Chapter XVI: Introduction (9)

[149] The place appears to be referred to as early as 1633 as “the bowling place in Islington Fields” (Pinks, p. 710).

[150] Mrs. Dobney died at about the age of ninety on 15 March, 1760.

[151] Pinks states that Price had been starring at the Three Hats, Islington, prior to his performance at Dobney’s in 1767 (cp. _Memoirs of J. de Castro_ (1824), p. 29, who says that Price, Thomas Johnson, and old Sampson exhibited at the Three Hats). This may have been the case, though from 1758 to the spring of 1767, Thomas Johnson was certainly the chief equestrian performer at the “Three Hats.”

[152] _London Evening Post_, August 1776. The Pantheon is the tea-house in Exmouth Street.

[153] Tomlins in his _Perambulation of Islington_, published in 1858, but written in part about 1849, describes Prospect House as still existing behind Winchester Place, though the bowling green (he says) had been already covered by Winchester Place.

[154] Busby’s Folly is first mentioned in 1664 as a meeting-place of the Society of Bull Feathers Hall, a fraternity of Odd Fellows. It is supposed to have derived its name from Christopher Busby, landlord of the White Lion Inn, Islington, in 1668.

[155] Prologue written and spoken by Mr. Gibson before the Orphan at the New Theatre in the Haymarket on 31 May, 1762 (_Owen’s Weekly Chronicle or Universal Journal_, June 5 to 12, 1762). The “wonder of a Chelsea field” mentioned in this prologue is evidently Coan, the dwarf (called “the jovial pigmy”), who attracted visitors to the Dwarf’s Tavern in Chelsea Fields (see _infra_, Star and Garter, Chelsea).

[156] According to Nelson and Lewis, the house facing to the south at the northern termination of Colebrooke Row, was occupied about 1772 by the Rev. John Rule, who there kept a school, of some repute, for gentlemen’s sons. The Castle Inn was the adjoining house and a house next to the Castle was supposed by a doubtful tradition (cp. J. Knight, art. “Cibber” in _Dict. Nat. Biog._) to be that in which Colley Cibber died 12 December, 1757 (_see_ Nelson and Lewis). The old house with a red-tiled roof, still existing, though divided into the dwelling houses Nos. 56 and 57 Colebrooke Row, was apparently the Castle Inn. The southern end of Colebrooke Row was built in the present century. The Row also now extends a little farther to the north than when Nelson wrote, so that Rule’s house is not now at the extreme northern end of the Row.

[157] Sampson’s Riding School at Islington is mentioned in the _Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine_ for January 1773, p. 162, together with Astley’s and Hughes’s.

[158] They were probably in existence before this date, but are not marked in the survey of Islington of 1735. An advertisement in _The Morning Herald_ of 22 April, 1786, announces the sale of the ground-rents of an Islington copyhold estate. This estate, situated “in the Lower Street, opposite Cross Street, Islington, and extending down to Frog Lane,” comprised a brick mansion and garden, four dwelling-houses and gardens, and the Barley Mow Tea House and Gardens. A plan of the estate was to be seen at Mr. Spurrier’s, the auctioneer’s, Copthall Court, Throgmorton Street. The estate was therefore between the present Essex Road, where it is touched by Cross Street, and Popham Road.

[159] See the survey of roads in Islington parish in 1735 (Nelson’s _Islington_, p. 20).

[160] Hone, _Every Day Book_, i. p. 860. Tomlins (_Islington_, 204, 205) discovered that in 1753 it was occupied by a currier, and supposes, therefore, that it was not a place of entertainment till after that date. The meeting of the Highbury Society there before 1740 seems however to bear out Hone’s assertion that Copenhagen House was already an inn in the first half of the eighteenth century.

[161] Map in Gibson’s edition of Camden’s _Britannia_, 1695.

[162] Hone, however, shows (_op. cit._ 860) that there is some reason for supposing that Copenhagen House was not in existence until after 1624.

[163] On the Highbury Society, see note _infra_ under Highbury Barn.

[164] The graphic account in Hone (_op. cit._ 862) is worth reading, though too long for quotation here.

[165] Hazlitt’s memoir is published in the _Examiner_ for February 17, 1819; most of it is reprinted in Hone’s _Every Day Book_, i. 865, ff.

[166] _Picture of London_, 1823 and 1829; Hone’s _Every Day Book_, i. 859, 870.

[167] The hay-harvest is referred to in Nelson’s _Islington_, 1811, 74. A view of 1809, published by Cundee in the _Juvenile Tourist_, 1810, shows cockney visitors playing in the hay.

[168] Plan in Lewis’s _Islington_.

[169] J. Hollingshead’s _My Lifetime_, i. 13. The cricket ground was between Copenhagen House and Maiden Lane.

[170] Tomlins, _Perambulation of Islington_, p. 205.

[171] F. Miller, _St. Pancras_, 269.

[172] Highbury Barn, _i.e._, the grange or farm of Highbury Manor, is mentioned by that name at an early period, and there are extant various leases of it of the fifteenth century, granted by the Prior and Convent of St. John of Jerusalem (_e.g._ “our certain grange, situate upon the site of our manor of Highbury called Highbury Barn”--see Tomlins’s _Perambulation of Islington_). The name Highbury Barn is, therefore, much older than the date of the incorporation of the large barn of Highbury Farm with the Highbury Tavern premises.

[173] The site of the Prior’s house was occupied by a private residence called Highbury House built in 1781 and immediately opposite the Highbury Barn Tavern.

