Chapter IX: Introduction (2)

Possibly this tirade was not ineffectual; at any rate, about 1687 the place was comparatively deserted and the well fell into disuse. “Sadler’s excellent steel waters” were, however, again advertised in 1697 as being as full of vigour, strength and virtue as ever they were and very effectual for curing all hectic and hypochondriacal heat, for beginning consumptions and for melancholy distempers. The water-drinking appears to have finally ceased early in the eighteenth century;[44] though the place, surrounded by fields till quite late in the century, remained a pleasant resort for Londoners.

There you may sit under the shady trees
And drink and smoke fann’d by a gentle breeze.[45]

There pleasant streams of Middleton
In gentle murmurs glide along
In which the sporting fishes play
To close each wearied Summer’s day.
And Musick’s charms in lulling sounds
Of mirth and harmony abounds;
While nymphs and swains with beaux and belles
All praise the joys of Sadler’s Wells.
The herds around o’er herbage green
And bleating flocks are sporting seen
While Phœbus with its brightest rays
The fertile soil doth seem to praise.[46]

As late as 1803 mention is made of the tall poplars, graceful willows, sloping banks and flowers of Sadler’s Wells; and the patient London fisherman, like his brethren of the angle of the eighteenth century, still stood by the stream.[47]

From about 1698 the gardens ceased to be a prominent feature of Sadler’s Wells, and the fortunes of the place from that time to the present day mainly concern the historian of the Theatre and the Variety Stage, and can only be dealt with briefly in the present work.

In 1698 (23 May) a vocal and instrumental concert was given, and the company enjoyed such harmony as can be produced by an orchestra composed of violins, hautboys, trumpets and kettledrums. This was one of the concerts given in the Music House twice a week throughout the season and lasting from ten o’clock to one. In 1699 James Miles and Francis Forcer (_d._ 1705?), a musician, appear to have been joint proprietors of Sadler’s Wells, which was for some years styled Miles’s Music House. In this year (1699) there was an exhibition of an “ingurgitating monster,” a man, who, for a stake of five guineas, performed the hardly credible feat of eating a live cock. This disgusting scene was witnessed by a very rough audience, including however some beaux from the Inns of Court. A brightly painted gallery in the saloon used for the entertainments appears to have been occupied by the quieter portion of the audience, who were able from thence to survey the pit below, which was filled, according to Ned Ward (_circ._ 1699), with butchers, bailiffs, prize-fighters, and housebreakers. The audience smoked and regaled themselves with ale and cheese-cakes; while the organ played, a scarlet-clad fiddler performed, and a girl of eleven gave a sword dance.

In 1712, Miles’s Music House was the scene of a fatal brawl in which Waite, a lieutenant in the Navy, was killed by a lawyer named French, “near the organloft.” In 1718 it is mentioned as the resort of “strolling damsels, half-pay officers, peripatetic tradesmen, tars, butchers and others musically inclined.”

Miles died in 1724 and probably about that time Forcer’s son, Francis Forcer, junior (_d._ 1743), an educated man of good presence, became proprietor and improved the entertainments of rope-dancing and tumbling. The neighbourhood of Sadler’s Wells about this period was infested by footpads. It was consequently a common sight to see link-boys with their flaming torches standing outside the theatre, and horse patrols were often advertised (_circ._ 1733–1783) as escorts to the City and the West End. Occasionally the play-bills announced:--“It will be moonlight.”

In 1746 Rosoman was proprietor, and introduced the system of admitting the pit and gallery free, on the purchase of a pint of wine. A charge of half-a-crown was made for the boxes. The audience smoked and toasted one another. The man-servant by day became a beau at night; and with the lady’s-maid, decked out in colours filched from her mistress, gazed open-mouthed at the wonderful sights. Winifred Jenkins describes her experiences, in _Humphry Clinker_ (1771):--“I was afterwards of a party at Sadler’s Well, where I saw such tumbling and dancing on ropes and wires that I was frightened and ready to go into a fit. I tho’t it was all enchantment, and believing myself bewitched, began for to cry. You knows as how the witches in Wales fly on broom-sticks; but here was flying without any broomstick or thing in the varsal world, and firing of pistols in the air and blowing of trumpets and singing, and rolling of wheelbarrows on a wire (God bliss us!) no thicker than a sewing thread; that to be sure they must deal with the Devil. A fine gentleman with a pig’s tail and a golden sord by his side, came to comfit me and offered for to treat me with a pint of wind; but I would not stay; and so in going through the dark passage he began to show his cloven futt and went for to be rude; my fellow sarvant Umphry Klinker bid him be sivil, and he gave the young man a dous in the chops; but i’ fackins Mr. Klinker warn’t long in his debt; with a good oaken sapling he dusted his doublet, for all his golden cheese-toaster; and fipping me under his arm carried me huom, I nose not how, being I was in such a flustration.”

Between 1752 and 1757 Michael Maddox exhibited his wire-dancing and his tricks with a long straw, which he manipulated while keeping his balance on the wire. In 1755 (and for many years afterwards) Miss Wilkinson, the graceful wire-dancer and player of the musical glasses, was a principal performer.

Giuseppe Grimaldi (“Iron Legs”) the father of the famous clown, was the ballet-master and chief dancer in 1763 and 1764; and remained at the Wells till 1767. Harlequinades and similar entertainments were from this time added to the ordinary amusements of tumbling and rope-dancing.

In 1765 Rosoman pulled down the old wooden house and erected in its place a new theatre which in part survives in the building of the present day. The seats now had backs with ledges, as in our music-halls, to hold the bottles and glasses of the audience. About this time, or a few years later, the charge for a box was three shillings including a pint of wine (port, Mountain, Lisbon or punch), and eighteen pence and one shilling for the pit and gallery; an extra sixpence entitling the ticket-holder to a pint of the wine allowed to the box-holders. Angelo, at a later time, refers in his _Reminiscences_ to the Cream of Tartar Punch and the wine of the Sloe Vintage usually drunk at Sadler’s Wells.

Among the vocalists were Mrs. Lampe (1766–1767) and the famous Thomas Lowe (1771 and later). In 1768 Spinacuti exhibited his wonderful monkey which performed on the tight-rope feats resembling Blondin’s. Jemmy Warner, the clown, appeared in 1769, and Richer, the wire and ladder dancer, in 1773; and the years 1775 and 1776 were noticeable for the appearance of James Byrne, the harlequin, father of Oscar Byrne. In 1778 the interior of the theatre was entirely altered and the roof considerably raised. The audience now often included people of rank, such as the Duke and Duchess of York and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.

