Chapter XIII: Introduction (6)

“As soon as we had reached the orchestra, the singer curtsied to us, for we were the only persons in the gardens. ‘This is sad work,’ said he, ‘but the woman must sing, according to our contract.’ I recollect that the singer was handsome, most dashingly dressed, immensely plumed, and villainously rouged; she smiled as she sang, but it was not the bewitching smile of Mrs. Wrighten, then applauded by thousands at Vauxhall Gardens. As soon as the Spa lady had ended her song, Keyse, after joining me in applause, apologised for doing so, by observing that as he never suffered his servants to applaud, and as the people in the road (whose ears were close to the cracks in the paling to hear the song) would make a bad report if they had not heard more than the clapping of one pair of hands, he had in this instance expressed his reluctant feelings. As the lady retired from the front of the orchestra, she, to keep herself in practice, curtsied to me with as much respect as she would had Colonel Topham been the patron of a gala-night. ‘This is too bad,’ again observed Mr. Keyse, ‘and I am sure you cannot expect fireworks!’ However, he politely asked me to partake of a bottle of Lisbon, which upon my refusing, he pressed me to accept of a catalogue of his pictures.”

Keyse died in his house at the Gardens on 8 February, 1800[260] and his pictures were subsequently sold by auction. His successors in the management of the Bermondsey Spa failed to make it pay,[261] and it was closed about 1804.[262] The Site, now in Spa Road, was afterwards built upon.

[Lysons’s _Environs_, vol. i. (1792), p. 558; Smith’s _Book
for a Rainy Day_, p. 135, ff. under “1795”; G. W. Phillips’s
_History and Antiquities of Bermondsey_, 1841, pp. 84, 85;
_Dict. Nat. Biog._ art. “Keyse”; Walford, vi. 128, 129;
_Histories of Surrey_; E. L. Blanchard in the _Era Almanack_
for 1870, p. 18; Rendle and Norman’s _Inns of Old Southwark_,
pp. 394–396; _A Modern Sabbath_ (1797), chap. ix.; Kearsley’s
_Strangers’ Guide to London_ (1793?); Fores’s _New Guide_
(1789), preface, p. vi.; _Picture of London_, 1802, p. 370,
where “the pictures of the late Mr. Keys” are mentioned; “Public
Gardens” Coll. in Guildhall Library, London; _Description of
some of the Paintings in the Perpetual Exhibition at Bermondsey
Spa_, Horselydown (_circ._ 1785?) 8vo. (W. Coll.). Song-books
(words only) of Bermondsey Spa, W. Coll.]

VIEWS.

A pen and ink sketch of Bermondsey Spa and a portrait of Keyse
were in J. H. Burn’s Collection, and at his sale at Puttick’s
were bought by Mr. Gardner (_Notes and Queries_, 6th ser.
i. 506).

ST. HELENA GARDENS, ROTHERHITHE

These gardens were opened in 1770, and in May 1776 music and dancing were advertised to take place there in the evenings. Towards the close of the century the Prince of Wales (George IV.) and various fashionable people are said to have occasionally visited the place. St. Helena’s was a good deal frequented as a tea-garden during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century,[263] chiefly by the dockyard population of the neighbourhood. In 1831 fireworks and other entertainments were introduced on the week-day evenings and the place was for some years styled the Eastern Vauxhall. In 1832 the gardens occupied about five acres and a half, and in this year the performers advertised included Mr. G. R. Chapman “from the Adelphi and Astley’s” as organist and musical director, Mrs. Venning, “from the Nobility’s Concerts,” Miss Wood, “the Infant Prodigy, only six years of age,” and Miss Taylor who performed “many difficult airs on that delightful instrument, the Musical Glasses.” Concerts, dancing and other amusements continued till about 1869 when the gardens appear to have been closed.

_Rotherhithe._]

In 1874, the gardens passed into the hands of Messrs. W. H. and J. R. Carter who erected an orchestra and a dancing platform, and provided music and fireworks for an admission of sixpence. The gardens had fallen into a neglected state, but the walks were once more well laid out, and the old chestnut trees, the elms and planes were still standing.

The gardens ceased to exist in 1881 and were eventually built over.[264] The site was to the west of Deptford Lower Road, and just south of Corbett’s Lane and the present St. Helena Road. St. Katharine’s Church (consecrated 18 October, 1884) in Eugenia Road (south of St. Helena Road) stands on part of the site.

[Newspaper cuttings, W. Coll.; and see notes.]

VIEWS.

1. The entrance to the St. Helena Tavern and tea-garden,
water-colour drawing, signed R. B. 7 June, 1839 (W. Coll.).

2. Admission ticket in white metal. Size 1·5 inch. Nineteenth
century, _circ._ 1839? (British Museum). _Obverse_:
View of the entrance to the tavern and gardens (similar to No.
1); in foreground, two posts supporting semi-circular board
inscribed “St. Helena Tavern and Tea Gardens. Dinners dress’d”:
in exergue, “Rotherhithe.” _Reverse_: “Refreshment to the
value of sixpence” within floral wreath.

3. Lithographed poster of the St. Helena Gardens, _circ._
1875, showing the orchestra, dancing-platform, and gardens
illuminated at night (W. Coll.).

FINCH’S GROTTO GARDENS

Finch’s Grotto Gardens situated on the western side of St. George’s Street, Southwark, near St. George’s Fields,[265] derived their name from Thomas Finch, a Herald Painter, who, having inherited from a relation a house and garden, opened both for the entertainment of the public in the spring of 1760. The garden possessed some lofty trees, and was planted with evergreens and shrubs. In the centre was a medicinal spring over which Finch constructed a grotto, wherein a fountain played over artificial embankments and formed “a natural and beautiful cascade.” The spring enjoyed some local celebrity, and was recommended to his patients by a doctor named Townshend, who resided in the Haymarket and afterwards in St. George’s Fields. In our own time Dr. Rendle has described the water as “merely the filtered soakage of a supersaturated soil,” which could be obtained almost anywhere in Southwark.

