INTRODUCTION
An entry in the diary of Samuel Pepys records how on the 7th of June, 1665, “the hottest day (he says) that ever I felt in my life,” he took water to the Spring Garden at Foxhall and there stayed, pleasantly walking, and spending but sixpence, till nine at night. The garden that he visited was that which formed the nucleus of those Vauxhall Gardens which, seventy or eighty years later, became the most favoured summer resort of pleasure-seeking Londoners. Vauxhall with its great concourse of high and low, its elaborate concerts, its lamps and brightly painted supper-boxes, is far removed from the simple garden in which Mr. Pepys delighted to ramble, but not only Vauxhall, but several other pleasure gardens of the eighteenth century may be traced to comparatively humble beginnings in the period between the Restoration and the reign of Anne.[2]
In the early days of these gardens no charge was made for admission, but a visitor would naturally spend a trifle in cheese-cakes and syllabubs for the ladies, and would order for himself some bottle-ale and such substantial viands as were afforded by the tavern or the master’s dwelling-house attached to the garden. The musical entertainments that afterwards became a feature of the principal gardens were originally of little account. The Wells of Lambeth (1697) and Hampstead (1701) provided a concert of some pretensions, but Mr. Pepys at the Spring Garden was content with the harmony of a harp, a fiddle, and a Jew’s trump.
In some places, however, a Long (or Great) Room was at an early period built for the dancing that generally took place there in the morning or the afternoon; and booths and raffling-shops were set up for the benefit of card-players and gamblers. The quiet charm of a garden was, moreover, sometimes rudely broken by the incursion of gallants like “young Newport” and Harry Killigrew—“very rogues (says Pepys) as any in the town.” At last, about 1730–40, the managers of the principal public gardens found it desirable to make a regular charge for admission: they requested gentlemen “not to smoak on the walks,” sternly prohibited the entrance of servants in livery, and, generally, did their best to exclude improper characters.
The author of the Sunday Ramble, a little guide-book of the last century often quoted in this work, visited, or says that he visited, on a single Sunday all the best known gardens near town. But it would have required an abnormally long life and a survey far less hurried to make acquaintance with all the open-air resorts that flourished during the whole, or part, of the eighteenth century. Such a long-lived Rambler who wished to know his gardens at first hand would probably have visited them (as in this volume we invite the reader to do) in five or six large groups, paying little heed to what might seem the pedantry of Parishes and Hundreds.
Beginning in what are now the densely populated districts of Clerkenwell and central London, he would find himself in the open fields and in a region abounding in mineral springs. Islington Spa (1684–1840) and its opposite neighbour Sadler’s Wells (from 1683) had chalybeate springs that claimed to rival the water (“so mightily cry’d up”) of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and if the water itself was unpalatable, the adjoining pleasure gardens and Long Rooms, with their gay company, tended to make the drinking of medicinal water both pleasant and seductive. At no great distance from Sadler’s Wells were the Wells of Bagnigge (from 1759), the London Spa (from 1685), St. Chad’s Well, and Pancras Wells (from circ. 1697); and a walk to Old Street would be rewarded by a plunge in the clear waters of the Peerless Pool, or by a basket of carp and tench caught in the fish pond close by.
Behind the Foundling Hospital there might be found a bowling green; at the Mulberry Garden (Clerkenwell) a skittle-ground and an evening concert; in Rosoman Street, a wonderful grotto and an enchanted fountain[3] and (at the New Wells, circ. 1737–1750), a complete “variety” entertainment.
Sunday afternoon, if you did not mind the society of prentices and milliners, might be spent in Spa Fields at the Pantheon tea-house and garden (1770–1776), or at the Adam and Eve Gardens at Tottenham Court.
Farther west lay the Marylebone Bowling Green and Garden, developed in 1738 into the well-known Marylebone Gardens, and in this neighbourhood were several humbler places of entertainment, the Jew’s Harp House, The Queen’s Head and Artichoke, and The Yorkshire Stingo.
Islington and North London were full of rural resorts, the Sunday haunts of the London “cit” and his family. In Penton Street was the renowned White Conduit House, and near it Dobney’s Bowling Green, both visited in early days for their delightful prospects of the distant country. The Three Hats in Islington attracted visitors who wished to see the surprising horsemanship of Sampson and of Johnson “the Irish Tartar.” Canonbury, Highbury, Kentish Town, and Hornsey were pleasant places farther afield.
