinson, to make things pleasant, thereupon sent a general invitation to the company to sup with him. The dancing began at twelve, and was continued till four, a comparatively early hour at Ranelagh masquerades.

§ 5. _Later history of Ranelagh, 1770–1805._

A “Gentleman in Town,” writing in _The Town and Country Magazine_ for April 1770 (p. 195) to his friend in the country, enlarges on the fashionable assemblages to be then seen at Ranelagh three times a week. And we may note that about this time the tradesmen advertised their silver Ranelagh silks and Ranelagh waistcoats in gold, silver and colours. The sweet voice of “the lovely Mrs. Baddeley” was then to be heard in the Rotunda, and she sang (in the autumn, 1770) in “The Recruiting Sergeant,” together with Mrs. Thompson, Dibdin, and Bannister.[234]

The garden concerts, and the fireworks, and transparent pictures in a building in the grounds had by this time become prominent features of the place.[235]

The event of 1775 was the Ranelagh Regatta and Ball,[236] which took place on June 23rd. Early in the afternoon of that day the whole river from London Bridge to Millbank was covered with pleasure boats, and scaffold erections were to be seen on the banks, and even on the top of Westminster Hall. Gambling tables lined the approaches to Westminster Bridge: men went about selling indifferent liquor, Regatta songs and Regatta cards. The river banks now resembled a great fair, and the Thames itself a floating town. Wild calculations fixed the number of the spectators at 200,000, or “at least” three millions. At 7.30 a cannon signalled the start of the racing-boats, and about 8.30, when the prizes had been awarded, the whole procession began to move “in a picturesque irregularity towards Ranelagh.” The Directors’ barge, with its band playing and gold REGATTA ensign flying, led the way, and the fortunate persons who had ball-tickets landed at Ranelagh Stairs at nine o’clock.

Dancing took place in the Temple of Neptune, a temporary octagon erection in the grounds. Mrs. Cornelys had been given seven hundred guineas (it is said) to supply the supper, and it is lamentable to reflect that the supper was “indifferent, and the wine very scarce.” However, there was a great company: the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Northumberland, Lord North, the Duchess of Devonshire, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Garrick, Colman, Samuel Foote. A band of two hundred and forty instrumentalists, under Giardini, performed in the Rotunda, and there was singing by Vernon and Reinhold, including the cheering ballad:--

Ye lords and ye ladies who form this gay throng,
Be silent a moment, attend to our song,
And while you suspend your fantastical round,
Come, bless your sweet stars that you’re none of you drowned.

From this time (1775) till about 1790 the concerts continued as usual, but Ranelagh seems during the period to have suffered a certain eclipse. In May 1788 the shares are said to have fallen from their par value (£1,000) to £900. Ranelagh was “voted a bore with the fashionable circles,” and its distance from town began to be considered an obstacle.

About 1791, however, its fortunes revived, and numerous masquerades, sometimes lasting till six or eight in the morning, and firework displays (chiefly by Caillot and by Rossi and Tessier) remained a feature of Ranelagh till its close.

Henry Angelo (_Reminiscences_, ii. _p._ 3 _f._), speaking of its later days, declares that it was frequented by “the élite of fashion.” The gentlemen wore powder, frills and ruffles, and had gold-headed canes. “Cropped heads, trousers or shoe-strings” were not to be seen there. The men used to buy in the ante-room myrtles, hyacinths and roses, not to wear themselves, but for presentation to the ladies.

A masquerade of 1792 (14 February) was attended by Mrs. Jordan, “supported” (as the newspapers said) “between the friendly arms of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence.” Mr. Petit was good as a man walking in his sleep with a candle, and amid the usual crowd of harlequins, sailors and flower-girls, “a monkey of the largest size was offensively dexterous.”[237] At another masquerade this year (16 May) a Guy Faux, a ‘Bath Maccarony,’ an African Princess, and three or four Romps attracted attention.