A subscription ticket of a guinea entitled the holder to such benefits, as Finch’s spring conferred and gave admission to the evening entertainments that were introduced from about 1764. The ordinary admission was a shilling, raised on special nights to two shillings. The gardens were open on Sunday when sixpence was charged, though the visitor was entitled for his money to tea, half a pint of wine, cakes, jelly or cyder.

An orchestra containing an organ by Pike, of Bloomsbury, stood in the garden, and there was another orchestra attached to a large octagonal music-room decorated with paintings and festoons of flowers. This Octagon Room was used for occasional balls and for the promenade and concert on wet evenings.

The place appears to have been respectably conducted, but there is little evidence that it was ever a modish resort, in spite of the assertion of the country-bred Mrs. Hardcastle[266] that no one could “have a manner that has never seen the Pantheon, the Grotto Gardens, the Borough and such places where the nobility chiefly resort.”[267]

The vocal and instrumental concerts which took place every evening in the season (May-September) were of a creditable though not very ambitious character. About fifteen hundred persons are said to have been present on some of the Freemasons’ nights and on the benefit nights of the performers.

Numerous singers and instrumentalists were engaged,[268] of whom the best known are Robert Hudson the organist, Miss Snow and Thomas Lowe. Sophia Snow, the daughter of Valentine Snow, sergeant trumpeter to the King, married Robert Baddeley the comedian, who introduced her to the stage at Drury Lane in 1765. As Mrs. Baddeley, she became notorious for her beauty and intrigues. She had some powers as an actress in genteel comedy and her melodious voice made her popular at Ranelagh (from 1770) and Vauxhall.

Lowe was the well-known tenor singer of Vauxhall and lessee of Marylebone Gardens from 1763 to 1768. Becoming bankrupt in 1768, he was glad to accept engagements at the humbler Finch’s Grotto. He was announced to sing in August 1769, and appeared under the designation of Brother Lowe at one of the Freemasons’ Concerts at the Grotto.

Finch died on October 23, 1770, and his successor, a Mr. Williams, advertised the place as Williams’s Grotto Gardens. The concerts were continued and among the musical entertainments were Bates’s “The Gamester” (1771) and Barnshaw’s “Linco’s Travels.”[269]

The programmes of entertainments under Finch and Williams included concertos on the organ, pieces for horns and clarionets, Handel’s Coronation Anthem, an Ode to Summer with music by Brewster, and songs, such as “Thro’ the Wood, Laddie”; “Water parted from the Sea”; “Oh what a charming thing is a Battle”; “British Wives”; “O’er Mountains and Moorlands”; “Cupid’s Recruiting Sergeant” (with drum and fife accompaniment); “Swift Wing’d Vengeance,” from Bates’s Pharnaces; “Shepherds cease your soft complainings;” a satirical song on Garrick’s Stratford Jubilee; “Hark, hark, the joy inspiring horn”; “The Season of Love,” sung by Mr. Dearle, (1765):--

Bright Sol is return’d and the Winter is o’er,
O come then, Philander, with Sylvia away.[270]

Fireworks were occasionally displayed, and when a ball was given, the place was illuminated at a cost of about five pounds, and horns and clarionets played till twelve in the garden. In 1771 and 1772 a grand transparent painting forty feet wide and thirty high, with illuminations, was displayed. Over the centre arch of this masterpiece was a medallion of Neptune supported by Tritons: on each side were two fountains “with serpents jetting water, representing different coloured crystal.” On one wing was Neptune drawn by sea-horses; on the other, Venus rising from the sea; and the back arches showed a distant prospect of the sea. In June 1771 a representation was given “of the famous Fall of Water call’d Pystill Rhiader near the seat of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, Bart., in Denbighshire.”

Apparently these entertainments failed to pay the proprietor and in 1773 (?) he pulled down the grotto over the spring and rooted up the shrubs to form a skittle ground in connection with the tavern, which still continued to be carried on.

About 1777 the “messuages and lands known as the Grotto Gardens” were purchased for the parish of St. Saviour’s, Southwark, part of the ground being used for the erection of a workhouse and part for a Burial Ground (consecrated in 1780). In 1799 the Workhouse was sold to Mr. John Harris, hat manufacturer, and M.P. for Southwark in 1830, who used it as his manufactory and residence. Some relics of the old Grotto were to be found many years after the closing of the Gardens, notably the Octagon Room, which was converted into a mill and at one time used as the armoury of the Southwark Volunteers.

In 1824 “a very large and old mulberry tree” was standing at the end of a long range of wooden tea-rooms formerly belonging to the gardens and converted into inferior cottages. Behind the cottages was a water-course derived from Loman’s Pond dividing them from a field, once part of the gardens, though only occupied at that time by dust and rubbish.

The tavern attached to the Gardens continued to be carried on under the sign of the Grotto till 28 May, 1795, when it was destroyed by fire. The new tavern erected in its place bore the sign of The Goldsmith’s Arms, and afterwards of the “Old Grotto new reviv’d.”

In the front of this house was inserted a stone bearing the inscription:--

Here Herbs did grow
And Flowers sweet,
But now ’tis call’d
Saint George’s Street.[271]

This building was removed for the formation of the present Southwark Bridge Road in 1825 and a public house named The Goldsmith’s Arms--still standing--was built on the western side of the new road, more upon the site of the old Grotto Gardens. The main site of the gardens is now occupied by the large red-brick building, which forms the headquarters of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.

[Wilkinson’s _Londina Illustrata_, vol. ii., “Finch’s Grotto
Gardens”; Manning and Bray’s _Surrey_, iii. 591; Brayley and
Mantell’s _Surrey_, v. 371; Rendle and Norman’s _Inns of Old
Southwark_, 360–364; Walford, vi. 64; newspaper cuttings, W.
Coll.]

VIEWS.

The only view is one of the second tavern published in
Wilkinson’s _Londina Illustrata_, 1825:--

“South-east view of the Grotto, now the Goldsmith’s Arms in the
Parish of St. George’s, Southwark.” This shows the inscription:
“Here Herbs did grow.”

CUPER’S GARDENS

Cuper’s Gardens, a notable resort during the first half of the last century, owe their name and origin to Boyder Cuper, who rented, in the parish of Lambeth on the south side of the Thames opposite Somerset House, a narrow strip of meadow land surrounded by water-courses.