[174] The Highbury Society, formed by Protestant Dissenters to commemorate the abandonment of the Schism Bill at the end of the reign of Anne, met at first at Copenhagen House, but about 1740 assembled at Highbury Barn. The members beguiled their pilgrimage from Moorfields to Highbury by bowling a ball of ivory at objects in their path. This society was dissolved about 1833.

[175] The younger Willoughby was certainly proprietor in 1792 and later, and Lewis says he succeeded his father on the death of the latter in December 1785. In May 1789 Highbury House (Nichols, _Canonbury_, p. 31, note) opposite the Tavern was sold by auction, as were also Highbury Tea House with gardens and bowling-green and two good messuages adjoining, together with many fields in the neighbourhood. This sale does not, however, necessarily imply any change in the management of Highbury Barn, which may at that time have been only rented by Willoughby from the owner of Highbury House and the adjoining property.

[176] A few years previous to 1811 Willoughby cultivated at one end of the gardens a small plantation of hops, and afterwards erected a brewery on the premises. Highbury Barn was sometimes called “Willoughby’s Tea Gardens” (_Picture of London_, 1802).

[177] Lysons, Nelson and Lewis all identify the moated house called in the Survey of 1611 “The Devil’s House” or the “Lower House” with the old Tallington or Tollington Manor House. In the survey of the roads of Islington (Nelson’s _Islington_, p. 20), however, both Tallington House and Devil’s House are separately marked, the two being divided by Heame Lane, a lane running at right angles to Tallington (Devil’s) Lane. This Tallington House must therefore have been an eighteenth-century residence and not the old Manor House.

[178] Nelson (_Islington_), writing about 1811, says that about thirty or forty years before his time (1776?) the landlord’s name was Fawcett.

[179] This seems to be implied by Nelson (_Islington_, 1811), who says that in his time the old “house had been fitted up in the modern taste.”

[180] Lewis’s _Islington_, 1841, mentions the house as still existing, and it is described as still standing in Tomlins’s _Perambulation of Islington_, a work published in 1858, but in part written nine years before the date of publication.

[181] Tea-drinking on Sunday at Little Hornsey is mentioned in the _Connoisseur_, No. 68, May 15, 1755, and Hornsey Wood is referred to in _The Idler_, No. 15, July 1758, in a way which implies that its reputation as a place of Sunday recreation was already well established. It appears from a passage in _Low Life_, referred to in the next note, that in or before 1764 the sign of the tavern was The Horns. The place was, however, usually known as Hornsey Wood House, and in its latest days as Hornsey Wood Tavern.

[182] _Low Life_ (1764), p. 46.

[183] Mr. Rose, the “citizen at Vauxhall,” described in the _Connoisseur_, May 1755, No. 68, used to grumble when his wife and daughters went “to Little Hornsey to drink tea.”

[184] Newspaper cutting, 1753 (W. Coll.).

[185] See Boyne’s _Trade Tokens_, ed. Williamson, ii. p. 818. This token is undated. The only dated token of Hampstead is one of 1670.

[186] The “Mirmillo” of Garth’s _Dispensary_.

[187] The modern public-house in Well Walk called the Wells Tavern, though at one period, (before 1840) bearing the sign of the Green Man, is probably on the site of the original tavern.

[188] Sion Chapel (the exact site of which is unknown) is of course distinct from the Episcopal Chapel into which the Great Room was converted in 1733.

[189] Baker’s comedy, _Hampstead Heath_, London, 1706.

[190] _The Country Journal, or the Craftsman_ for 16 October, 1736, has the notice:--“On Sunday between seven and eight in the evening one Mr. Thomas Lane, a farrier of Hampstead, going home from the Spaniards upon the Heath near the house called Mother Huff’s,” was attacked and robbed and stripped naked by three men who jumped out of the bushes.

[191] Lysons’s _Magna Britannia_, vol. iii. 1724, p. 44.

[192] This lady had made an earlier appearance at Cuper’s Gardens; _see_ Welsted’s _Epistle on False Fame_.

[193] The spring at this time was adjacent to the Great Room, and was in this position, _i.e._ on the opposite side to the existing fountain, at any rate as late as 1806.

[194] In Bickham’s _Musical Entertainer_ (1733, &c.).

[195] _Evelina_ (1778), letter li.

[196] The house, No. 17 in Well Walk, which is just behind the existing fountain, has a shallow well supposed to contain the source of the original spring.

[197] MS. _History of Middlesex_, 1752, quoted by Park.

[198] _A Modern Sabbath_, 1797, p. 53; see also Woodward’s _Eccentric Excursions_, 13.

[199] Dickens, _Pickwick Papers_, cap. xlvi.

[200] Cp. _The Idler_, No. 15, July 1758.

[201] Lysons, _Environs_, ii. 527.

[202] Evelyn (_Diary_, 2 June, 1676) describes the gardens as very large and woody, but ill kept.

[203] _E.g._ “Galloway Races” in 1725 and 1729.

[204] _Ambulator_, 1774; Dodsley’s _London_, 1761.

[205] From the manuscript history of Middlesex quoted by Park (_Hampstead_), the spring would appear to have been discovered about 1742; the date on the reservoir containing the water was, however, 1714, and Walford (v. 245) states that the spring was known before 1600. But there is no evidence that Kilburn Wells was a place of entertainment earlier than about 1742, though the Bell tavern dated from about 1600.

[206] Richard Owen Cambridge, _Dialogue between a master and his servant_ (1752). “Kupers” = Cuper’s Gardens, Lambeth.

[207] _Picture of London_, 1802 and 1829.

[208] Gibson, _View of the Gardens near London_, Dec. 1691.

[209] Lord Ranelagh’s house remained standing till 1805, and was used in connexion with the Ranelagh entertainments.