On May 7th, 1792, the exhibition called Mount Etna was introduced and remained popular at Ranelagh for several years. A special building with a scene designed by G. Marinari, ‘painter to the Opera,’ was prepared for it in the gardens. The idea was evidently borrowed from Torré’s Forge of Vulcan, the great attraction at the Marylebone Gardens some twenty years earlier. The scene represented Mount Etna and the Cavern of Vulcan with the ‘Cyclops’ forging the armour of Mars, “as described (the advertisements add) in the Aeneid of Virgil.” To an accompaniment of music “compiled from Gluck, Haydn, Giardini, and Handel,” we see the ‘Cyclops’ going to work. “The smoke thickens, the crater on the top of Etna vomits forth flames, and the lava rolls dreadful along the side of the mountain. This continues with increasing violence till there is a prodigious eruption, which finishes with a tremendous explosion.”

On June 27th, 1793, the Chevalier D’Eon fenced in the Rotunda with M. Sainville, and received the congratulations of the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert.[238]

In 1797 (April) there was an enjoyable masquerade, at which there reigned (we are told) “good nature and pleasant hilarity, without riot”: all this, in spite of a crowd of imaginary Dutch skippers, lunatics, coachmen, quack doctors and watercress girls.

At a concert in 1798 (June) Incledon and Madame Mara sang. In 1799 a January masquerade was diversified by a drawing for fifty twelfth cakes as prizes for the masks.

The Directors now began to offer prizes for regattas and volunteer shooting-matches, and a few splendid entertainments mark the closing years of Ranelagh.

On 2 June, 1802, Boodle’s Club gave an elegant dance at which the ladies “wore white and silver, ornamented with laurel”--and diamonds, and amused themselves by drawing prizes of trinkets in a Lottery Booth. On the 28 June (1802) the Picnic Society gave an “afternoon breakfast,” and at five o’clock Garnerin, the French aeronaut, and Captain Sowden ascended in a balloon from the gardens.[239]

On 23 September (1802) Mr. Thomas Todd descended into a reservoir of water twenty-five feet deep, prepared for him in the gardens. His awkward diving-tub, and his dress of leather and metal excited the laughter of spectators born too early to know the diver of the Polytechnic. Nor is this praiseworthy experiment to be counted among the splendid entertainments of Ranelagh, for Mr. Todd was “misfitted by his coppersmith,” forgot to take down his lamp, and did not remain under water more than five minutes.[240]

On 1 June, 1803, a ball in commemoration of the Installation of the Knights of the Bath took place and proved one of the finest of the entertainments. Yet these were only ‘struggles for happiness,’ and attempts to galvanise a nearly lifeless Ranelagh. The unending promenade, with its sentimental songs and elegant regale of tea and coffee, had ceased to attract, and the lamp-hung trees, the Chinese House and the music on the Canal had lost their ancient charm. On 8 July, 1803, the Rotunda of Ranelagh was opened for the last time as a place of amusement.

On 30 September, 1805, the proprietors gave directions for the demolition of Ranelagh House and the Rotunda; the furniture was sold by auction shortly afterwards, and the buildings were removed. The organ was bought for Tetbury Church, Gloucestershire, where it remained till 1863, when it was purchased by a builder.

The Ranelagh grounds had extended from the old Burial Ground (east of Chelsea Hospital) to the rivermarshes on the south, and the Chelsea Bridge Road now crosses their eastern boundary. When the buildings were removed the grounds were, by degrees, purchased of the shareholders by General Richard R. Wilford to add to his property adjoining. A poet of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ in June 1807 laments the Fall of Ranelagh, and the site already overgrown with weeds. The foundation walls of the Rotunda and the arches of some of the cellars could, however, be traced as late as 1813, and part of the site was a favourite playground for Chelsea children. By 1826, the Ranelagh grounds had become by purchase the property of Chelsea Hospital and were parcelled out into allotments. The ground is, at the present time, once more a ‘Ranelagh Garden,’ in which the public are admitted, as the old advertisements would say, “to walk gratis.”

All traces of Ranelagh have been thus obliterated, and a London historian (Jesse, _London_, iii, 420) on visiting the site in 1871, could find as its memorial only a single avenue of trees with one or two of the old lamp-irons--the ‘firetrees’ of the early advertisements--still attached.