About 1691 or earlier he opened the place as a pleasure garden with agreeable walks and arbours and some good bowling-greens. As an old servant of the Howard family he obtained the gift of some of the statues that had been removed when Arundel House in the Strand was pulled down. These, though mutilated and headless, appeared to the proprietor to give classic distinction to his garden, and they remained there till 1717, when his successor, a John Cuper, sold these ‘Arundel Marbles’ for £75.[272]

During the first twenty or thirty years of the last century, Cuper’s was a good deal frequented in the summer-time. A tavern by the waterside, called The Feathers, was connected with the grounds.

It is not certain that music and dancing were provided at this period, and the company appears to have consisted chiefly of young attorneys’ clerks and Fleet Street sempstresses, with a few City dames, escorted by their husbands’ ’prentices, who (perhaps after paying a visit to the floating ‘Folly’) sat in the arbours singing, laughing, and regaling themselves with bottle-ale.[273]

The place was popularly known as Cupid’s Gardens, and is even thus denominated in maps of the last century. This name is preserved in the traditional song, once very popular, “’Twas down in Cupid’s Garden”:--

’Twas down in Cupid’s Garden
For pleasure I did go,
To see the fairest flowers
That in that garden grow:
The first it was the jessamine,
The lily, pink and rose,
And surely they’re the fairest flowers
That in that garden grows.[274]

In 1738 the tavern and gardens were taken by Ephraim Evans, a publican who had kept the Hercules Pillars opposite St. Dunstan’s Church, Fleet Street. During his tenancy (1738–1740) he improved the gardens and erected an orchestra in which was set up an organ by Bridge. A band played from six till ten and Jones, the blind Welsh harper, was engaged to perform selections from Handel and Corelli. The admission was then and thenceforward one shilling, and the gardens were opened on Sunday free of charge.[275] It was announced that care would be taken to keep out bad company and that no servant in livery would be admitted to walk in the garden.

_From a picture in the Collection of_

THE REV^D. PHILIP DUVAL, D.D. & F.A.S.]

There was a back way to the gardens leading from St. George’s Fields, and watchmen were appointed “to guard those who go over the fields late at night.” The favourite approach, however, was by water, and the visitors landed at Cuper’s Stairs, a few yards east of the present Waterloo Bridge. The season lasted from April or May till the beginning of September.

Evans died on 14 October, 1740,[276] but the tavern and gardens were carried on by his widow. It was under the spirited management of the widow Evans that Cuper’s Gardens especially flourished, and her advertisements figure frequently in the newspapers (1741–1759). ‘The Widow,’ as she was called, presided at the bar during the evening and complimentary visitors described her as “a woman of discretion” and “a well-looking comely person.” By providing good music and elaborate fireworks, she attracted a good deal of fashionable patronage. The Prince and Princess of Wales visited the place and some of Horace Walpole’s friends,[277] Lord Bath and Lord Sandys, for instance, both of whom had their pockets picked there. The well-dressed sharper was, in fact, by no means unknown at Cuper’s. One night in 1743 a man was caught stealing from a young lady a purse containing four guineas, and while being taken by a constable to Lambeth was rescued by a gang of thieves in St. George’s Fields. On the whole, Cuper’s was looked upon as a decidedly rakish place at which a prudent young lady was not to be seen alone with a gentleman.[278]

For the evening concert of 16 June, 1741, Mrs. Evans announced “a new grand concerto for the organ by the author, Mr. Henry Burgess, junior, of whom it may be said without ostentation that he is of as promising a genius and as neat a performer as any of the age.” Composers better known to fame than Mr. Henry Burgess, junior, were also represented. The programme, for instance, of one July evening in 1741 consisted of “The Overture in Saul, with several grand choruses composed by Mr. Handel”; the eighth concerto of Corelli; a hautboy concerto by Sig. Hasse; “Blow, blow thou wintry wind,” and other favourite songs composed by the ingenious Mr. Arne, and the whole concluded with a new grand piece of music, an original composition by Handel, called ‘Portobello,’ in honour of the popular hero, Admiral Vernon, “who took Portobello with six ships only.” On other occasions there were vocal performances (1748–1750) by Signora Sibilla and by Master Mattocks. The Signora was Sibilla Gronamann, daughter of a German pastor and the first wife of Thomas Pinto, the violinist. She died in or before 1766. Mattocks, who had “a sweet and soft voice,” was afterwards an operatic actor at Covent Garden. Mrs. Mattocks sang at the gardens in 1750.

After the concert, at half-past nine or ten, a gun gave the signal for the fireworks for which the place was renowned.

On 18 July, 1741, the Fire Music from Handel’s opera, “Atalanta,” was given, the fireworks consisting of wheels, fountains, large sky-rockets, “with an addition of the fire-pump, &c., made by the ingenious Mr. Worman, who originally projected it for the opera” when performed in 1736. The _Daily Advertiser_ for 28 June, 1743, announced that “this night will be burnt the Gorgon’s head ... in history said to have snakes on her hair and to kill men by her looks, such a thing as was never known to be done in England before.” For another night (4 September, 1749) the entertainment was announced to conclude with “a curious and magnificent firework, which has given great satisfaction to the nobility, wherein Neptune will be drawn on the canal by sea-horses and set fire to an Archimedan (_sic_) worm and return to the Grotto.”

In 1746 (August 14) there was a special display to celebrate “the glorious victory obtained over the rebels” by the Duke of Cumberland, consisting of emblematic figures and magnificent fireworks, with “triumphant arches burning in various colours.” In 1749 (May) there was a miniature reproduction with transparencies and fireworks of the Allegorical Temple that had been displayed in the Green Park on 27 April, 1749, to commemorate the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. At the opening of the gardens on April 30 for the season of 1750, the edifice from which the fireworks were displayed was altered “into an exact model of that at the Hague, made on account of the General Peace.”

The season of 1752, practically the last at Cuper’s, lasted from May till near the end of September. The principal vocalist was Miss Maria Bennett.[279] The fireworks and scenic effects were novel and elaborate. A song commemorating the Prince of Wales’s birthday was “shown curiously in fireworks in the front of the machine.” The fireworks building, when the curtain was withdrawn, disclosed a perspective view of the city of Rhodes--sea, buildings, and landscape, with a model of the Colossus, from under which Neptune issued forth and set fire to a grand pyramid in the middle of the canal. Dolphins spouted water; water-wheels and rockets threw up air-balloons and suns blazed on the summit of the building.