[210] Robinson lived at Prospect Place adjoining the gardens. He died on 3 March, 1777.

[211] Cp. Walpole’s letter to Mann of 26 May, 1742: “The building and disposition of the gardens cost sixteen thousand pounds.”

[212] Walpole to Mann, 26 May, 1742.

[213] Walpole to Conway, 29 June, 1744.

[214] Walpole to Montagu, 26 May, 1748.

[215] Gray to Chute, July 1745 (Gray’s _Works_, ed. Gosse, ii. 125, ff.).

[216] _Works_, ed. Gosse, ii. 139.

[217] See especially Kearsley’s _Strangers’ Guide_ (1793?).

[218] This was the number about 1793.

[219] Burney says that the first organist was Keeble, who was succeeded by Butler. Burney himself was organist in 1770.

[220] Boswell, _Life_, chap. xxvi. p. 236, ed. Croker.

[221] _Life_, 1777–1778, chap. lxi. p. 561, ed. Croker.

[222] In the early days, sometimes one shilling and two shillings, including the breakfast and the morning concert. On special nights when fireworks were displayed, the price was raised to three shillings or more. Tickets costing from half a guinea to two guineas were issued for the masquerades.

[223] Sometimes it was advertised as open “every evening.” People were allowed to walk in the gardens and view the Rotunda during the day-time for one shilling.

[224] “Harlequin in Ranelagh,” _London Magazine_, May 1774.

[225] Cp. _Gent. Mag._ 1764, p. 247.

[226] _Ranelagh House: a satire_, 1747.

[227] _London Magazine_, 1774.

[228] Other early vocalists were:--Mrs. Storer (1751); Miss Young (1755); Miss Formantel (_Ten favourite songs sung by Miss Formantel at Ranelagh_, music by Mr. Oswald, published July 1758).

[229] According to a statement of Burney’s (note in Croker’s ed. of Boswell’s _Johnson_, p. 143, anno “1763”), the salt-box song was sung by Beard accompanied on that instrument by Brent, the fencing master, while Skeggs played on the broomstick as bassoon. Croker assigns the composition, and apparently the first performance, of the Ode to 1769, and states that the first edition (which he himself had seen) of it bears the date 1749, a date which he considered to be a misprint for 1769. But the date 1769 is, as some later writers have seen, clearly erroneous, and the composition--and possibly the _first_ performance at Ranelagh--must be assigned to 1759. The published edition of the Ode, in the British Museum, is dated (May) 1763, and the Ode was undoubtedly performed at Ranelagh on 10 June of that year (1763). (See _Annual Register_; _Lloyd’s Evening Post_, 8–16 June, 1763.)

[230] Cp. _Six new English songs composed by Ferdinando Tenducci, and to be sung by him at Ranelagh_. Sold by the author at his lodging in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden, 1763 (W. Coll.).

Other performers at this period were:--1762: Champness, Hudson, Miss Thomas, Miss Brent. 1763: Dearle, Miss Wright, Miss Brent. 1765 (?): the elder Fawcett.

[231] _Gent. Mag._ 1767, p. 277.

[232] Walpole’s _Letters_, ed. Cunningham, ii. 150, ff. (Walpole to Mann, 3 May, 1749).

[233] It is to be feared that this advertisement was an invention of the editor’s, but it would have had little point for his readers had it not been actually based on familiar incidents of the Ranelagh masquerades.

[234] Mrs. Baddeley also sang there in 1772.

[235] An impetus to the fireworks seems to have been first given by Angelo, father of Henry Angelo, who directed the displays in 1766. In 1771 the fireworkers were Clitherow and Caillot.

[236] The admission ticket for the Regatta Ball (Lake scene) was prepared by Cipriani and Bartolozzi.

[237] _Evening Mail_, Feb. 15–17, 1792.

[238] Newspaper cutting [W. Coll.] assigned to 28 June (referring to 27 June), 1793. Mr. Vizetelly (_Chevalier D’Eon_, p. 322) states that D’Eon fenced at Ranelagh in 1794. The managers of Ranelagh had given the Chevalier, who was then in money difficulties, a benefit night in 1791 (24 June).

[239] Another great fête of this period (June 1802 or 1803?) was the Ball given by the Spanish Ambassador.

[240] _The European Magazine_, October 1802, and several newspapers of the time.

[241] The name was spelt Strumbels, Strombels and Strumbello. Davis (_Knightsbridge_) calls it Stromboli House.

[242] O’Keefe’s _Recollections_.

[243] Davis’s _Knightsbridge_. Strumbelo is marked in the map of 1789 in Fores’s _New Guide_.

[244] The Star and Garter was at the end of Five Fields Row. In Faulkner’s time (_Chelsea_, ii. p. 354), about 1829, the house, no longer used as a tavern, was Mr. Homden’s Academy.

[245] On the Cherokee Chiefs, see Forster’s _Goldsmith_, bk. iii. chap. vi. (ann. 1762).

[246] John Coan, “the unparalleled Norfolk Dwarf,” died there 16 March 1764 (_Daily Advertiser_, 17 March, 1764).

[247] The Dwarf’s Tavern according to Faulkner (_Chelsea_, ii. 354), was situated in Chelsea Fields “on the spot which was afterwards called Spring Gardens, between Ebury Street and Belgrave Terrace,” and which was subsequently (a few years before 1829) occupied by Ackerman’s Waterproof Cloth Manufactory. This Spring Garden is the place usually marked in the maps (_e.g._, Horwood’s Plan, B. 1795) as the _New Spring Gardens, Chelsea_, and was a place of public entertainment, as may be inferred from a newspaper advertisement of January 1792: “J. Louis, of New Spring Gardens, Chelsea, having fitted up _likewise_ the above house (_i.e._ York Coffee House) in Norris Street, Haymarket, for the winter, serves dinners and suppers there.”