In 1781 Joseph Grimaldi (_b._ 1779, _d._ 1837) made his first appearance at Sadler’s in the guise of a monkey, and appeared there year by year till within a few years of his retirement. On 17 March, 1828, he took a farewell benefit there, playing “Hock,” the drunken prisoner in “Sixes, or the Fiend.” His final appearance was at Drury Lane on 27 June, 1828, when, prematurely broken down in health, he sang, seated, his last song, and made his farewell speech.

The Dibdins, Charles the elder in 1772 and Charles the younger, 1801 to 1814, wrote many plays and songs for Sadler’s Wells. Charles the younger and Thomas Dibdin were also proprietors and managers.

Among the performers who appeared between the years 1780 and 1801 were Miss Romanzini, the ballad-vocalist, afterwards Mrs. Bland. Braham (then Master Abrahams) the singer; Paul Redigé the clever tumbler, called “the little Devil”; La Belle Espagnole, his wife; Dighton and “Jew” Davis, pantomimists; Bologna and his sons in their exhibitions of postures and feats of strength; Placido the tumbler, Dubois the clown, and Costello (1783), whose wonderful dogs enacted a play called _The Deserter_. Edmund Kean, the tragedian, appeared in June 1801 as “Master Carey, the pupil of Nature,” and recited Rollo’s address from _Pizarro_.

Among the varied entertainments at Sadler’s may be mentioned the pony-races in 1802 (July) and 1822 (April and June). A course was formed by means of a platform carried from the stage round the back of the pit. In 1806 and 1826 a racecourse was formed outside in the ground to the east of the theatre; booths, stands, and a judge’s box were erected, and many of the most celebrated full-sized ponies with a number of jockeys of “great celebrity” and lightweight were, at least according to the bills, engaged. In 1826 (June) a balloon ascent from the grounds was made by Mrs. Graham, and in 1838 her husband also ascended. Belzoni, the famous excavator, exhibited his feats of strength in 1803. In 1804 Sadler’s Wells was known as the “Aquatic Theatre.” A large tank filled with water from the New River occupied nearly the whole of the stage, and plays were produced with cascades and other “real water” effects.

Our rapid survey, omitting many years, now passes on to 1844, when Samuel Phelps became one of the proprietors of Sadler’s Wells. During Phelps’s memorable management (1844–1862) there were produced some thirty of Shakespeare’s plays, occupying about four thousand nights--_Hamlet_ being played four hundred times.

In 1879 Sadler’s Wells was taken by Mrs. Bateman (from the Lyceum Theatre), and under her management the whole of the interior was reconstructed. At the present time it is a music-hall with two houses nightly. It is curious to note that Macklin, describing Sadler’s Wells as he remembered it some years before Rosoman’s time, says that several entertainments of unequal duration took place throughout the day, and were terminated by the door-keeper calling out “Is Hiram Fisteman here?” Fisteman being a mythical personage whose name signified to the performers that another audience was waiting outside. The price of admission at that time was threepence and sixpence; to-day the charge is twopence, a box being procurable for a shilling.

[The authorities are numerous. The Percival collection relating
to Sadler’s Wells (in Brit. Mus.) contains a great mass of
material bound in fourteen volumes. Useful summaries are given
in Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_, 409, ff; in the _Era Almanack_, 1872,
p. 1, ff; in M. Williams’s _Some London Theatres_; and in H.
Barton Baker’s _London Stage_, ii. p. 187, ff]

VIEWS.

The views, especially those of the 19th century, are abundant.
The following are of the 18th century:--

1. A view of Sadler’s Wells. C. Lempriere, sculp., 1731. Crace,
_Cat._, p. 593, No. 77; cp. _ib._ p. 592, No. 76.

2. Hogarth’s Evening, showing old Sadler’s Wells and the Sir
Hugh Middleton tavern.

3. South-west view of Sadler’s Wells, from a drawing by R.
C. Andrews, 1792; with a smaller view of the same in its
former state. Wise, sc., published in Wilkinson’s _Londina
Illustrata_.

Many others may be seen in the Percival and Crace collections.

MERLIN’S CAVE

The Merlin’s Cave, a tavern standing in the fields near the New River Head, close to the present Merlin’s Place, possessed extensive gardens and a skittle-ground, which were frequented by Londoners especially on Sundays.

It was probably built in 1735 or not long afterwards[48] and derived its name from the Merlin’s Cave constructed in 1735 by Queen Charlotte in the Royal Gardens at Richmond. The Richmond Cave was adorned by astrological symbols, and contained waxwork figures, of which the wizard Merlin was the chief. By the end of 1735 humble imitations of the Cave were established in various parts of the Kingdom, and it is highly probable that the Merlin’s Cave tavern had an exhibition of this kind. The New Wells in Lower Rosoman Street, Clerkenwell, possessed a Merlin’s Cave in 1740.[49]

About 1833 the gardens of the Merlin’s Cave were built over. The New Merlin’s Cave, a public-house now numbered 131 Rosoman Street, stands a little north of the old site.

[Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_, 580, 581; Wheatley’s _London_, s.v.]

VIEWS.

1. A view of the skittle-ground, Merlin’s Cave, New River Head,
with rules and instructions for playing. A print published by G.
Kearsley, 1786. Crace, _Cat._ p. 592, No. 71.

2. Old Merlin’s Cave near the New River Head, Rosoman Street. A
drawing by C. H. Matthews, 1833. Crace, _Cat._ p. 592, No.
70.

BAGNIGGE WELLS

A modern public-house, “Ye olde Bagnigge Wells,” standing on the west side of the King’s Cross Road (formerly Bagnigge Wells Road), and the building yard of Messrs. Cubitt, behind it, now occupy part of the site of these famous Wells.