On one occasion the crowd near the fireworks was so great that a gentleman took up his position in a tree, and when St. George and the Dragon came to a close engagement and the clockwork began to move the arms of St. George to pierce the Dragon, he let go his hands to clap like the rest and fell headlong upon the bystanders.[280]

The ‘Inspector’ of the _London Daily Advertiser_ took his friend the old Major, to Cupid’s Gardens (as they were still called) on a pleasant August evening in this year. The Major was delighted with all he saw. “Now I like this. I am always pleased when I see other people happy: the folks that are rambling about among the trees there; the jovial countenances of them delight me ... here’s all the festivity and all the harmless indulgence of a country wake.”[281]

The country wake element was in evidence late in the evening, and constables stationed at the gate had occasionally to interfere. One night, for instance, a pretty young woman, accompanied by a friend, promenaded the gardens dressed as a man wearing a long sword. No small sensation was caused in the miscellaneous company, which included a physician, a templar, a berouged old lady and her granddaughter, and the sedate wife of a Cheapside fur-seller. “A spirited young thing with a lively air and smart cock of her hat” passed by. “Gad,” said she, as she tripped along, “I don’t see there’s anything in it; give us their cloathes and we shall look as sharp and as rakish as they do.” “What an air! what a gate! what a tread the baggage has!” exclaimed another.

But the days of Cuper’s were numbered. In the early part of 1752 the statute-book had been dignified by the addition of 25 George II., cap. 36, entitled, “An Act for the better preventing thefts and robberies and for regulating places of public entertainment and punishing persons keeping disorderly houses.” By section 2 of this enactment it was required that every house, room, garden, or other place kept for public dancing or music, &c., within the cities of London and Westminster, or twenty miles thereof, should be under a licence. The Act took effect from December 1, 1752, and the necessary licence for the season of 1753 was refused to the management of Cuper’s Gardens. The widow Evans complained bitterly that she was denied the liberty of opening her gardens, a misfortune attributed by her to the malicious representations of ill-meaning persons, but which was really owing, no doubt, to the circumstance that Cuper’s was degenerating into the place which Pennant says he remembered as the scene of low dissipation. Meanwhile Mrs. Evans threw open the grounds (June 1753) as a tea-garden in connection with the Feathers, and the walks were “kept in pleasant order.”

In the summer of 1755 entertainments of the old character were revived, but they were advertised as fifteen private evening concerts and fireworks, open only to subscribers, a one guinea ticket admitting two persons. It is to be suspected that the subscription was mythical, and was a mere device to evade the Act. However, a band was engaged, and on June 23 loyal visitors to Cuper’s commemorated the accession of King George to the throne by a concert and fireworks. Clitherow, who had been the engineer of Cuper’s fireworks from 1750 (or earlier), was again employed, but had to publish in the newspapers a lame apology for the failure of the Engagement on the Water on the night of August 2 (1755), a failure which he explained was not due to his want of skill but “owing to part of the machinery for moving the shipping being clogg’d by some unaccountable accident, and the powder in the ships having unfortunately got a little damp.”

From 1756–1759 Cuper’s Gardens were again used as the tea-garden of the Feathers. There was no longer a Band of Musick but (as the advertisements express it) “there still remains some harmony from the sweet enchanting sounds of rural warblers.”

The last recorded entertainment at the place was a special concert given on August 30, 1759 by “a select number of gentlemen for their own private diversion,” who had “composed an ode alluding to the late decisive action of Prince Ferdinand.” Any lady or gentleman inspired by Prussian glory was admitted to this entertainment on payment of a shilling.

For several years the gardens remained unoccupied, but from about 1768 three acres of them were leased to the firm of Beaufoy, the producers of British wines and vinegar. The orchestra, or rather the edifice used from 1750 for the fireworks, was utilised for the distillery. Dr. Johnson once passed by the gardens: “Beauclerk, I, and Langton, and Lady Sydney Beauclerk, mother to our friend, were one day driving in a coach by Cuper’s Gardens which were then unoccupied. I, in sport, proposed that Beauclerk, and Langton, and myself, should take them, and we amused ourselves with scheming how we should all do our parts. Lady Sydney grew angry and said, ‘An old man should not put such things in young people’s heads.’ She had no notion of a joke, sir; had come late into life, and had a mighty unpliable understanding.”[282]

J. T. Smith[283] tells us that he walked over the place when occupied by the Beaufoys, and saw many of the old lamp-irons along the paling of the gardens, humble reminders of the days when the walks of Cuper’s Gardens were “beautifully illuminated with lamp-trees in a grand taste, disposed in proper order.” In 1814 part of the ground was required for making the south approach to Waterloo Bridge. The “fireworks” building and the rest of Messrs. Beaufoys’ works were then taken down and the Waterloo Road, sixty feet in width, was cut through the three acres, thus passing through the centre of Cuper’s Gardens which had extended up to the site of the present St. John’s Church (built in 1823) opposite Waterloo Station.

The Royal Infirmary for Children and Women erected in 1823 on the eastern side of the Waterloo Road stands on (or rather _over_) the centre of the site of the gardens. The Feathers was used during the building of the bridge for the pay-table of the labourers, and when it was taken down (about 1818?) its site was occupied by a timber-yard, close to the eastern side of the first land-arch of the Waterloo Bridge.

The public-house now called the Feathers, standing near the Bridge and rising two stories above the level of the Waterloo Road was built by the proprietor of the old Feathers in 1818.

[Wilkinson’s _Londina Illustrata_, vol. ii. “Cuper’s Gardens,”
Public Gardens Coll. in Guildhall Library, London (newspaper
cuttings, &c.); Charles Howard’s _Historical Anecdotes of the
Howard Family_ (1769), 98, ff.; Pennant’s _Account of London_,
3rd ed. 1793, 32–34; _Musical Times_, February 1894, 84, ff.;
Hone’s _Every Day Book_, i. 603; E. Hatton’s _New View of
London_, 1708, ii. 785; Lysons’s _Environs_, 1792, i. 319, 320;
Walford, vi. 388, 389; _The Observator_, March 10, 1702-3;
newspaper cuttings, W. Coll.]