This Spring Garden was distinct from the _Spring Gardens, Knightsbridge_, a place frequented by Pepys, and perhaps identical with the World’s End, Knightsbridge (see Davis’s _Knightsbridge_, p. 149, ff.). The Knightsbridge Spring Gardens (which stood about where William Street joins Lowndes Square) ceased to be a place of entertainment before 1773, in which year the house belonging to them was occupied by Dr. C. Kelly, who had his anatomical museum there. Walford (v. 18) engraves from a drawing in the Crace Collection a view of the “Spring Gardens,” which he assigns to the Knightsbridge Spring Gardens, but it is possibly a representation of the _Chelsea_ Spring Gardens.

[248] O’Keefe’s _Recollections_, vol. i. p. 88: “1762. At Cromwell House, Brompton, once the seat of Oliver, was also a tea-garden concert.”

[249] The price appears on the (undated) pewter and brass admission tickets to Cromwell’s Gardens. The British Museum has four specimens in pewter, with Cromwell’s head; and one of the brass tickets.

[250] The Sunday Rambler visits the gardens between 7.30 and 9 p.m.

[251] I follow the _Modern Sabbath_, ed. 1797, in stating that Cromwell’s Gardens were identical with the Florida Gardens. In the second edition of the _Sunday Ramble_ (1776) Cromwell’s Gardens at Brompton are described under that name, and in the 1797 ed. (_A Modern Sabbath_) almost the same description is repeated, and it is expressly stated that the name of the place had been changed from Cromwell’s to Florida Gardens. On the other hand, Faulkner describes the Florida Gardens as having been originally a nursery garden kept by “Hyam” (he is called Hiem in the advertisements) and converted by him (for the first time, it is implied) into a place of public amusement. Faulkner after describing Hale House, mentions Cromwell’s Gardens as a separate place of amusement earlier than the Florida Gardens. The contemporary authority of the _Modern Sabbath_ seems, however, preferable; especially as Faulkner does not appear to be able to state the precise site of Cromwell’s Gardens. A further complication may perhaps be thought to be introduced by the passage in O’Keefe (cited in Note 1) where Cromwell’s Gardens are described as “at Cromwell House” (_i.e._ Hale House). But the inhabitants of Cromwell House from 1754 to 1794, or later, are well known to have been people of substance, and the gardens proper of Hale House could hardly have been employed as a tea-garden. The Florida Gardens (afterwards occupied by Canning’s Gloucester Lodge) were (as stated above) adjacent to Hale House, and may possibly at one time have belonged to its owners, and have been let out partly as a tea-garden and partly as a nursery. The writer of the _Modern Sabbath_ in fact remarks that Cromwell’s Gardens is supposed to have taken its name from the ground being formerly the patrimonial estate of the Protector who once had a palace here upon the site of which is a handsome seat (_i.e._ Hale House). The change of name from Cromwell to Florida took place (as appears from the various editions of a _Sunday Ramble_) at some time between 1776 and 1797. I suggest that the change took place about 1780, because Lysons (who, however, does not mention Cromwell’s Gardens) says that the place was “much puffed in the daily papers between the years 1780 and 1790 by the name of Florida Gardens.” In any case they certainly were advertised by Hiem as the Florida Gardens as early as 1781.

[252] The Florida Gardens are described as a place of entertainment in the _Modern Sabbath_, published in 1797, but they were already in the possession of the Duchess of Gloucester in September 1797. Cp. a newspaper paragraph of 25 September, 1797, in “Public Gardens” Collection in Guildhall Library: “Florida Gardens, at present in the possession of the Duchess of Gloucester, were fitted up in an elegant manner as a place of resort by the late Mr. Wilder [a successor of Hiem?] but did not answer the purpose for which they were intended.”

[253] These checks in copper and lead resemble the tradesmen’s halfpenny tokens of the end of the eighteenth century, and are usually described as tokens: see descriptions in Sharpe’s _Catalogue_, p. 89; Atkins, p. 193. Miss Banks, in the MS. catalogue of her tokens (p. 210) now in the Department of Coins, British Museum, says respecting the leaden check: “One shilling was paid on going in, and this ticket given in exchange which would count for sixpence if the person chose liquor.”

[254] Smith’s _Book for a Rainy Day_: the description strictly applies to the year 1795; _A Modern Sabbath_, chap. ix. (1797), implies that the place was more refined than Smith’s description would suggest.

[255] Blewitt lived in Bermondsey Square, where he died in 1805.

[256] Cp. “X” in _The Musical Times_ for October 1, 1893, p. 588.

[257] It is possibly worth while to record the names of some of the forgotten performers at Bermondsey Spa. _Circ._ 1785–1788 the vocalists were Mr. Birkett, Mr. C. Blewitt, Mr. Burling (or Birling), Mr. Harriss; Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Byrn, Mrs. Piercy; Miss Stephenson, Miss Pay, Miss Cemmitt; Mme. Floranze. In 1792 the leader of the band was Mr. Peile, and the vocalists were Mr. Burton, Mr. Milward, Mrs. Freeman, and Mrs. Peile.

Among the burlettas (1785–1788) were “The Quack Doctor,” “The Fop,” and “The Auctioneer.”

[258] The fireworks in 1792 were by Rossi and Tessier, of Ranelagh. On 25 September, 1792, “by particular desire, the Battle of the Fiery Dragons, and the line comet to come from the Rock of Gibraltar and cause the Dragons to engage.”