Bagnigge House, the building which formed the nucleus of the place of entertainment called Bagnigge Wells, is believed to have been a summer residence of Nell Gwynne. It fronted Bagnigge Wells Road, and was pleasantly situated, lying in a hollow called Bagnigge Wash (or Vale); and being well sheltered on all sides, except the south, by the rising grounds of Primrose Hill, Hampstead and Islington.[50]

In 1757 a Mr. Hughes, described as a man curious in gardening, and apparently the tenant of Bagnigge House, found that the more he watered his plants with the water drawn from a well in the garden, the less they seemed to thrive. He asked the opinion of a doctor, John Bevis, who analysed the water, and pronounced it a valuable chalybeate. At the same time the water of another well, sunk in the ground adjoining Bagnigge House, was discovered to possess cathartic properties. Hughes, realising the commercial possibilities of these wells, opened the house and gardens to the public, at least as early as April 1759. The place was open daily, including Sundays, and in 1760 Bevis published a pamphlet, setting forth the virtues of the waters.

The chalybeate well was situated just behind the house, and the cathartic well about forty yards north of the chalybeate. The water of the two wells, which were each some twenty feet in depth, was, however, brought to one point, and thence drawn from a double pump placed within a small circular edifice consisting of pillars supporting a dome, erected behind the house. This was commonly called the Temple. The chalybeate was of a ferruginous character having “an agreeable and sprightly sub-acid tartness,” and was, according to Bevis, “apt to communicate a kind of giddiness with an amazing flow of spirits and afterwards a propensity to sleep if exercise be not interposed.” The purging water left a “distinguishable brackish bitterness on the palate,” and three half-pints were “sufficient for most people,” without the addition of salts to quicken their virtue.

The charge for drinking the water at the pump was threepence: half a guinea entitled the visitor to its use throughout the season. At a later date when Bagnigge Wells was mainly frequented for its tea-gardens, a general charge of sixpence was made for admission.

The Long Room,[51] the old banqueting hall of Bagnigge House, was about seventy-eight feet by twenty-eight feet with a rather low ceiling and panelled walls. At one end of the room was a distorting mirror, a source of considerable amusement, which, for instance, revealed to Captain Tommy Slender of the Middlesex Militia, so odd a figure, that he was almost “hyp’d to death.” Filled with apprehension he consulted a physician, who understanding the use of the concave and convex mirror made his patient take copious draughts of the water, and, after pocketing his fee, led him to another panel of the glass, where the Captain beheld a portly well-conditioned man. Vastly pleased he went home convinced of the virtues of the wells. At the other end of the room was a good organ[52] which provided music for the company. A water organ was also to be heard in the grounds. The organ performances were prohibited on Sundays by the magistrates from about 1772, apparently with the idea of rendering the attractions of Bagnigge Wells less dangerously seductive. The organ was, however, played regularly on the week-day afternoons.[53]

(INTERIOR OF LONG ROOM.)]

From about 1760 till near the end of the eighteenth century Bagnigge Wells was a popular resort. Some hundreds of visitors were sometimes to be found in the morning for the water-drinking, and early breakfasts were provided. In the afternoon the Long Room and the gardens were thronged by tea-drinkers, especially on Sundays. Stronger beverages were not unknown, and a bowl of good negus was a feature here. The lawyer, the man about town, and the active city merchant, no less than the gouty, and the hypochondriac, came to while away an hour or two:--

Ye gouty old souls and rheumaticks crawl on,
Here taste these blest springs, and your tortures are gone;
Ye wretches asthmatick, who pant for your breath,
Come drink your relief, and think not of death.
Obey the glad summons, to Bagnigge repair,
Drink deep of its streams, and forget all your care.

The distemper’d shall drink and forget all his pain,
When his blood flows more briskly through every vein;
The headache shall vanish, the heartache shall cease,
And your lives be enjoyed in more pleasure and peace.
Obey then the summons, to Bagnigge repair,
And drink an oblivion to pain and to care.[54]

The city matron deemed it the very home of fashion:--

Bon Ton’s the space ’twixt Saturday and Monday,
And riding in a one-horse chair on Sunday:
’Tis drinking tea on summer afternoons
At Bagnigge Wells with china and gilt spoons.[55]

With “genteel females” there mingled others of decidedly bad reputation.[56] Even a feminine pickpocket[57] was not unknown. The notorious John Rann,[58] who, as Dr. Johnson observed, towered above the common mark as a highwayman, was a visitor at Bagnigge Wells, and a favourite with some of the ladies there. On 27 July, 1774, Rann was brought before Sir John Fielding after one of his escapades, but was acquitted, the magistrate exhorting him in a pathetic manner to forsake his evil ways. On the Sunday following (31 July), he appeared at Bagnigge Wells with all his old assurance, attired in a scarlet coat, tambour waistcoat, white silk stockings, and a laced hat. On each knee he wore the bunch of eight ribbons, which had gained him his sobriquet of Sixteen Strings Jack. On this occasion his behaviour gave such offence to the company that he was thrown out of one of the windows of the Long Room. About four months later, 30 November, 1774, he was hanged at Tyburn for robbing Dr. Bell, chaplain to the Princess Amelia.

The grounds of Bagnigge Wells were behind the Long Room, and were laid out in formal walks, with hedges of box and holly. There were a number of fine trees, some curiously trimmed, and a pretty flower garden. Ponds containing gold and silver fish, at that time a novelty, were in the gardens; and the pond in the centre had a fountain in the form of a Cupid bestriding a swan from whose beak issued streams of water.

Parallel with the Long Room, and separating the eastern part of the grounds from the western (and by far the larger) portion, ran the river Fleet, with seats on its banks, for such as “chuse to smoke or drink cyder, ale, etc., which are not permitted in other parts of the garden.” Willows, large docks and coarse plants, elder bushes and other shrubs in luxurious profusion, fringed the banks; and we hear of Luke Clennell, the artist, making studies of the foliage.

Three rustic bridges spanned the stream, and amid the trees were two tall leaden figures; one a rustic with a scythe, the other a Phyllis of the hay-fields, rake in hand.

Arbours for tea-drinking, covered with honeysuckle and sweetbriar, surrounded the gardens; and there was a rustic cottage and a grotto. The last named, a small castellated building of two apartments open to the gardens, was brightly decorated in cockney fashion with shells, fossils, and fragments of broken glass. A bowling-green and skittle-alley were among the attractions of the Wells, and a bun-house or bake-house was erected (before 1791) on the south side of the house, but not immediately contiguous to it.