VIEWS.

1. View of the Savoy, Somerset House, and the water entrance
to Cuper’s Gardens, engraved by W. M. Fellows, 1808, in J. T.
Smith’s _Antiquities of Westminster_, from a painting (done
in 1770, according to Crace, _Cat._ 188, No. 219) by Samuel
Scott.

2. Woodcuts in Walford, vi. 391, showing entrance to the gardens
(the back entrance) and the “orchestra” during the demolition
of the buildings; cp. _ib._ 390. Walford also mentions,
_ib._ p. 388, a view showing the grove, statues, and
alcoves, of the gardens.

3. Water-colour drawings of Beaufoys’ and Cuper’s in 1798 and in
1809 (Crace, _Cat._ 648, Nos. 49, 50).

4. Wilkinson, _Lond. Illust._ (1825), vol. ii. gives three
views, Pl. 155, view of the Great Room as occupied for Beaufoys’
manufactory, with a plan of the gardens; Pl. 156, another
similar view; Pl. 157, view of the old Feathers Tavern.

“THE FOLLY” ON THE THAMES

Close by Cuper’s Stairs (where the visitors to Cuper’s Gardens landed) and opposite Somerset House, there was generally moored during the summer months a sort of castellated house-boat, notorious as The Folly.[284]

It consisted of a strong barge on which was a deck platform, surrounded by a balustrade, and contained a saloon provided with large windows and divided into boxes and compartments. At each of the four angles of the deck was a turret, giving the whole something of the appearance of a floating castle.

This “whimsical piece of architecture” (as Thomas Brown calls it)[285] was in existence soon after the Restoration, and in 1668 was visited by Pepys.[286] It was intended, says Brown, “as a musical summer-house for the entertainment of quality where they might meet and ogle one another ... but the ladies of the town finding it as convenient a rendezvous for their purpose ... dash’d the female quality out of countenance and made them seek a more retired conveniency” for their “amorous intrigues.” Queen Mary (II.) once paid it a visit, and the proprietor endeavoured to re-christen it The Royal Diversion. It continued, however, to be popularly known as The Folly, and already in 1700 had ceased to have any quality to boast of, at least among its female frequenters.

Thomas Brown describes a visit that he made about 1700. Rowing up to the side in a boat he found himself scrutinised by a crowd of women both young and old, and (as he puts it) “of all sorts and sizes.” Some of these ladies were dancing and tripping airily about the deck, and some tattling to their beaux; but many of the company, including certain long-sworded bullies, were crowded into the boxes in the saloon where they sat, smoking, and drinking burnt brandy. “In short, it was such a confused scene of folly, madness and debauchery” that Thomas Brown, by no means a squeamish person, stepped again into his boat “without drinking.”

The Folly in its later days was occasionally visited by people who at least worked honestly for their living, and the draper’s apprentice, when his shop was shut, would row up with his sweetheart for an evening’s amusement at this curious haunt.[287]

The Folly was in existence till 1720, and perhaps for more than thirty years later, but the character of its frequenters, and the gambling that took place at what was known as its Golden Gaming Table, at last led to its suppression as a public resort. It was suffered to fall into such decay that its material was burnt for fire-wood.

Near that part of the river where the Folly was usually moored the famous Chinese junk was anchored about 1848, and visited by thousands of sight-seers.[288]

[Thomas Brown’s _Amusements Serious and Comical_, Part ii.
“The Thames”; Wheatley’s _London Past and Present_, “Folly”;
E. Hatton’s _New View of London_, 1708, ii. 785; Wilkinson’s
_Londina_, vol. i. No. 88; also vol. ii. “Cuper’s Gardens”;
Walford, iii. 290; Larwood and Hotten, _History of Signboards_,
509; manuscript notes, &c. in “Public Gardens” collection in
Guildhall Library, London.]

VIEWS.

1. A view of Whitehall from the water, showing the Folly
Musick House on the Thames. Engraved in Wilkinson’s _Londina
Illustrata_, vol. i. No. 88, from a drawing taken about the
time of James II. “in the possession of Thomas Griffiths, Esq.”

2. The Southern Front of Somerset House with its extensive
Gardens, &c., showing the Folly. A drawing by L. Knyff, about
1720, engraved by Sawyer Junior, and published (1808) in J.
T. Smith’s sixty additional plates to his _Antiquities of
Westminster_. This is copied, with a short account of the
Folly, in E. W. Brayley’s _Londiniana_ (1829), vol. iii.
130, 300. It is substantially the same as the view on a larger
scale engraved by Kip in Strype’s _Stow_, 1720, ii. bk. 4,
p. 105. Cp. also an engraving (W. Coll.) “Somerset House, La
Maison de Somerset.” L. Knyff del. I. Kip sc. undated, before
1720?

BELVEDERE HOUSE AND GARDENS, LAMBETH

Belvedere House and Gardens were near Cuper’s Gardens,[289] but a little higher up the river (south side). They were opposite York Buildings in the Strand, and extended from the present Belvedere Road (then called Narrow Wall) to the water’s edge. Some modern writers speak of the gardens as a place of public entertainment in the reign of Queen Anne, but there seems no evidence of this, and in 1719 or 1720 the premises were in the possession of a Mr. English (or England), who at that time sold them to the Theobald family. In 1757, Belvedere House was the private residence of Mr. James Theobald.

In the early part of 1781, “the house called Belvedere” was taken by one Charles Bascom, who opened it as an inn, with the added attractions of “pleasant gardens and variety of fish-ponds.” He professed in his advertisements, to accommodate his guests with choice wines and with eating of every kind in season, after the best manner, especially with “the choicest river-fish which they may have the delight to see taken.”

The gardens could not have been open later than 1785, for in that year part of the ground was turned into the Belvedere (timber) Wharf, and part was occupied by the machinery of the Lambeth water-works.