[259] This entertainment was probably first introduced in 1786, in which year (2 September) the _Public Advertiser_ announces “the representation of the storming of a fort which with the fortifications cover (_sic_) 3 acres of ground, the rock being fifty feet high and 200 feet long.” From about 1789 to 1792 it was advertised as a representation of the Siege of Gibraltar. The writer of _A Modern Sabbath_ (1797) gives further details. “On the north-east side of the gardens is a very fine lawn consisting of about three acres, and in a field parted from this lawn by a sunk fence is a building with turrets, resembling a fortress or castle.” At each side of this fortress at unequal distances were two buildings, from which on public nights bombshells, &c., were thrown. The fire was returned and the whole exhibited the “picturesque prospect of a siege.”

[260] _Gent. Mag._ 1800, pt. i. p. 284. Keyse’s house was a large wooden-fronted building, consisting of square divisions in imitation of scantlings of stone (J. T. Smith). The entrance to the Gardens was next to the house, beneath a semi-circular awning.

[261] Hughson’s _London_, vol. v. (1808), p. 60. _The Picture of London_ for 1802 mentions in the “Almanack of Pleasures” under July 17, “A silver cup run for at Spa Gardens, Bermondsey, by gentlemen’s ponies.”

[262] Blanchard in _Era Almanack_, 1870, p. 18 (followed by Walford). Brayley and Mantell (_Surrey_, iii. 200, 201) say the Gardens were closed about 1805. Lambert in his _London_ (iv. 140) published in 1806, speaks of the Spa as still open, but the passage may have been written a year or more before the date of publication.

[263] _Picture of London_, eds. 1802, 1829; Tallis’s _Illustrated London_, ed. Gaspey.

[264] In the _Era Almanack_, 1871, p. 6, it is stated that the gardens “disappeared in 1869.” Walford, vi. 138, says they ceased to exist in 1881.

[265] “The principal site of Finch’s Grotto Gardens appears to have been a triangular piece of ground forming the western side of St. George’s Street, Southwark, and bounded on the south by the road called Dirty Lane and on the north by a vinegar yard in Lombard Street, and the extremity of St. Saviour’s Parish.” Wilkinson, _Londina_. A way from Falcon Stairs through Bandy Leg Walk (now Guildford Street) led directly to the place, and Williams, Finch’s successor, made an entrance from St. George’s Fields. Those who came by water landed at Mason’s Stairs.

[266] Goldsmith’s _She Stoops to Conquer_, act. ii.

[267] The Dukes of York and Gloucester, brothers of George III., are, however, said to have visited the gardens many times.

[268] List of performers under Finch and Williams:--Messrs. Oldfield (or Offield?, 1765), Lauder, Dearle, Baker, Barnshaw of Covent Garden Theatre, Moore, Tom Lowe, Kear (sang at Marylebone 1754, and at Sadler’s Wells in 1771 and later), Nepecker, Clarke, Thomas and A. Smith from the Richmond Theatre, Weston from Drury Lane (1772), Aitken and Murphin, Master Adams, Master Suett (in 1771, from Ranelagh, supposed to be Dick Suett the actor), Master Green, and Master Lyon. The female singers were Mrs. Forbes, Reed, Smith, Taylor, Clark, and Dorman, and Misses Garvey, Thomas (in August 1765), Carli, Moyse, Snow, Dowson (sang at Sadler’s Wells 1775), Cantrell, Marshall, and Oakes. The instrumentalists included Cocklin and Smart, _violins_; Hudson, _organ_; Palmer, _flute_.

[269] “Linco’s Travels” was also performed at the Patagonian Theatre, Exeter Change. Humphreys’s _Memoirs of Decastro_, 237.

[270] A programme of a benefit night for 12 September, 1771 (under Williams), may be inserted as a specimen:--

“Act i.--An Overture. A favourite song from the opera of Pharnaces: ‘Swift wing’d vengeance nerves my arm,’ by Mr. A. Smith, set by Mr. Bates. A favourite Scotch air by Miss Dowson, words and music by Mr. A. Smith. An overture by Abel. The Act to conclude with a celebrated song from Anacreon, set by Mr. Starling [Sterling?] Goodwin, by Mr. A. Smith. Act ii.--‘The soldier tired of war’s alarm,’ by Miss Dowson. A new song, ‘O what a charming thing is a battle,’ by Mr. Barnshaw. An overture in Otho, Handel. ‘Sweet Echo,’ by a young gentleman from Italy. Trumpet Concerto by Master Green, pupil of Mr. Jones. The celebrated song of the ‘British Wives,’ by Mr. A. Smith. A new song by Miss Dowson. Concerto on the violin by Mr. Smart. The Act to conclude with ‘Russel’s triumph,’ by Mr. A. Smith, by particular desire. To which will be added an entertainment called ‘The Gamester,’ to be sung by Mr. A. Smith, Mr. Barnshaw, Miss Dowson, and Mrs. Dorman, with a hornpipe in the character of a sailor, by Mr. Rawlins from the Opera House in the Haymarket. At the end of the hornpipe Mr. A. Smith will sing the celebrated song of ‘The storm or the danger of the sea,’ in character. After which will be displayed a Grand Transparent Painting.”

[271] In 1827 this stone was used as a step in the yard of the house of a Mrs. Stevens near the site of the Gardens, the verses being then almost illegible (Wilkinson).

[272] Nichols’s _Lambeth_, 1786 (in vol. ii. of _Bibl. Topog. Brit._ p. 77, ff.); Michaelis’s _Ancient Marbles in Great Britain_, 35–37.

[273] Prologue to Mrs. Centlivre’s _Busybody_.

[274] Chappell (_Popular Music in the Olden Time_, ii. 727, 728) gives words and music.