Hughes, the original proprietor, appears to have remained at the Wells till about 1775; and a Mr. John Davis was subsequently the lessee till his death in 1793. During the last twenty years of the eighteenth century the company, for the most part, seems to have consisted of persons of lower rank than formerly:--

Cits to Bagnigge Wells repair
To swallow dust and call it air.

Prentices and their sweethearts, and city matrons with their husbands, frequented the place; while unfledged Templars paraded as fops, and young ensigns sported their new cockades. The morning water-drinking was not neglected, but the full tide of life at Bagnigge was from five to eight p.m. on Sundays, when the gardens were crowded with tea-drinkers. A prentice-song sets forth the delights of the Wells:--

Come prithee make it up, Miss, and be as lovers be
We’ll go to Bagnigge Wells, Miss, and there we’ll have some tea;
It’s there you’ll see the lady-birds perched on the stinging nettles,
The crystal water fountain, and the copper shining kettles.
It’s there you’ll see the fishes, more curious they than whales,

And they’re made of gold and silver, Miss, and wags their little tails;
They wags their little tails, they wags their little tails.

_Being a View in Bagnigge Wells Garden, drawn on y^e Spot._

_Salubrious Waters, Tea, and Wine,
Here you may have, and also dine;
But, as ye through the Garden rove,
Beware, fond Youths, the Darts of Love._]

About 1810 the place became more exclusively the resort of the lower classes, though the situation was still somewhat picturesque. In 1813 Thomas Salter, the lessee, became bankrupt, and Bagnigge Wells was put up for sale by auction[59] on four days in the month of December. Not a bench or shrub was omitted: the “excellent fine-toned organ,” the water-organ, the chandeliers from the Long Room, dinner and tea services of Worcester china; the tea-boxes, two hundred drinking tables, four hundred teaboards, and some four hundred dozen of ale and stout. The various rooms and buildings were also offered for sale, including “Nell Gwyn’s house,” the summer-house, the bake-house, the grotto, temple, bridges; the two leaden rustics,[60] the fountains and all the gold and silver fish. Also the pleasure and flower gardens with their greenhouses, all the trees, including a “fine variegated holly tree,” the gooseberry and currant bushes, the hedges, shrubs and flowers.

In the year following, however, the place was re-opened under W. Stock’s management, and though the gardens[61] were now curtailed of all the ground west of the Fleet (at this time a ditch-like, and, on warm evenings, malodorous stream), an attempt was made to revive their popularity. The proprietor’s efforts were not very successful, and during the next few years the premises frequently changed hands. In 1818 the lessee of Bagnigge Wells was Mr. Thorogood, who let it to Mr. Monkhouse (from White Conduit House) about 1831. In April 1831 Monkhouse advertised the Concert Room as being open every evening for musical entertainments, which continued to be the main feature of Bagnigge Wells until its close. In, or before, 1833 Richard Chapman was the proprietor, and John Hamilton in 1834.

In 1838 (August 14th), the lessees, Mr. and Miss Foster, announced for their benefit night an array of concert-room talent:--Le Mœurs of Bagnigge Wells, Mr. Darking (of the London concerts), Miss Anderson (from the Mogul Concert Room), Messrs. Sutton and Gibson (Sadler’s Wells), Master Clifford (Yorkshire Stingo), Mr. H. Smith (Royal Union Saloon), Mr. Boyan (Queen’s Head Rooms), Mr. Roberts (White Conduit); and the songs included “Tell me, my heart,” “Billy the Snob” (in character), “Pat was a darling boy.” A scene was given from _Julius Cæsar_; a soliloquy from _Hamlet_; and one Simpson exhibited classical delineations of the Grecian statues. The concert was followed by a ball, in which were danced a Highland fling (by a Mr. McDougal), a double comic medley dance, a waterman’s hornpipe, and a hornpipe in real fetters and chains. During the evening a balloon was sent up from the grounds; and sixpence procured admission to the whole. On other concert nights the admission was as low as threepence. Among the singers in the latest days of Bagnigge Wells were the well-known Paddy O’Rourke, Alford, Ozealey, Prynn, Box, Sloman, Booth, Gibbs and Dickie. Besides the songs and duets, portions of plays were acted, though without scenery or special dresses.

The year 1841 witnessed the last entertainment at Bagnigge Wells, when on 26 March there was an evening performance (admission sixpence) of glees, farces and comic songs. The dismantling of the place was now begun. The grotto, which was already in a very dilapidated condition, was destroyed by some passers by in the early morning of 6 April, 1841.

In 1843 all that remained was the north end of the Long Room, and, according to a representative of _Punch_, who visited the spot in September of that year, the old well was filled up with rubbish and mosaics of oyster shells. Shortly afterwards, the present tavern was built; Mr. Negus, a name suggestive of other days, being the tenant in 1850.

[Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_; Walford’s _O. & N. London_; Palmer’s
_St. Pancras_, p. 77, ff.; Wheatley’s _London P. & P._;
Kearsley’s _Strangers’ Guide_; Noorthouck’s _London_, p. 752,
ff.; Clinch’s _Marylebone and St. Pancras_, p. 148, ff.;
Malcolm’s _Lond. Rediv._ (1803), p. 237; _Sunday Ramble_
(various editions); Rimbault in _Notes and Queries_, 1st ser.
ii. 228; 4th ser. xi. 24; _Era Almanack_, 1871 (account of
Bagnigge Wells by Blanchard).]

VIEWS.

The following views may be noted:--

1. “Ancient stone from Bagnigge Wells,” engraved in Pinks, p.
558.

2. “The Bread and Butter Manufactory, or the Humors of Bagnigge
Wells,” a mezzotint published by Carrington Bowles, 1772; cp. an
aquatint print from a painting by Sanders, published by J. R.
Smith in 1772.

3. Mr. Deputy Dumpling and Family enjoying a summer afternoon, a
print (1780) published by Carrington Bowles. Crace, _Cat._,
p. 583, No. 84.

4. Bagnigge Wells, near Battle Bridge, a print (1777). Crace,
_Cat._, p. 583, No. 82; engraved in Walford’s _O. & N.
London_, ii. p. 294.

5. Bagnigge Wells Garden, frontispiece engraved for the
_Sunday Ramble_, “drawn on ye spot,” Page sculp.
(_circ._ 1774?) (W. Coll.); engraved in Pinks, p. 563.