Still farther north were Belsize House, with its fashionable gambling and racing; the popular Wells of Hampstead, and the Kilburn Wells. The Spaniards, and New Georgia with its maze and mechanical oddities, were Sunday attractions in Hampstead for the good wives and daughters of tradesmen like Zachary Treacle.[4]
Chelsea could boast of at least two gardens in addition to the famous gardens and Rotunda of Ranelagh. In Pimlico was Jenny’s Whim. At Brompton, the Florida (or Cromwell’s) Gardens, a pleasant place, half garden, half nursery, where you could gather cherries and strawberries “fresh every hour in the day.”
London south of the Thames was not less well provided for. Nearly opposite Somerset House were Cuper’s Gardens (circ. 1691–1759). Lambeth had its wells and its Spring Garden (Vauxhall Gardens). In St. George’s Fields and Southwark were the mineral springs of the notorious Dog and Duck; the Restoration Spring Gardens, and Finch’s Grotto Gardens. Farther east were the Bermondsey Spa, and the St. Helena Gardens at Rotherhithe.
Such was the geographical distribution of the London pleasure gardens. “A mighty maze—but not without a plan.” Or, at least a clue to their intricacies may be found by arranging them in three groups, each with its distinctive characteristics.
In our first division we may place pleasure resorts of the Vauxhall type, beginning with the four great London Gardens—Cuper’s Gardens, the Marylebone Gardens, Ranelagh, and Vauxhall itself. These were all well-established in popular favour before the middle of the last century, and all depended for their reputation upon their evening concerts, their fireworks,[5] and their facilities for eating and drinking. Ranelagh relied less on the attractions of its gardens than did the other resorts just mentioned. Here the great Rotunda overshadowed the garden, and the chief amusement was the promenade in an “eternal circle” inside the building. Except on gala nights of masquerades and fireworks, only tea, coffee and bread and butter were procurable at Ranelagh; and a Frenchman about 1749 hints at more than a suspicion of dulness in the place when he comments “on s’ennuie avec de la mauvaise musique, du thé, et du beurre.”
Imitations of the principal gardens were attempted in various parts of London. Thus the Mulberry Garden (circ. 1742), the Sir John Oldcastle and the Lord Cobham’s Head in Clerkenwell had their fireworks, and their concerts by local celebrities, described in the advertisements as a “Band of the best Masters.” Finch’s Grotto Garden in Southwark (1760–circ. 1773), though not a fashionable resort, was illuminated on certain evenings of the week, and provided very creditable concerts, in which performers of some repute occasionally took part. Bermondsey Spa, from about 1784, had, like Vauxhall, its Grand Walk and coloured lamps, and kept its own poet and musical composer (Jonas Blewitt, the organist).[6] Two places called the Temple of Apollo (or Apollo Gardens) and the Temple of Flora, in the Westminster Bridge Road, also endeavoured to acquire something of a Vauxhall tone, at least to the extent of having painted boxes, illuminations and music, and a variety of (imitation) singing-birds. These Temples were set up late in the eighteenth century, and came to a bad end.
To a second division belong the gardens connected with mineral springs. Several of these, as we have already seen, date from the end of the seventeenth century—Islington Spa, Sadler’s Wells, and the Wells of Pancras, Hampstead, and Lambeth. The Dog and Duck, Bagnigge Wells, and other springs did not become well known till the eighteenth century. Such places were usually day resorts, opening early in the morning and providing something in the way of breakfasting, dancing, and music. The waters were advertised, and by many accepted, as Universal Medicines. A rising of the vapours, a scorbutic humour, an inveterate cancer could all be cured (as “eminent physicians” constantly testified) by drinking these unpleasant, but probably harmless, beverages—if possible, on the spot, or at any rate in bottles sent out by the dozen and stamped with the proprietor’s seal. Islington Spa became the vogue in 1733 when the Princess Amelia regularly attended it. The Dog and Duck waters were recommended to Mrs. Thrale by Dr. Johnson, and many cures vouched for by a physician attested the efficacy of the purging and chalybeate Wells of Bagnigge.