[275] The gardens were closed on the Sundays of 1752.

[276] _Gent. Mag._ 1740, 525.

[277] Walpole’s _Letters_, ed. Cunningham, ii. 32, 24 June, 1746. Bad company was not unknown in the earlier days of the gardens: see Welsted’s _Epistle on False Fame_, 1732:--

“For Cupid’s Bowers she hires the willing scull ...
While here a ’prentice, there a captain bites.”

[278] _The Complete Letter-writer_, Edinburgh, 1773, quoted in _Notes and Queries_, 7th ser. ii. 469.

[279] Twelve songs by Lewis Granom, as sung at Cuper’s Gardens by Miss Maria Bennett, published London, 24 November, 1752.

[280] The fireworks at Cuper’s in 1751 are described in the _London Daily Advertiser_ for 10 September, 1751.

[281] ‘The Inspector,’ No. 448, in the _London Daily Advertiser_ for 6 August, 1752. The details that follow are derived from the same journal for 4 August, 1752, where they are related of “one of the public gardens on the other side of the water.” Possibly Vauxhall is intended, but if not literally true of Cuper’s Gardens, they seem sufficiently applicable to them.

[282] Boswell, _Life of Johnson_, ed. Croker, chap. xli. p. 366.

[283] _Nollekens_, ii. 201.

[284] The Folly was occasionally moored off the Bank side (Wheatley, _London Past and Present_, “The Folly”).

[285] _Amusements Serious and Comical_, part ii. “The Thames.”

[286] Pepys (_Diary_, 13 April, 1668) jots down in his daily expenditure a shilling spent “in the Folly.” From the circumstance that he makes no special comment on the place it may perhaps be inferred that he was already acquainted with it from previous visits.

[287] Tom D’Urfey, _A Touch of the Times_, 1719.

[288] Walford, iii. 290, 291.

[289] Walford’s statement (_Old and New London_, vi. 388) that they adjoined Cuper’s Gardens is not quite accurate. Four strips of land belonging to four different proprietors are marked in the map in Strype’s _Stow_ (1720) as lying between the Belvedere Gardens and Cuper’s Gardens.

[290] The proprietor, William Hagley, issued a halfpenny token “at ye Restoration in St. George’s Feilds.” Boyne’s _Trade Tokens of the Seventeenth Century_, ed. Williamson, p. 1036, No. 357.

[291] Advertisement in the _Country Journal or the Craftsman_, 31 March, 1733, where the celebrated “Purging Spring” and the Chalybeate Spring “lately discovered” are mentioned, “at Mr. Lewis’s, commonly called the Restauration Gardens in St. George’s Fields.”

[292] The water was also to be obtained at a corkcutter’s under Exeter Change in the Strand.

[293] Loudon’s _Arboretum et frut. Brit._ vol. i. p. 75. Nichols, _Parish of Lambeth_, p. 84, says “about the year 1777.”

[294] _Notes and Queries_, 7th series, xi. p. 87 (communication from Lieut.-Col. Capel Coape).

[295] This appears from the evidence brought forward in the prosecution of Grist; see _The Whitehall Evening Post_ for May 7 to May 10, 1796 (referring to May 7).

[296] Newspapers cited by E. M. Borrajo in _Notes and Queries_, 7th ser. xi. 138.

[297] “The English translator of Lamotte’s _Life_ says she fell from the leads of her house, nigh the Temple of Flora, endeavouring to escape seizure for debt, and was taken up so much hurt that she died in consequence. Another report runs that she was flung out of window.... Where the Temple of Flora was, or is, one knows not” (Carlyle, _Diamond Necklace_, note near end). The Temple of Flora alluded to was certainly in London, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the popular resort now described is the place in question.

[298] At the period when the gardens were open “The Asylum” (_i.e._ Female Orphan Asylum) stood where Christ Church now stands.

[299] Cp. Wilkinson, _Londina Illust._ vol. ii. “Pantheon Theatre.”

[300] Allen (_History of Lambeth_, 319) states that the Apollo Gardens were suppressed about 1791, but this is certainly erroneous, as the gardens were frequently advertised in 1792. Kearsley’s _Strangers’ Guide to London_ (1793?) mentions the place as “the resort of company in the evenings,” and says that music was occasionally performed there. The Temple of Apollo was described about 1796–7 in _A Modern Sabbath_ as already becoming ruinous, and it is there stated that Claggett, the proprietor, had become bankrupt. A newspaper paragraph of December 1796 refers to a field opposite the Asylum, close by “the ditch that encircles that place of late infamous resort, the Apollo Gardens.”

[301] This was probably the orchestra that seems to have stood in the centre of the gardens and not that in the concert room.

[302] Cp. a token of 1651 (“At the Dogg and Ducke in Southwarke,” type, Spaniel with Duck in mouth) in Boyne’s _Trade Tokens_, ed. Williamson, p. 1022, there assigned to The Dog and Duck in Deadman’s Place, Southwark, by Mr. Philip Norman, who, however, suggests the possibility of its belonging to the Dog and Duck in St. George’s Fields. A specimen is in the British Museum.

[303] The ponds are marked in Rocque’s Map, _circ._ 1745. The duck-hunting probably took place at an early period, not later than _circ._ 1750.

[304] Newspaper cutting of 1731 (W. Coll.): see also _The Country Journal or the Craftsman_ for 12 Aug. 1732; also 26 Aug. 1732.

[305] Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 10 July, 1771, Letter viii. in Johnson’s _Works_ (ed. Murphy), xii. 338.