6. “A Bagnigge Wells scene: or, No resisting temptation.”
An engraving published by Carrington Bowles, 1780. Crace,
_Cat._, p. 583, No. 85; a hand-coloured mezzotint in Brit.
Mus. _Catal. of Prints_, vol. iv., No. 4,545.

7. View of the Tea-gardens and Bun-house, from a drawing, taken
in 1790 (?); copy in sepia in W. Coll.; an almost identical
view is reproduced in Rogers’s _Views of Pleasure Gardens of
London_, p. 23, “from a drawing made in 1827.”

8. “The Road to Ruin” (with figure of John Rann). Crace,
_Cat._, p. 583, No. 86.

9. A view taken from the centre bridge in the gardens of
Bagnigge Wells. An example in Crosby Coll.; also reproduced in
Ashton’s _The Fleet_.

10. The original garden entrance to Bagnigge Wells (_circ._
1800?) J. T. Smith del. Etched in Rogers’s _Views of Pleasure
Gardens of London_, p. 26.

11. View of Bagnigge Wells Gardens, 1828, engraving in
Cromwell’s _Clerkenwell_, p. 414; reproduced in Pinks, p.
567.

12. A collection of manuscript notes, sketches and drawings,
relating to Bagnigge Wells in its later days, made by Anthony
Crosby. (Guildhall Library, London.)

13. “Residence of Nell Gwynne, Bagnigge Wells.” An engraving, C.
J. Smith, sc. 1844; Crace, _Cat._, p. 583, No. 88; Pinks,
p. 559.

“LORD COBHAM’S HEAD.”

The Lord Cobham’s (or Cobham’s) Head, named after Sir John Oldcastle “the good Lord Cobham,” was situated in Cold Bath Fields, and on the west side of Coppice Row, now Farringdon Road, at the point where it was joined by Cobham Row.

It was first opened in 1728 (about April), and in its garden there was then “a fine canal stocked with very good carp and tench fit to kill,” and anglers were invited to board at the house. It was advertised to be let or sold in 1729, and little is heard of it till 1742 when it possessed a large garden with a “handsome grove of trees,” and gravel walks, and claimed to sell the finest, strongest and most pleasant beer in London at threepence a tankard. Some vocal and instrumental music was at this time provided in the evening, and the walks were illuminated.

In 1744 a good organ was erected in the chief room of the inn and the landlord, Robert Leeming, for one of his concerts in 1744, announced Mr. Blogg and others to sing selections from the Oratorios of “Saul” and “Samson”; a concerto on the organ by Master Strologer and the Coronation Anthem of Mr. Handel. After the concert came a ball, the price of admission to the whole entertainment being half-a-crown. For July 20th of the same year there was announced “a concert of musick by the best Masters,” for the benefit of a reduced citizen, followed by the display of a “set of fireworks by several gentlemen lovers of that curious art--Rockets, line ditto, Katherine wheels, and many other things; likewise will be shewn the manner of Prince Charles’s distressing the French after he passed the Rhine.” The concerts do not appear to have been given after this period but the Cobham’s Head long continued to exist as a tavern, and is marked in Horwood’s Plan of 1799.

In December 1811 it was sold by auction, being described at that time as a roomy brick building with a large yard behind, probably all that was left of the gardens. About 1860 during the operations for the Metropolitan Railway the Cobham’s Head was inundated by the bursting of a New River Main, and was so much injured by the undermining for the Railway that it had to be vacated.

[Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_; Wheatley’s _London P. and P._, “Coppice
Row.”]

“SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE” TAVERN AND GARDENS.

The Sir John Oldcastle Tavern was situated in Cold Bath Fields on the west side of Coppice Row, and was on the same side of the road as the Lord Cobham’s Head, but rather nearer to Bagnigge Wells. It was originally a wayside inn, but during the first half of the eighteenth century became a well-known tavern. In 1707 (July 18th) the Clerkenwell Archers held their annual dinner there, and frequented it for some years.

In the rear of the house were extensive gardens, well planted with trees; and from 1744 to 1746 these were open during the summer for evening entertainments. A band “of the best Masters” played from five o’clock till nine; the walks were lit with lamps, and fireworks were displayed at the close of the evening. The admission was sixpence, including refreshments. In July 1746 concerts of vocal and instrumental music were announced, at which the chief vocalist, Mr. Blogg, sang such songs as “Come, Rosalind,” “Observe the fragrant blushing Rose” and “The Happy Pair.”[62]

In 1753 a Smallpox Hospital was erected on part of the Oldcastle estate, but the Sir John Oldcastle, immediately adjacent, was left standing till 1762 when, being in a ruinous condition, it was pulled down.

[Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_; Larwood and Hotten, _History of
Signboards_, p. 97; Tomlins’s _Perambulation of Islington_, p.
172; _Low Life_ (1764), p. 81; _The Field Spy_ (London, 1714);
Ashton’s _The Fleet_, p. 117.]

VIEWS.

South view of the Sir John Oldcastle in Lempriere’s Set of
Views, 1731.

ST. CHAD’S WELL, BATTLE BRIDGE.

The site of St. Chad’s Well, a mineral spring and garden at Battle Bridge, is now partly occupied by St. Chad’s Place, a small street turning out of the Gray’s Inn Road (east side) and lying between the King’s Cross Station (Metropolitan Railway) and the Home and Colonial Schools.

About the middle of the eighteenth century the Well was in considerable repute, at least in the neighbourhood, and is said to have been visited in the morning by hundreds of people who paid threepence for the privilege of drinking. A hamper of two dozen bottles could be bought for £1. At that time the gardens attached to the Well were very extensive, and abounded with fruit trees, shrubs, and flowers.

During the last ten or twenty years of the eighteenth century few visitors frequented the Well;[63] though we hear of it again about 1809, as being much resorted to by the lower classes of tradesmen on Sundays.