[From the numerous authorities, the following may be
selected:--_Gent. Mag._ 1742, 418, ff.; _Ranelagh House: a
Satire in prose_, London, 1747 (W. Coll.); Dodsley’s _London_,
1761; Sir John Fielding’s _Brief Description of London_,
1776; Burney’s _Hist. of Music_, iv. 668, ff.; Kearsley’s
_Strangers’ Guide_ (1793?); Lysons’s _Environs_, Supplement,
p. 120; Faulkner’s _Chelsea_, ii. 299, ff.; Blanchard in _The
Era Almanack_, 1870; Grove’s _Dict. of Music_, art. “Ranelagh
House,” by W. H. Husk; L’Estrange’s _Village of Palaces_, ii.
296; Walford, v. 76, ff.; Austin Dobson’s _Eighteenth Century
Vignettes_, 2nd ser. p. 263, ff.; collections relating to
Ranelagh in British Museum and Guildhall libraries, and a large
series of cuttings from newspapers, magazines, &c., W. Coll.]

VIEWS.

A good representative series of the principal early views of
Ranelagh is in the Crace Collection (_Catal._ p. 164; pp.
312–314). The site is well marked in Horwood’s Plan A, 1794.

STROMBOLO HOUSE AND GARDENS, CHELSEA

Strombolo House[241] was a minor place of entertainment, dating from 1762, or earlier, with tea-gardens and “a fine fountain”[242] attached to it. The gardens[243] are said to have been most frequented about 1788. They were open chiefly in the afternoons of week-days and Sundays for tea-drinking during the summer season. The house, opposite the famous Royal Bun House, Chelsea, in Jew’s Row (now Pimlico Road), was still standing in 1829, when Faulkner’s _Chelsea_ (second edition) was published, but it appears to have been disused as a place of amusement long before that date.

The ground was afterwards occupied by the Orange Tavern and tea-gardens to which was attached the Orange Theatre, a small private playhouse, where local geniuses performed (1831–32). St. Barnabas Church, Pimlico, built 1848–1850, standing off the south side of Pimlico Road (entrance in Church Street) is now nearly on the site.

[O’Keefe’s _Recollections_, i. p. 88; Faulkner’s _Chelsea_,
ii. p. 357; Davis’s _Knightsbridge_ (1859), p. 263; Wheatley’s
_London P. and P._ s.v. “Strombello”; Timbs’s _Club Life_
(1866), ii. p. 260.]

STAR AND GARTER TAVERN AND GARDENS, CHELSEA

In the grounds attached to the Star and Garter Tavern in the Five Fields between Chelsea and Pimlico,[244] displays of fireworks and horsemanship took place in 1762 (July-September) to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Wales, and the visit of the chiefs of the Cherokee Indians[245] who were duly exploited by the proprietor. Carlo Genovini, an Italian artificer, exhibited stars and moving suns, a guilloche of a varied coloured rose, reprises of water cascades and many pyrotechnic devices, together with the Temple of Liberty, a machine thirty-two feet long and forty high “painted in a theatrical manner” with Britannia triumphant over the portico. The fireworks began at eight or nine and the tickets were usually half-a-crown.

On other evenings at seven o’clock Thomas Johnson, the well-known equestrian, performed feats with two and three horses similar to those undertaken by him at the Three Hats, Islington. The admission was one shilling. The proprietor of the Star and Garter also kept the neighbouring Dwarf’s Tavern, with Coan, “the jovial Pigmy,” as Major Domo,[246] and to this place visitors were invited to adjourn after the fireworks, there to sup on “a most excellent ham, some collared eels, potted beef, etc., with plenty of sound old bright wine and punch like nectar.”[247]

[Faulkner’s _Chelsea_, ii. 354–356, where further details
of the fireworks and horsemanship may be found; Davis’s
_Knightsbridge_, p. 264.]

JENNY’S WHIM, PIMLICO

St. George’s Row, near Ebury Bridge, formerly called The Wooden Bridge or Jenny’s Whim Bridge, marks the site of Jenny’s Whim, a tavern and pleasure-garden popular in the last century.