[306] A specimen in British Museum (from Miss Banks’s Coll.). Silver, size 1·25 inch; _Obverse_: _Lazarius Riverius.--Non omnibus dormio.--Miseris succurrere disco_. Bearded head of Rivière, to left; beneath head, the number “18” incised. _Reverse_: _The original Spaw in St. George’s Fields so memorable in the Plague, 1665.--For the proprieters_ (sic) _T. Townshend Alchemist to his Majesty, 1760._ Another specimen described in C. A. Rudolph’s _Numismata_ (relating to medical men), 1862, p. 45, has the words “Robert Baker, Esq., Twickenham,” evidently the subscriber’s name, engraved on the edge.

[307] The water continued to be advertised in newspapers of 1771–1779. Hedger afterwards put in his nephew Mills (or Miles) to conduct the house which is said to have yielded Hedger £1,000 a year, but evidently himself remained the moving spirit.

[308] On the “Maid of the Oaks,” see Baker’s _Biog. Dram._

[309] The Dog and Duck may have been more respectably conducted for a time. On 28 May, 1792, a charity dinner of the Parish of St. Thomas, Southwark, was held there (engraved invitation ticket in W. Coll.).

[310] The Dog and Duck and the Apollo Gardens were for a time within the Rules of the King’s Bench Debtors’ Prison (De Castro’s _Memoirs_, pp. 126, 134).

[311] In De Castro’s _Memoirs_ (1824) it is stated that he died “about two years ago,” which indicates the year 1822, or possibly the year 1810 (for part of the _Memoirs_ were apparently written _circ._ 1812) as the date of his death. He was certainly alive, however, during part of the year 1810.

[312] Lambeth Wells are marked in the map of 1755 in Stow’s _Survey_.

[313] They were of smaller extent than the Cumberland Gardens, their river-side neighbour situated a little further south.

[314] One account calls him Nathan Hart.

[315] “Riley’s Gardens, Vauxhall,” mentioned in Trusler’s _London Adviser_, 1786, are doubtless identical with Reilly’s Cumberland Gardens.

[316] In the _Picture of London_ for 1829 the Cumberland Gardens are named in the list of places of London amusement, but it is probable that this entry has been inadvertently copied from a previous edition (1823) of the work. Cp. Allen, _Lambeth_ (1827), p. 379.

[317] Timbs (_Curiosities of London_, 1868, p. 18) says that Price’s Candle Manufactory occupied the site, but in the Post Office Directory map of 1858 the “Phœnix Gas Works” are marked immediately south of Vauxhall Bridge and the Candle Works still further south, _i.e._, beyond the Vauxhall Creek which formed the southern boundary of the gardens.

[318] In the advertisements the name Vauxhall Gardens first appears in 1786, but many years before that date the place was often popularly known as Vauxhall Gardens.

[319] The place was at first generally called The New Spring Garden. Cunningham (_Handbook of London_, s.v. “Vauxhall Gardens”) and other modern writers suppose that it was called _New_ to distinguish it from the old Spring Garden at Charing Cross, and this view seems to receive some countenance from a passage in Evelyn’s _Fumifugium_, 1661, quoted by Cunningham. It must be borne in mind, however, that there existed at Vauxhall shortly after the Restoration, _two_ Spring Gardens which seem to have been distinguished as the Old and New. This appears very distinctly from the following passage in Pepys, under date 29 May, 1662:--“Thence home and with my wife and the two maids and the boy took the boat, and to Foxhall, where I had not been a great while. To the Old Spring Garden, and there walked long, and the wenches gathered pinks. Here we staid, and seeing that we could not have anything to eate but very dear, and with long stay, we went forth again without any notice taken of us, and so we might have done if we had had anything. Thence to the new one, where I never was before, which much exceeds the other; and here we also walked, and the boy crept through the hedge and gathered abundance of roses, and after a long walk, passed out of doors as we did in the other place.”

Somewhat earlier (2 July, 1661), Evelyn in his _Diary_ has the entry “I went to see the New Spring Garden at Lambeth, a pretty contrived plantation.” This probably, if not quite certainly (for compare the mention in Evelyn’s _Fumifugium_ noticed above), refers to Vauxhall Gardens. Monconys, the French traveller (1663), briefly describes “Les Jardins du Printemps” at Lambeth, but it can hardly be made out whether he is alluding to the garden called by Pepys the Old Spring Garden at Vauxhall or to the New Spring Garden, _i.e._, Vauxhall Gardens (cp. Tanswell’s _Lambeth_, p. 181). The supposed site of the Old Spring Garden at Vauxhall (or Lambeth) is indicated in a map in Manning and Bray’s _Surrey_, iii. p. 526 (cp. Walford, vi. 340). The statement of Aubrey and Sir John Hawkins, usually accepted by modern writers, that Sir Samuel Morland occupied in 1675 a house on the site of Vauxhall Gardens, is evidently erroneous (cp. _Vauxhall Papers_, No. 4, p. 28).

[320] _Swift to Stella_, 17 May, 1711.

[321] _The Spectator_, 20 May, 1712, No. 383. As notices of the Spring Garden are rare at this period, the following advertisement may be worth quoting:--“Lost in Fox Hall, Spring Garden, on the 29th past a little Spaniel Dog, Liver Coloured and white long Ears, a Peak down his Forehead, a small Spot on each knee” (_The Postman_, May 3–6, 1712). The pleasant walks of the Spring Garden are referred to in 1714 in Thoresby’s _Diary_, ii. 215.

[322] _A New Guide to London_ (1726). Guildhall Library, London.

[323] Lockman in his _Sketch of the Spring Gardens_ (1753?) praises Jonathan Tyers for having reformed the morals of the Spring Garden when he became proprietor in 1728.