In the early part of the nineteenth century it had a few visitors of note. Sir Allan Chambré, the judge, used to visit the Well, and Munden, the comedian, when living at Kentish Town, drank the water three times a week. Mr. Mensall, the master of the Gordon House Academy at Kentish Town, used to march his young gentlemen to St. Chad’s once a week in order to save in doctor’s bills. John Abernethy, the surgeon, was also a visitor. When Hone visited the place in 1825, the Spring of St. Chad was once more almost deserted. Hone found a faded inscription “St. Chad’s Well,” placed over a pair of wooden gates, one of which (to quote his description) “opens on a scene which the unaccustomed eye may take for the pleasure-ground of Giant Despair. Trees stand as if made not to vegetate, clipped hedges seem willing to decline, and nameless weeds straggle weakly upon unlimited borders.” “On pacing the garden alleys, and peeping at the places of retirement, you imagine the whole may have been improved and beautified for the last time by some countryman of William III.” “If you look upwards you perceive painted on an octagon board ‘Health Restored and Preserved.’ Further on, towards the left stands a low, old-fashioned, comfortable-looking large-windowed dwelling, and ten to one but there also stands at the open door an ancient, ailing female in a black bonnet, a clean coloured cotton gown, and a check apron; ... this is the Lady of the Well.”

In September 1837 the dwelling-house, spring and garden were put up to auction by their proprietor, a Mr. Salter. The next proprietor, William Lucas, finding that the celebrity of the waters had for a number of years past been confined chiefly to the neighbourhood, issued in 1840 a pamphlet and hand-bills in which the water was described as perfectly clear when fresh drawn, with a slightly bitter taste. It was composed of sulphate of soda and magnesia in large quantities, and of a little iron held in solution by carbonic acid. The waters were recommended as a universal medicine, being “actively purgative, mildly tonic and powerfully diuretic.” The Pump-room was opened at 5 a.m., and the price of admission was threepence, or one guinea a year. By this time the old garden had been considerably curtailed by the formation of St. Chad’s Place, and by letting out (1830) a portion as a timber yard. But it was more carefully kept, and a new and larger pump-room had been built in 1832. A fore-court adjoined the Gray’s Inn Road, and next to it were the dwelling-house and pump-room. Beyond them was the garden which on the north was joined by the backs of the houses in Cumberland Row, and on the south by the timber-yard.

The pump-room was still in existence in 1860,[64] but was removed about that time during the operations for the new Metropolitan Railway.

[Pinks’s _Clerkenwell_, pp. 504–506; Kearsley’s _Strangers’
Guide_ s.v. “Battlebridge”; Lysons’s _Environs_, iii. (1795),
p. 381; Lambert’s _London_, iv. 295; Hughson’s _London_, vi. p.
366; _Gent. Mag._ 1813, pt. 2, p. 557; Cromwell’s _Islington_,
p. 156, ff.; Hone’s _Every Day Book_, i. 322, ff.; E. Roffe’s
_Perambulating Survey of St. Pancras_, p. 13; Palmer’s _St.
Pancras_, p. 75; Clinch’s _Marylebone, and St. Pancras_;
Ashton’s _The Fleet_, p. 49.]

VIEWS.

1. St. Chad’s Well, a view from the garden. Water colour drawing
by T. H. Shepherd, 1850. Crace, _Cat._ 583, No. 81.

2. Plan annexed to the auctioneer’s particulars and conditions
of sale of St. Chad’s Well, 1837 (_see_ Pinks, p. 506).

BOWLING GREEN HOUSE, NEAR THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL

The Bowling Green House, a tavern with a large bowling green attached to it on the south, was situated at the back of the Foundling Hospital, and south of the New Road. A lane turning out of Gray’s Inn Lane led to it. It is first mentioned in 1676,[65] and it afterwards gained notoriety as a resort of gamesters. On a day in March, 1696, the house was suddenly surrounded by soldiers and constables, who seized and conveyed before a Justice of the Peace every person found on the premises. Some of the offenders had to pay a fine of forty shillings apiece.[66]

In the course of years, the character of the place changed, and in 1756 the proprietor, Joseph Barras,[67] announced that he had greatly altered and fitted up the Bowling Green House[68] in a “genteel manner.” The Bowling Green was declared to be in exceeding fine order, and coffee, tea, and hot loaves were to be had every day. J. P. Malcolm[69] says that the Bowling Green House was for many years a quiet country retreat, but shortly before 1811 it was removed, and Judd Street, Tonbridge Street, &c., began to cover the space south of New Road. Hastings Street and part of Tonbridge Street appear to be on the site.

[Authorities cited in the notes.]

ADAM AND EVE TEA GARDENS, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD

The premises of the Adam and Eve stood at the north-west extremity of Tottenham Court Road, at the lower end of the road leading to Hampstead, and occupied the site of the manor-house of the ancient manor of Tottenhall or Tottenham.

The Adam and Eve Tavern is known to have been in existence under that sign in 1718.[70] Already in the seventeenth century Tottenham Court is mentioned as a place of popular resort, one of “the City out-leaps” (Broome, _New Academy_, 1658). George Wither (_Britain’s Remembrancer_, 1628) speaks of the London holiday-makers who frequented it:--

“And Hogsdone, Islington and Tottenham Court,
For cakes and cream had then no small resort.”

In 1645 Mrs. Stacye’s maid and two others (as the Parish books of St. Giles in the Fields record) were fined one shilling apiece for the enormity of “drinking at Tottenhall Court on the Sabbath daie.”[71] In Wycherley’s _Gentleman Dancing-master_ (1673) a ramble to Totnam Court is mentioned together with such fashionable diversions as a visit to the Park, the Mulberry Garden, and the New Spring Garden (_i.e._ Vauxhall).

In the succeeding century Tottenham Court Fair and the “Gooseberry Fair” doubtless brought many a customer to the Adam and Eve, and in the spring-time, as Gay expresses it, “Tottenham fields with roving beauty swarm.” The Adam and Eve then possessed a long room, with an organ, and in its spacious gardens in the rear and at the side of the house were fruit-trees and arbours for tea-drinking parties. There were grounds for skittles and Dutch-pins, and in the fore-court which was shadowed by large trees, tables and benches were placed for the visitors. At one time it could boast the possession of a monkey, a heron, some wild fowl, some parrots, and a small pond for gold fish.

Vincent Lunardi, the first man in England to make a balloon ascent,[72] made an unexpected appearance at the Adam and Eve Gardens on 13 May, 1785. He had ascended from the Artillery Ground about one o’clock, but the balloon, being overcharged with vapour, descended in about twenty minutes in the Adam and Eve Gardens. “He was immediately surrounded by great numbers of the populace, and though he proposed re-ascending, they were not to be dissuaded from bearing him in triumph on their shoulders.”[73]

VINCENT LUNARDI ESQ^r.