Jenny’s Whim is said to have been established as a place of amusement by a firework artificer and theatrical machinist, in the reign of George II. About 1750 it appears to have been a good deal frequented during the day-time, and people of rank and fashion occasionally visited it. Walpole once encountered Lord Granby “arrived very drunk from Jenny’s Whim,” where he “had dined with Lady Fanny [Seymour] and left her and eight other women and four other men playing at Brag.”

A writer in _The Connoisseur_ comparing it in 1755 with Ranelagh and Vauxhall, describes it, however, as a resort of “the lower sort of people,” rather than of the quality.

SHOWING JENNY’S WHIM, 1761.]

The gardens possessed, in addition to the usual bowers, alcoves and prim flowerbeds, a bowling-green, a grotto, a cock-pit and a ducking pond. In the centre was a large fish pond. Mechanical devices, similar to those at New Georgia, Hampstead, attracted many visitors. A Harlequin, a Mother Shipton, or some terrific monster, started up in the recesses of the garden when an unsuspected spring was trodden upon, and huge fish and mermaids rose at intervals from the water of the pond.

The admission about 1755 appears to have been sixpence.

Before the close of the eighteenth century, the popularity of the place had declined, though it was still frequented as a summer tea-garden, and by 1804 Jenny’s Whim had become a mere public-house. The house, a red brick building with lattice work, containing a large room originally used for breakfasting parties, continued in existence for many years, and was not pulled down till 1865.

[Walford, v. 45., ff.; Walpole’s _Letters_, ii. 212, 23 June,
1750; _The Connoisseur_, No. 68, 15 May, 1755; _Low Life_, 1764;
Davis’s _Knightsbridge_, 253, ff.; _Notes and Queries_, 3rd ser.
viii. 166; Angelo’s _Picnic_ (1834), s.v.]

VIEWS.

1. The north front of Jenny’s Whim Bridge and the Old Public
House at the foot of the Bridge, water colour drawing, 1761.
Crace, _Cat._ p. 311, No. 58.

2. “A west view of Chelsea Bridge” (showing Jenny’s Whim).
Boreman pinx. Lodge sculp. (1761), W. Coll.; Crace, _Cat._
p. 311, No. 59 (cp. Walford, v. 43).

CROMWELL’S GARDENS,

Afterwards FLORIDA GARDENS, BROMPTON

Cromwell’s Gardens consisted of grounds immediately adjoining (and perhaps at one time belonging to) Hale House, Brompton, a mansion popularly known as Cromwell House from a tradition, seemingly unfounded, that the Protector or his family had once resided there. Some of the entrance tickets of Cromwell’s Gardens consisted of rude imitations of Oliver’s pattern-shillings, and had his effigy on the obverse.

The Gardens were in existence at least as early as 1762,[248] and in 1776 they are described as frequented by fashionable gentlemen of Kensington and the West End, and by various ladies who were apparently not always of irreproachable character. Brompton was then and long afterwards in the midst of gardens and nurseries, and was noted for its salubrious air. Cromwell’s Gardens were within a pleasant rural walk from the Park, Chelsea and Knightsbridge. The grounds were neatly kept: there were “agreeable” arbours for drinking tea and coffee, and in one part of the garden trees, curiously cut, surrounded an elevated grass plat. Their retired situation rendered them (in the opinion of the “Sunday Rambler”) “well adapted for gallantry and intrigue.”

Music of some kind seems to have been provided, and at one time equestrian performances in the open air were exhibited by Charles Hughes, the well-known rider, who in 1782 founded with Dibdin the Royal Circus, afterwards the Surrey Theatre. The admission was sixpence,[249] and the gardens were open at least as late as nine at night.[250]

In 1781 (or 1780) the gardens were in the hands of Mr. R. Hiem, a German florist, who grew his cherries, strawberries, and flowers there. About that time he changed the name to Florida Gardens,[251] erected a great room for dining in the centre of the gardens, and opened the place to the public at a charge of sixpence. A bowling-green was formed and a band (said to be subscribed for by the nobility and gentry) played twice a week during the summer. An air-balloon and fireworks were announced for 10 September, 1784. It was a pleasant place where visitors could gather flowers, and fruit “fresh every hour in the day,” and take the light refreshment of tea, coffee, and ice creams, or wine and cyder if they preferred it. Hiem specially recommended his Bern Veckley as “an elegant succedaneum for bread and butter, and eat by the Noblesse of Switzerland.” However, like many proprietors of pleasure-gardens, he subsequently became bankrupt, between 1787 and 1797 (?).