[Advertisement in _The Freethinker_ for April 28, 1781, quoted
in Wilkinson’s _Londina_, vol. ii. “Cuper’s Gardens,” _notes_,
and in Nichols’s _Lambeth_, Nichols’s _Bibl. Top. Brit._ ii.
Appendix, 158; map in Strype’s _Stow_ (1720), vol. ii. book 6,
p. 83, Appendix; Manning and Bray, _Surrey_, iii. 467; Brayley
and Mantell, _Surrey_, iii. 393; Howard’s _Historical Anecdotes
of some of the Howard Family_, 106; Wheatley’s _London P. and
P._ s.v. “Belvedere Road.”]

RESTORATION SPRING GARDENS, ST. GEORGE’S FIELDS

The Restoration Tavern was in existence in the early part of the reign of Charles II.[290] In 1714 there was a new cock-pit in its grounds and a great match of cock fighting was announced to take place there; “two guineas a battle, and twenty guineas the odd battle” all the week, beginning at four o’clock. The races and popular sports then frequent in St. George’s Fields probably brought additional custom to the house.

In the gardens of the tavern was a purging spring which was advertised[291] in 1733 as already well-known for the cure of all cancerous and scorbutic humours. About the same year a second spring was discovered, a chalybeate “of the nature of Piermont Water but superior.” The water was obtainable every day at the gardens,[292] and was declared to “far exceed” the water at the neighbouring Dog and Duck. Dr. Rendle says that it must have been the mere soakage of a swamp, but whatever may have been the virtues of the spring it was probably before long eclipsed by its rival at the Dog and Duck, though the Restoration was in existence in 1755 and perhaps for some years later.

In 1771 the garden, or at any rate about an acre of it, was taken by William Curtis,[293] the author of _Flora Londinensis_, who formed a Botanical Garden there which was afterwards open to subscribers until 1789, when the botanist removed to another garden in the more salubrious air of Brompton.

Restoration Garden is marked in the map in Stow’s _Survey_, 1755, as abutting on the western side of Angel Street (a continuation of the Broad Wall), southern end. In a map of the Surrey side of the Thames showing the proposed roads from Blackfriars Bridge (circ. 1768) the ground is marked as “Public House Gardens” and “Gardens.” The Half-way House from the Borough to Westminster Bridge is marked immediately south of the gardens; and still further south is the Westminster Bridge Road, the end east of the Asylum. St. Saviour’s Union, Marlborough Street (near the New Cut), is now near the site.

[Rendle and Norman, _Inns of Old Southwark_ (1888), pp.
367, 368; and see Notes.]

THE FLORA TEA GARDENS (OR MOUNT GARDENS),
WESTMINSTER BRIDGE ROAD

The Flora Tea Gardens (or Mount Gardens), were on the right hand side of the Westminster Bridge Road going towards the Obelisk, and opposite the Temple of Flora. They were in existence about 1796–7. The gardens were well kept and contained “genteel paintings.” They were open on week-days and on Sundays till about 11 p.m., and the admission was sixpence.

Among the frequenters were democratic shopmen, who might be heard railing against King and Church, and a good many ladies respectable and the reverse. The “Sunday Rambler” (1796–7) describes the company as very orderly, but at some time before 1800 the place was suppressed on account of dissolute persons frequenting it.

Some small cottages were then built in the middle of the garden, which retained a rural appearance till shortly before 1827, when several rows of houses, “Mount Gardens,” were erected on the site.

[The Flora Tea Gardens described in _A Modern Sabbath_ (1797),
chap. viii., are evidently identical with the Mount Gardens
mentioned by Allen (_Lambeth_, 335), though he does not mention
their alternative name (cp. Walford, vi. 389). Allen (_loc.
cit._) is the authority for the suppression of the gardens.]

THE TEMPLE OF FLORA

The Temple of Flora stood hard by the Temple of Apollo, in the middle of Mount Row on the left hand side of Westminster Bridge Road, going towards the Obelisk, and was separated by Oakley Street from the Apollo Gardens (Temple of Apollo). Concerts were given every evening in the season, and the place is described as “beautifully fitted up with alcoves and exotics.”

In the hot house was “an elegant statue of Pomona,” a transparency of Flora, and at the lower end of the garden, a natural cascade and fountain. “The entrance and the gardens,” were advertised in July 1789 as being formed by the proprietor into an exact imitation of the admired Temple of Flora, which he had constructed at the Grand Gala at Ranelagh.

Some special entertainments were given in June and July in honour of the King’s recovery, and the Grand Temple of Flora, an “elegant and ingenious imitation of Nature in her floral attire,” was then illuminated with nearly a thousand variegated lamps amid wreaths of flowers twining round pillars “made in imitation of Sienna marble.” Fireworks and water-works were also displayed; a large star of lamps was suspended above the cascade, and (in the absence of nightingales) “a variety of singing birds” were imitated. The admission for these special entertainments was one shilling, and the gardens were illuminated from eight till the closing time at eleven. Light refreshments were served consisting of orgeat, lemonade, “confectionary,” strawberries and cream.

There is evidence[294] that in the first few years of its existence (1788–1791) the place was visited by some people of good position, but it afterwards became the haunt of dissolute characters and of young apprentices.[295] The author of _A Modern Sabbath_ describes (_circ._ 1796) the boxes in the gardens as “neatly painted” like most of the company who were to be seen there about ten in the evening. The admission appears to have been now reduced to sixpence.

In 1796 the proprietor, a man named Grist, was indicted for keeping the place as a disorderly house, and was ordered (May 30) to be confined for six months in the King’s Bench Prison,[296] and in all probability the Temple of Flora was then finally closed.

Mme. Lamotte, the heroine of the famous Diamond Necklace affair, ended her strange career (23 August, 1791) in her house near the Temple of Flora, a place of amusement that, it is likely enough, she frequented.[297]

[_A Modern Sabbath_ (1797), chap. viii.; _Public Advertiser_,
2 July, 1789 (fêtes of June and July); Brayley and Mantell,
_Surrey_, iii. 399; Allen’s _Lambeth_, 321.]