_Secretary to the Neapolitan Ambassador and the first aerial
Traveller in the English Atmosphere Sept^r. 15. 1784._

Publish’d Oct^r 5^th 1784 by John Bell British Library Strand]

Towards the end of the eighteenth century[74] the Adam and Eve began to be hemmed in by buildings; by Brook Street (now Stanhope Street) on the west, and by Charles Street (now Drummond Street, western end) on the north. The gardens however appear to have retained their old dimensions,[75] and at that time extended as far north as Charles Street.[76]

The thousands of honest holiday-makers who visited the gardens had, however, towards the end of the eighteenth century, been replaced by a motley crew of highwaymen, footpads and low women,[77] and in the early years of the present century (before 1811) the magistrates interfered: “the organ was banished, the skittle grounds destroyed, and the gardens dug up for the foundation of Eden Street.”

About 1813 the Adam and Eve Tavern and Coffee House, once more respectably conducted, was a one-storied building. Part of it fronted the New (Euston) Road, while an archway in the Hampstead Road led to the other parts of the premises. A detached gabled building, originally part of the domestic offices of the old Tottenhall Manor House, was still standing at this time and was used as a drinking parlour in connection with the Adam and Eve. Six small houses and shops also adjoined the tavern and brought the proprietor about £25 each a year in rent, though they are said to have been partly constructed out of the boxes in the old tea-gardens.

The large public-house called the Adam and Eve, which now stands on the old site at the corner of the Euston and Hampstead Roads, was built in 1869.

Near the Adam and Eve was the Cold Bath in the New Road. It was in existence in 1785, when it was advertised[78] as in fine order for the reception of ladies and gentlemen. The bath was situated in the midst of a pleasant garden, and was constantly supplied by a spring running through it. The water was described as serviceable to persons suffering from nervous disorders and dejected spirits.

[Wilkinson’s _Londina illust._, i. “Tottenhall,” Nos. 92,
93; Hone’s _Year Book_, p. 47, cp. p. 317; Walford, iv. 477;
v. 303 ff.; Palmer’s _St. Pancras_, p. 204, ff.; Larwood and
Hotten, _Signboards_, 257, 258; Brayley’s _Londiniana_, ii. p.
165; Cunningham’s _London_ (1850), “Tottenham Court Road”; F.
Miller’s _St. Pancras_, p. 161; Wheatley’s _London_, “Tottenham
Court Road” and “Adam and Eve.”]

VIEWS.

1. The scene of Hogarth’s March to Finchley (see Nichols’s
_Hogarth_, i. 155, ff.) is laid at the Tottenham Court
Turnpike, at the south end of the Hampstead Road. On the right
is the King’s Head tavern, and on the left the Adam and Eve.
The sign of Adam and Eve appears on a post in the road, and
Hogarth has inscribed it “Tottenham Court Nursery,” in allusion
to Broughton’s amphitheatre for boxing that existed here
(_see_ Walford, v. 304).

2. Two views in Wilkinson’s _Londina_, i. “Remains of the
Manor House denominated the lordship of Toten-hall, now vulgarly
called Tottenham Court, and occupied by the Adam and Eve Tea
House and Gardens.” Shepherd del., Wise sculp. (published 1813).
Beneath this is a plan of the vicinity marking Eden Street, ii.
Part of the Adam and Eve coffee rooms, Hampstead Road, J. Carter
del., Wise sculp. (published 1811).

3. A woodcut in Hone’s _Year Book_, p. 47, of the Adam and
Eve (before 1825), substantially the same as Wilkinson’s second
view. The views in Wilkinson and Hone show the Adam and Eve
in its altered condition after the proprietor Greatorex (end
of eighteenth century?) had made an addition to the tavern,
fronting the New Road.

THE PEERLESS POOL

The Peerless Pool should, in strictness, be described in a history of sports and pastimes, but as a pleasant summer resort, an oasis in the regions of Old Street and the City Road, it must be allowed a place in the present volume.

In ground immediately behind St. Luke’s Hospital (built 1782–84), Old Street, was one of the ancient London springs which had formed, by its overflowings, a dangerous pond, referred to,[79] as early as 1598, as the “clear water called Perillous Pond, because divers youths by swimming therein have been drowned.”

In the seventeenth century it was apparently resorted to for the favourite amusement of duck-hunting: “Push, let your boy lead his water spaniel along, and we’ll show you the bravest sport at Parlous Pond” (Middleton’s _Roaring Girl_, 1611).

In 1743, William Kemp, a London jeweller, who had derived benefit from his plunges in its water, took the Parlous Pond in hand. He embanked it, raised the bottom, changed its name to Peerless Pool, and opened it to subscribers as a pleasure bath. In the adjacent ground, of which he held the lease, he introduced other attractions: in particular he constructed a fish-pond, 320 feet long, 90 feet broad, and 11 feet deep, and stocked it with carp, tench, and other fish. The high banks of this were thickly covered with shrubs, and on the top were walks shaded by lime trees. To the east of the fish-pond was a Cold Bath (distinct from the Pool) 36 feet long and 18 feet broad,[80] supplied by a spring. The Peerless Pool itself as contrived by Kemp was an open-air swimming-bath, 170 feet long, more than 100 feet broad, and from 3 to 5 feet deep. It was nearly surrounded by trees, and the descent was by marble steps to a fine gravel bottom, through which the springs that supplied the pool came bubbling up. The entrance was from a bowling-green on the south side, through a marble saloon (30 feet long) which contained a small collection of light literature for the benefit of subscribers to the Pool. Adjoining this were the dressing boxes.

The place became, from about the middle of the eighteenth century, a favourite resort of London anglers and swimmers, and many London merchants and persons of good position were among the subscribers. An annual payment of one guinea entitled subscribers to the use of the baths, and to the diversion of “angling and skating at proper seasons.” Occasional visitors paid two shillings each time of bathing.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

PLEASURE BATH

£. _s._ _d._

Month 0 9 0
Two Months 0 16 0
Year 1 1 0

Single Bathe }
with Towels } 0 1 0
and Box }
Ditto without 0 0 6

COLD BATH

£. _s._ _d._

Month 0 10 0
Two Months 0 17 0
Year 1 10 0
Single Bathe 0 1 0

THE PLEASURE BATH OF PEERLESS POOL,

The largest in England, is situated in the immediate
neighbourhood of the heart of the City, within Ten minutes’
direct walk of the Bank and Exchange. (vide plan.) Surrounded
by trees and shrubberies, open to the air, although
entirely screened from observation, and most ample in its
dimensions--=170= FEET in length, by =108= in
breadth--it offers to the Bather the very advantages he would
least expect to find at so short a distance from the centre of
the metropolis. Its depth, which increases gradually from 3 feet
6 inches to 4 feet 8 inches, is such as to afford free scope to
the Swimmer, while it precludes all fear of accident to any,
and the temperature of the water rises to a height sufficient
to ensure all the comfort and luxury of Bathing, without the
risk of injury to health, from a too violent contrast with the
external air.