Maria, Duchess of Gloucester, having procured a lease (before September 1797)[252] of the place, built there a villa, at first called Maria Lodge, then Orford Lodge, at which she died in 1807. Shortly after 1807 the premises consisting of about six acres were purchased by the Rt. Hon. George Canning, who changed the name of the house to Gloucester Lodge, and lived there for many years.

The house was pulled down about 1850 and the ground let on building leases. Part of Courtfield Road, Ashburn Place, and perhaps other streets, occupy the site of Gloucester Lodge which stood immediately south of the present Cromwell Road, and west of Gloucester Road near the point where the Gloucester Road intersects Cromwell Road.

[_Sunday Ramble_ (1776); _A Modern Sabbath_ (1797), chap.
vii.; Faulkner’s _Kensington_ (1820), pp. 438, 441; Lysons’s
_Environs_, supplement to first ed. (1811), p. 215; Wheatley,
_London P. and P._ s.v. “Cromwell House” and “Gloucester Lodge”;
Fores’s _New Guide_ (1789), preface, p. vi.; _The Public
Advertiser_, 10 July, 1789; _The Morning Herald_, 7 July, 1786;
and newspaper cuttings in W. Coll.]

VIEWS.

There seem to be no views of the Cromwell and Florida Gardens.
There is a view of the garden front of Gloucester Lodge in
Jerdan’s _Autobiography_ (1852), vol. ii. frontispiece.

VI

SOUTH LONDON GROUP

BERMONDSEY SPA GARDENS

The Bermondsey Spa Gardens owe such celebrity as they attained to the enterprise of their founder and proprietor, Thomas Keyse, a self-taught artist, born in 1722, who painted skilful imitations of still life and exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy. About 1765 he purchased the Waterman’s Arms, a tavern in Bermondsey, together with some waste ground adjoining, and opened the place as a tea-garden, exhibiting there a collection of his own pictures. At that time, and for several years in the present century, Bermondsey was surrounded by open country.

About 1770 a chalybeate spring was discovered in the grounds, and Keyse’s establishment thereupon acquired the name of the Bermondsey Spa Gardens. Keyse was a cheery, ingenious landlord, remarkable among other things for his preparation of cherry-brandy. In 1784 he obtained a license for music from the Surrey magistrates, and spent £4,000 in improvements. The gardens (covering not less than four acres) were opened during the summer months on week-day evenings and Sundays, and the price of admission on week-days was a shilling. Each visitor was, however, given on entering a metal check,[253] which was exchanged for refreshments to the extent of sixpence. On special occasions the admission was half-a-crown or three shillings.

In the gardens were the usual arbours and benches for tea-drinking. The space before the orchestra was about a quarter of the size of that at Vauxhall, and on the north-east of the garden was a lawn of about three acres. A row of trees leading from the entrance to the picture gallery was hung at night with lamps of red, blue, green, and white, in humble imitation of the Grand Walk at Vauxhall.[254]

Jonas Blewitt, one of the most distinguished organists of the latter half of the eighteenth century, composed the music of many songs for the entertainments at the Spa.[255] The Spa poets were Mr. J. Oakman and Mr. Harriss. Songs of hunting, drinking, and seafaring took their turn with ditties full of what may be described as sprightly sentiment. The other music[256] consisted of burlettas, duets, and interludes, performed by vocalists of only local fame. In a burletta called the ‘Friars,’ certain nuns who had been forced by wicked guardians to take the veil, make their escape with the assistance of two friars. These reverend men, after singing an anacreontic song, divide the gold which the ladies have given them as their reward, and the whole concludes with a chorus. The words of the burlettas and songs were printed in little books, sold for sixpence at the bar and in the exhibition room.[257]

An occasional display of fireworks took place, and the gardens and a cascade (introduced about 1792) were illuminated.[258] From time to time there was a representation of the Siege of Gibraltar by means of fireworks, transparencies and bomb shells.[259] The apparatus for the Siege, which was designed by Keyse himself, was set up in a field divided from the lawn by a sunk fence, the rock being fifty feet high and two hundred feet long. The blowing up of the floating batteries and the sinking of boats in ‘fictitious water’ were (we are assured) ‘so truly represented as to give a very strong idea of the real Siege.’