APOLLO GARDENS (OR TEMPLE OF APOLLO)

These gardens were on the left hand side of the Westminster Bridge Road going from Westminster to the Obelisk, and were situated nearly where the engineering factory of Messrs. Maudslay, Sons and Field now stands and opposite the present Christ Church Congregational Chapel.[298]

Walter Claggett, the proprietor (at one time a lessee of the Pantheon[299] in Oxford Street) opened the place in October 1788 with an entertainment given in the concert room, which is described as a fine building with “a kind of orrery in the dome, displaying a pallid moon between two brilliant transparencies.” In this building was an orchestra containing a fine-toned organ, and in the opening concert, given before nearly one thousand three hundred people, a band of about seventy instrumental and vocal performers took part, the organist being Jonathan Battishill.

Previous to the opening for the season in April 1790, the gardens were much altered and a room was arranged for large dinner parties. In the gardens were a number of “elegant pavilions or alcoves” ornamented with the adventures of Don Quixote and other paintings.

In 1792 (May-July) there was music every evening and fantoccini were exhibited. In this year the concerts took place in a covered promenade described as the Grand Apollonian Promenade. Mr. Flack, junior, was the leader of the band; Mr. Costelow the organist, and the vocalists were Mr. Binley, Miss Wingfield, Mrs. Leaver, and Mrs. Iliff, the last-named one of the Vauxhall singers in 1787. New overtures, &c., “composed by Messrs. Haydn and Pleyel since their arrival in this Kingdom” were advertised for performance.

The season began in April or May, and the visitor on entering at five o’clock or later, paid a shilling or sixpence (1792) receiving in exchange a metal check entitling him to refreshments. No charge was made for the concert. At about nine o’clock many persons who had “come on” from other public places visited the Apollo for hot suppers, and the gardens and promenade were illuminated, sometimes with two thousand lamps. The proprietor prided himself on “the superior excellence of the Music and Wines.” He boasted, moreover, of the patronage of the nobility and gentry, and vaunted the “chastity and dignity” of the place, though it was probably owing to the presence of some of these late arriving visitors that the Apollo Gardens speedily acquired an unenviable reputation.

In 1792 the place was known to be a resort of cheats and pickpockets. We hear of one Elizabeth Smith, a smartly dressed young woman, about eighteen, being charged in 1792 at the Guildhall with “trepanning a Miss Ridley,” a beautiful girl ten years of age, whom she had taken with her to the Apollo and the Dog and Duck, and left crying on Blackfriars Bridge, after stealing her fine sash.

The Apollo was suppressed by the magistrates, probably about 1793.[300] The proprietor himself became bankrupt; the orchestra was removed to Sydney Gardens, Bath;[301] and the Temple of Apollo fell into a ruinous state and its site was eventually built upon.

[A collection of newspaper cuttings relating to London, &c.
(section, Apollo Gardens) in Guildhall Library, London (_Catal._
ii. 546); “Public Gardens” collection (newspaper cuttings, &c.)
in Guildhall Library (_Catal._ ii. 761); Brayley and Mantell,
_Surrey_, iii. 399; Allen’s _Lambeth_, 319; Walford, vi. 343,
389; _A Modern Sabbath_, chap. viii.]

VIEWS.

There appear to be no extant views. The site may be ascertained
from Horwood’s _Plan_, 1799; and from Willis’s _Plan_, 1808. In
the Crace Coll. (_Cat._ p. 122, No. 69) are “Two drawn plans
of a plot of land called the Apollo Gardens, lying next the
Westminster Bridge Road to the Obelisk,” by T. Chawner.

DOG AND DUCK, ST. GEORGE’S FIELDS

(ST. GEORGE’S SPA)

The Dog and Duck was in existence as a small inn as early as 1642.[302] In its vicinity were three or four ponds in which, no doubt, the brutal sport of hunting ducks with spaniels was at one time practised,[303] and near the place were mineral springs whose properties were known as early as 1695, though the water does not appear to have been advertised for sale till about 1731,[304] when the Dog and Duck had taken to itself the imposing sub-title of St. George’s Spaw. At this time the water was sold at the pump for fourpence a gallon, and was stated to be recommended by eminent physicians for gout, stone, king’s evil, sore eyes, and inveterate cancers. A dozen bottles could be had at the Spa (_circ._ 1733–1736) for a shilling.

From about 1754 till 1770 the water was in considerable repute, and new buildings appear to have been erected for the accommodation of visitors. There was a long room for breakfasting (1754), a bowling-green, and a swimming-bath (1769) two hundred feet long and nearly one hundred feet broad. Tea and coffee were to be had in the afternoon. At this period people of good position seem to have frequented the Spa or to have sent for the water. We find Miss Talbot writing about the place to Mrs. Carter, and Dr. Johnson suggested the use of the water to Mrs. Thrale.[305]

The proprietors issued (1760) to subscribers an admission ticket handsomely struck in silver with a portrait of Lazare Rivière, the famous Professor of Medicine, on its obverse.[306]

The _St. James’s Chronicle_ ranked the water with that of Tunbridge, Cheltenham, and Buxton.

Physicians of repute described its curative properties, and affirmed it to be excellent for cutaneous afflictions and for cancer which it would certainly arrest, even if it did not cure. This water, which was advertised as an aperient (Epsom Salts being also kept on the premises), came at a much later date--1856--under the observation of Dr. Rendle, the historian, and, as it happened, the Officer of Health in that year for the Parish of St. George’s, Southwark. Rendle procured an analysis of water from the superficial well, formerly the spring, on the site of the old Dog and Duck and was forced to describe it as “a decidedly unsafe water” containing impurities, eighty grains per gallon, chiefly alkaline chlorides, sulphates and nitrates, gypsum and carbonate of lime, with a little phosphoric acid.