THE COLD BATH,

THIRTY-SIX feet by EIGHTEEN, is the largest
of its kind in London, and both Baths are entirely supplied by
Springs, which are constantly overflowing.

* * * * *

_The City Road is the line from all parts of the_ WEST
END _to the City. Omnibuses pass both ways nearly every
minute throughout the day._

1, Bath Buildings Entrance--2, Baldwyn Street Entrance--3, Cold
Bath--4, Pleasure Bath--5, Dressing Boxes--6, Shrubberies.

BILL OF PEERLESS POOL. _Circ._ 1846.]

About 1805 Mr. Joseph Watts (father of Thomas Watts, the well-known Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum) obtained a lease of the place from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital at a rental of £600 per annum, and eventually saw his way to a profit by building on part of the ground. He drained the fish-pond which lay due east and west, and built the present Baldwin Street on the site. The old-fashioned house inhabited by Kemp, which stood in a garden and orchard of apple and pear trees overlooking the west end of the fish-pond, Watts pulled down, erecting Bath Buildings on the spot.[81] The pleasure bath and the cold bath he, however, continued to open to the public at a charge of one shilling, and Hone gives a pleasant description of it as it was (still in Watts’s proprietorship) in 1826. “Its size,” he says, “is the same as in Kemp’s time, and trees enough remain to shade the visitor from the heat of the sun while on the brink.” “On a summer evening it is amusing to survey the conduct of the bathers; some boldly dive, others ‘timorous stand,’ and then descend, step by step, ‘unwilling and slow’; choice swimmers attract attention by divings and somersets, and the whole sheet of water sometimes rings with merriment. Every fine Thursday and Saturday afternoon in the summer, columns of blue-coat boys, more than three score in each, headed by their respective beadles, arrive, and some half strip themselves ere they reach their destination; the rapid plunges they make into the Pool, and their hilarity in the bath, testify their enjoyment of the tepid fluid.”

The Pool was still frequented in 1850,[82] but at a later time was built over. Its name is kept locally in remembrance by Peerless Street, the second main turning on the left of the City Road, just beyond Old Street, in coming from the City. This street was formerly called Peerless Row, and formed the northern boundary of the ground laid out by Kemp.[83]

[Maitland’s _Hist. of London_, i. p. 84, ff.; Dodsley’s
_London_, “Peerless Pool”; Noorthouck’s _London_, p. 756, ff.;
Trusler’s _London Adviser_ (1786), p. 124; Hone’s _Every Day
Book_, i. p. 970, ff.; Pennant’s _London_, p. 268; Wheatley’s
_London P. and P._ iii. s.v.; newspaper cuttings, &c., W. Coll.]

VIEWS.

1. Two woodcuts (pleasure bath and fish-pond) from drawings,
_circ._ 1826, by John Cleghorn in Hone’s _Every Day
Book_ (cited above).

2. View of Peerless Pool Bath and Gardens in 1848; coloured
drawing by Read. Crace, _Cat._, p. 608, No. 9.

3. The Pleasure Bath, Peerless Pool. An advertisement bill with
woodcut of the bath, surrounded by trees and shrubberies, and a
plan of the vicinity (1846?), W. Coll.; cp. Crace, _Cat._,
p. 608, No. 8.

THE SHEPHERD AND SHEPHERDESS, CITY ROAD

The Shepherd and Shepherdess ale-house stood on or near the site afterwards occupied by the well-known Eagle Tavern in the City Road and Shepherdess Walk.

It was built at some time before 1745, and its gardens were frequented in the last century by visitors, who regaled themselves with cream, cakes and furmity. Invalids sometimes stayed at the Shepherd and Shepherdess[84] to benefit by the pure air of the neighbourhood. The City Road (opened in 1761) was cut through the meadow-grounds that surrounded the inn. The place gradually lost its rural isolation, but it is found enumerated among the tea-gardens resorted to by Londoners of the “middling classes” in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

The Shepherd and Shepherdess appears to have been pulled down about 1825, at which time Thomas Rouse built on or near its site the Eagle Tavern (rebuilt 1838) which formed the nucleus of the famous Eagle establishment with its Grecian saloon and theatre, its gardens and dancing pavilion. The tavern, grounds and theatre were purchased by “General” Booth in 1882, and have since been occupied by the Salvation Army.[85]

[Larwood and Hotten, _Signboards_, 352, 353; _Picture of
London_, 1802 and 1823; Walford, ii. 227, 274.]

THE SPRING GARDEN, STEPNEY

This Spring Garden was situated a little distance to the north of the Mile End Road and its eastern side abutted on what is now Globe Road.

It was in existence at least as early as 1702, and at that period seems to have been sometimes known as the Jews’ Spring Garden,[86] probably because it was owned or frequented by some of the wealthy Jews who at that time and long afterwards resided in Goodman’s Fields and the neighbourhood. There was a tavern attached to the gardens, the keeper of which, in 1743, was a Mr. Dove Rayner,[87] described as a man of “agreeable mirth and good humour.”

The garden continued to exist till 1764 when we hear of it as a Sunday evening resort of holiday-makers,[88] but it does not appear to be mentioned at a later date.

In Horwood’s Plan (G) of 1799 the garden (or its site), together with a few buildings, is marked as Spring Garden Court. Later on, in the present century, the ground was known as Spring Grove. Nicholas Street and Willow Street, between Globe Road and St. Peter’s Road on the west, now appear to occupy part of the site.

About the middle of the last century Stepney is described as[89] a village consisting principally of houses of entertainment to which vast crowds of people of both sexes resorted on Sundays and at Easter and Whitsuntide, to eat Stepney buns and drink ale and cyder.