A permanent attraction was the Gallery of Paintings, an oblong room described as being about the same size as W. M. Turner’s studio in Queen Anne’s Street. Here were exhibited Keyse’s pictorial reproductions of a Butcher’s Shop and a Greengrocer’s Stall and many other paintings, including a Vesuvius, and a candle that looked as if it were really lighted.

On the whole, the Bermondsey Spa appears to have been a respectable, though hardly fashionable, resort, which brought its proprietor a moderate income and supplied harmless, if not very exalted, means of recreation.

It being not unnecessary to provide for the safe convoy of the visitors after nightfall, Keyse inserted the following advertisement in the newspapers:--“The Spa Gardens, in Grange Road, Bermondsey, one mile [the distance is rather understated] from London Bridge; for the security of the public the road is lighted and watched by patroles every night, at the sole expense of the proprietor.” The lighting and patrolling were probably somewhat mythical, but no doubt the announcement served to reassure the timid.

J. T. Smith, the author of _A Book for a Rainy Day_, has left a graphic description of a visit that he paid on a bright July evening of 1795. The popularity of the gardens was then waning, and on entering he found no one there but three idle waiters. A board with a ruffled hand within a sky-blue painted sleeve directed him to the staircase which led “To the Gallery of Paintings,” and he made a solitary tour of the room.

The rest of the visit may be described in Smith’s own words. “Stepping back to study the picture of the ‘Greenstall,’ I ask your pardon,’ said I, for I had trodden upon some one’s toes. ‘Sir, it is granted,’ replied a little, thick-set man, with a round face, arch look, and closely-curled wig, surmounted by a small three-cornered hat put very knowingly on one side, not unlike Hogarth’s head in his print of the ‘Gates of Calais.’ ‘You are an artist, I presume; I noticed you from the end of the gallery, when you first stepped back to look at my best picture. I painted all the objects in this room from nature and still life.’ ‘Your Greengrocer’s Shop,’ said I, ‘is inimitable; the drops of water on that savoy appear as if they had just fallen from the element. Van Huysum could not have pencilled them with greater delicacy.’ ‘What do you think,’ said he, ‘of my Butcher’s Shop?’ ‘Your pluck is bleeding fresh, and your sweetbread is in a clean plate.’ ‘How do you like my bull’s eye?’ ‘Why, it would be a most excellent one for Adams or Dollond to lecture upon. Your knuckle of veal is the finest I ever saw.’ ‘It’s young meat,’ replied he; ‘anyone who is a judge of meat can tell that from the blueness of its bone.’ ‘What a beautiful white you have used on the fat of that Southdown leg! or is it Bagshot?’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘my solitary visitor, it is Bagshot: and as for my white, that is the best Nottingham, which you or any artist can procure at Stone & Puncheon’s, in Bishopsgate Street Within.’ ‘Sir Joshua Reynolds,’ continued Mr. Keyse, ‘paid me two visits. On the second, he asked me what white I had used; and when I told him, he observed, ‘It’s very extraordinary, sir, how it keeps so bright. I use the same.’ ‘Not at all, sir,’ I rejoined: ‘the doors of this gallery are open day and night; and the admission of fresh air, together with the great expansion of light from the sashes above, will never suffer the white to turn yellow. Have you not observed, Sir Joshua, how white the posts and rails on the public roads are, though they have not been repainted for years; that arises from constant air and bleaching.’ ‘Come,’ said Mr. Keyse, putting his hand upon my shoulder, ‘the bell rings, not for prayers, nor for dinner, but for the song.’