But we return to the year 1770, about which time the Dog and Duck took a new lease of life. A temporary circus established in St. George’s Fields by Sampson, of The Three Hats, Islington, was the cause of much additional custom being brought to the tavern, and Mrs. Hedger who kept the house was obliged to send for her son who was then a youth in a stable-yard at Epsom. Young Hedger soon saw the possibilities of the place. He gradually improved the premises and in a few years was making a large income from the tavern and its tea-garden, which was much frequented, especially on Sundays.[307] The garden was well laid out and contained “a pretty piece of water” doubtless one of the old ducking ponds, and at one time a band played in the garden for the delectation of the week-day visitors. At night, the long room was brilliantly lighted for the company who assembled to dance, drink, and listen to the strains of the organ. Under Hedger, however, the character of the company went from bad to worse. The “rowdy” delights of the Dog and Duck are indicated, though probably with an exaggerated coarseness, in Garrick’s Prologue to “The Maid of the Oaks” acted at Drury Lane in 1775:--

St. George’s Fields, with taste and fashion struck,
Display Arcadia at the Dog and Duck,
And Drury misses here in tawdry pride,
Are there “Pastoras” by the fountain side;
To frowsy bowers they reel through midnight damps,
With Fauns half drunk, and Dryads breaking lamps.[308]

In about ten years the Dog and Duck had become a place of assignation and the haunt of “the riff-raff and scum of the town.” One of its frequenters, Charlotte Shaftoe, is said to have betrayed seven of her intimates to the gallows. At last, on September 11, 1787, the Surrey magistrates refused to renew the license. Hedger, like the Music Hall managers of our own time, was not easily beaten. He appealed to the City of London, and two City justices claiming to act as justices in Southwark, renewed the license seven days after its refusal by the County magistrates. The legality of the civic jurisdiction in Surrey was tried in 1792 before Lord Kenyon and other judges, who decided against it. The license of the Dog and Duck was then made conditional on its being entirely closed on Sundays.[309]

In 1795 the bath and the bowling-green were advertised as attractions and the water might be drunk on the usual terms of threepence each person. About 1796 the place was again open on Sundays, but the license was lost. This difficulty the proprietor surmounted by engaging a Freeman of the Vintners Company, who required no license, to draw the wine that was sold on the premises. The “Sunday Rambler” who visited the place (_circ._ 1796) one evening about ten o’clock found a dubious company assembled. He recognised a bankrupt banker and his mistress; a notorious lady named Nan Sheldon; and another lady attired in extreme fashion and known as “Tippy Molly,” though once she had been a modest Mary Johnson. De Castro (_Memoirs_), with a certain touch of pathos, describes the votaries of the Dog and Duck in its later days as “the children of poverty, irregularity and distress.”[310] It would, indeed, be easy to moralise on the circumstance that the place was soon to become the inheritance of the blind and the lunatic. In or before 1799 the Dog and Duck was suppressed, and the premises, after having been used as a public soup-kitchen, became in that year the establishment of the School for the Indigent Blind, an institution which remained there till 1811.

Meanwhile, the enterprising Hedger, had made a good use of his profits by renting (from about the year 1789) a large tract of land in St. George’s Fields at low rates from the managers of the Bridge House Estate. The fine for building was £500, but Hedger immediately paid this penalty, and while sub-letting a portion of the ground, ran up on the rest a number of wretched houses which hardly stood the term of his twenty-one years’ lease. From this source he is said to have derived £7,000 a year. He died in the early part of the present century,[311] having obtained the title of The King of the Fields, and the reputation of a “worthy private character.” He left his riches to his eldest son, whom the people called the Squire.

The Dog and Duck was pulled down in 1811 for the building of the present Bethlehem Hospital, the first stone of which was laid on 18 April, 1812. The old stone sign of the tavern, dated 1716, and representing a spaniel holding a duck in its mouth, and the Arms of the Bridge House Estate, was built into the brick garden-wall of the Hospital where it may still be seen close to the actual site of the once notorious Dog and Duck.

[Trusler’s _London Adviser_ (1786), pp. 124, 164; Fores’s _New
Guide_ (1789), preface, p. vi; Allen’s _London_, iv. 470, 482,
485; _A Modern Sabbath_, 1797, chap. viii.; Wheatley’s _London
P. and P._ s.v. “St. George’s Fields” and “Dog and Duck”;
Humphreys’s _Memoirs of De Castro_ (1824), 126, ff.; Manning and
Bray, _Surrey_, iii. 468, 554, 632, 701; Allen’s _Lambeth_, p.
7, 347; _Gent. Mag._ 1813, pt. 2, 556; Rendle and Norman, _Inns
of Old Southwark_, p. 368, ff.; Walford, vi. 343, 344, 350–352,
364; Larwood and Hotten, _Signboards_, 196, 197; _Notes and
Queries_, 1st ser. iv. 37; newspaper cuttings in W. Coll.]

VIEWS.

1. The old Dog and Duck Tavern, copied from an old drawing 1646,
water-colour drawing by T. H. Shepherd, Crace, _Cat._ p.
646. No. 27.

2. The Dog and Duck in 1772. A print published 1772. Crace,
_Cat._ p. 646, No. 28.

3. Woodcut of exterior, 1780, in Chambers’s _Book of Days_,
ii. 74.

4. “Labour in Vain, or Fatty in Distress” (St. George’s Spa in
the background), print published by C. Bowles, 1782, Crace,
_Cat._ p. 647, No. 35, and W. Coll.

5. Engraving of the exterior, 1788 (W. Coll.).

6. Interior of the Assembly Room. A stipple engraving, 1789,
reproduced in Rendle and Norman, _Inns of Old Southwark_,
373.

7. Sign of Dog and Duck, engraved in Walford, vi. 344; cp.
Crace, _Cat._ p. 646, No. 32, and Rendle and Norman,
_Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 369.

THE BLACK PRINCE, NEWINGTON BUTTS

The Black Prince at Newington Butts possessed, about 1788, a pleasant garden frequented for trap-ball playing. There is a view (W. Coll.) of the tavern and garden printed for C. Bowles, 22 Sept., 1788.

LAMBETH WELLS

In the last century Lambeth Marsh and the fields in the neighbourhood were a favourite resort of Londoners for running-matches and outdoor sports, and the Lambeth Wells offered the special attractions of music and mineral water-drinking. The Wells (opened to the public before 1697) were situated in Three Coney Walk, now called Lambeth Walk, and consisted of two springs, distinguished as the Nearer and Farther Well. The water was sent out to St. Thomas’s Hospital and elsewhere at a penny a quart, and the poor had it free.

The usual charge for admission for drinking the waters was threepence, including the music, which, about 1700, began at seven in the morning, and was continued on three days of the week till sunset, and on other days till two. The season began in the spring, usually on Easter Monday.