[324] Several of the Vauxhall season tickets were designed for Tyers by Hogarth. They are engraved in Nichols’s _Lambeth_, pl. xv. p. 100, and in Wilkinson’s _Londina lllustrata_. A good though not complete collection of Vauxhall tickets is in the British Museum, including the series of silver tickets brought together by Mr. Edward Hawkins. Tyers presented Hogarth as a return for his services with a gold ticket, inscribed _in perpetuam beneficii memoriam_, which was a free pass to the gardens for ever. Mrs. Hogarth had it after her husband’s death, and in 1856 it was in the possession of Mr. F. Gye who bought it for £20 (cp. Nightingale in _The Numismatic Chronicle_, vol. xviii (1856), p. 97). In 1737 the season tickets admitting two persons cost one guinea; in 1742 they were twenty-five shillings; in 1748, two guineas.

[325] In honour of Frederick, Tyers constructed the “Prince’s Pavilion” at the western end of the Gardens facing the orchestra.

[326] This description is adapted from the _Scots Magazine_ for July 1739.

[327] The lamps about the middle of the eighteenth century were about 1,000–1,500 in number; they afterwards greatly exceeded this total.

[328] Smollett’s _Humphry Clinker_.

[329] Goldsmith’s _Citizen of the World_, Letter lxxi.

[330] The cascade was varied in the course of years. In 1783 the background was a mountain view with palm trees.

[331] _The Connoisseur_, 15 May, 1755.

[332] From _A description of Vauxhall Gardens_, London, S. Hooper, 1762.

[333] Further details as to the form of the Gardens may be seen in the guides of Lockman and “Hooper.” Mr. Austin Dobson (_Eighteenth Century Vignettes_, 1st series) gives the best modern account of the Vauxhall geography.

[334] From about 1827 the entrance chiefly used by the public was the “coach-entrance” at the corner of Kennington Lane.

[335] This has been attributed to Roubillac, but Mr. Dobson thinks that it was probably by Henry Cheere who made such leaden statues for gardens. The statue was cleared in 1779 of the bushes that had grown round it, and it was still in the gardens in 1817.

[336] In 1818 it was removed to the house of Dr. Jonathan Tyers Barrett in Duke Street, Westminster; it was described lately (1894) as being in the possession of Mr. Alfred Littleton.

[337] On Lowe, see _supra_, p. 50, p. 101 f., and p. 243.

[338] As to the introduction of the covered walk see _infra_, § 4.

[339] Trusler’s _London Adviser_, p. 163.

[340] _Notes and Queries_, 6th ser. ix. (1884), p. 208.

[341] _Evelina_, Letter xlvi. Cp. _The Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine_ for September 1773, p. 529, which gives a plate showing “the Macaroney Beaus and Bells in an Uproar, or the last Evening at Vauxhall Gardens” (W. Coll.).

[342] _The Gazeteer and New Daily Advertiser_, 29 June, 1772.

[343] _The Vauxhall Affray, or the Macaronies defeated_, London, 1773; _Westminster Magazine_ for September 1773, p. 558; _The Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine_ for August 1773, where there is a copper-plate showing the parson fighting the footman (W. Coll.).

[344] _British Magazine_, 6 August, 1782.

[345] _Westminster Magazine_, May 1775.

[346] _Middlesex Journal_, July 23–25, 1775.

[347] On the gala nights the charge was three shillings.

[348] A burlesque account in the _Bon Ton Magazine_, June 1791, with plate (W. Coll.).

[349] Her husband, Mr. Mountain, was leader at Vauxhall from 1792.

[350] On Mrs. Bland, see _supra_, p. 137 (White Conduit House).

[351] Miss Tunstall, another singer, was in repute at the gardens about 1820.

[352] _Sketches from St. George’s Fields_ (1821), 2nd ser. p. 216.

[353] In 1806 the opening of the gardens on Saturdays was discontinued on account of the disorderly persons staying on late into Sunday morning. From about this time the gardens were for a long period usually open on three days of the week only.

[354] Already in 1769 an awning or other covering was placed over one of the walks, and “covered walks” are afterwards alluded to. The permanent colonnade was not erected till 1810.

[355] Some accounts say £28,000.

[356] Admission, three shillings and sixpence.

[357] This Prince’s Gallery was burnt down in 1800.

[358] Among the curious characters of Vauxhall Gardens must be noticed a youth named Joseph Leeming, who called himself “the Aeriel” and “the Paragon of Perfection,” and offered himself for inspection to artists and surgeons as a model of bodily perfection. On 2 July, 1825, and on subsequent occasions he mingled with the other visitors at Vauxhall and created excitement by his extraordinary Spanish costume and by distributing three or four hundred “Challenges” to the people in front of the orchestra. One of these curious challenges is in my collection. It is a small card printed with the words “The Aeriel (_sic_) challenges the whole world to find a man that can in any way compete with him as such. No.--.” (cp. Hone’s _Every Day Book_, i. p. 1456, ff.).

[359] An earlier balloon ascent from Vauxhall Gardens by Garnerin in 1802 may be noted.

[360] A detailed account of the voyage is given in Monck Mason’s _Aeronautica_, London, 1838.

[361] The publication came to an end on 23 August, 1841. It consisted of sixteen parts, sixpence each. A set of these is in my collection. Mr. H. A. Rogers, of Stroud Green, has recently undertaken an interesting facsimile reprint of this scarce little journal.

[362] This part of Tyers Street was formerly called Brunel Street.

[363] _Punch_ for 21 August, 1869, “The Lament of the Colonnade.”

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.

2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

3. Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r. or X^{xx}.

4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.

5. Bold print is shown as =xxx=.