But the adventitious attractions of these places had a tendency to obscure their importance as spas. Bagnigge Wells and, to some extent, Islington Spa became after a time little more than tea-gardens. Sadler’s lost sight of its Wells early in the eighteenth century, and relied for profit on the development of the rope-dancing and pantomime in its theatre. The Dog and Duck (St. George’s Spa) became at last a tea-garden and a dancing-saloon which had to be suppressed as the haunt of “the riff-raff and scum of the town.” Finch’s Grotto and Bermondsey Spa, on the other hand, when their springs had ceased to attract, developed (as we have shown) into minor Vauxhalls.
A tea Garden.
The third division of the London gardens consists of those that were mainly tea-gardens. Many of these though small and unpretending possessed a distinctly rural charm. Such were Highbury Barn, and the Canonbury House tea-gardens, Hornsey with its romantic wood, and Copenhagen House standing alone in the hay-fields. Bagnigge Wells and White Conduit House, the classic tea-gardens of London, were prettily laid out and pleasantly situated, but in their later days became decidedly cockneyfied. The great day at these gardens was Sunday, especially between five and nine o’clock. The amusements were of a simple kind—a game of bowls or skittles, a ramble in the maze, and a more or less hilarious tea-drinking in the bowers and alcoves which every garden provided. In the Long Rooms of Bagnigge Wells, White Conduit House, and the Pantheon the strains of an organ, if the magistrates allowed the performance, might also be enjoyed.
The season at most of the London gardens began in April or May, and lasted till August or September. The principal gardens were open during the week (not, regularly, on Sundays) on three or more days, and those of the Vauxhall type were usually evening resorts. Much depended, it need hardly be said, upon the state of the weather, and sometimes the opening for the season had to be postponed. When the rain came, the fireworks were hopelessly soaked and people took refuge as they could under an awning or a colonnade or in a Great Room. A writer in The Connoisseur of 1755 (May 15th) only too justly remarks that our Northern climate will hardly allow us to indulge in the pleasures of a garden so feelingly described by the poets: “We dare not lay ourselves on the damp ground in shady groves or by the purling stream,” unless at least “we fortify our insides against the cold by good substantial eating and drinking. For this reason the extreme costliness of the provisions at our public gardens has been grievously complained of by those gentry to whom a supper at these places is as necessary a part of the entertainment as the singing or the fireworks.” More than seventy years later Tom Moore (Diary, August 21st, 1829) describes the misery of a wet and chilly August night at Vauxhall—the gardens illuminated but empty, and the proprietor comparing the scene to the deserts of Arabia. On this occasion, Moore and his friends supped between twelve and one, and had some burnt port to warm themselves.
The charge for admission at Vauxhall, Marylebone Gardens, and Cuper’s was generally not less than a shilling. Ranelagh charged half-a-crown, but this payment always included “the elegant regale” of tea, coffee, and bread and butter. The proprietors of the various Wells made a regular charge of threepence or more for drinking the water at the springs and pump rooms. At some of the smaller gardens a charge of sixpence or a shilling might be made for admission, but the visitor on entering was presented with a metal check which enabled him to recover the whole or part of his outlay in the form of refreshments.
Vauxhall, Marylebone, Cuper’s, and Ranelagh often numbered among their frequenters people of rank and fashion, who subscribed for season-tickets, but (with the possible exception of Ranelagh) were by no means exclusive or select. The Tea-gardens, and, as a rule, the Wells, had an aristocracy of aldermen and merchants, young ensigns and templars, and were the chosen resorts of the prentice, the sempstress, and the small shop-keeper.
The proprietors of gardens open in the evening found it necessary to provide (or to announce that they provided) for the safe convoy of their visitors after nightfall. Sadler’s Wells advertised “it will be moonlight,” and provided horse patrols to the West End and the City. The proprietor of Belsize House, Hampstead, professed to maintain a body of thirty stout fellows “to patrol timid females or other.” Vauxhall—in its early days usually approached by water—seems to have been regarded as safe, but Ranelagh and the Marylebone Gardens maintained regular escorts.
In the principal gardens, watchmen and “vigilant officers” were always supposed to be in attendance to keep order and to exclude undesirable visitors. Unsparing denunciation of the morals of the chief gardens, such as is found in the lofty pages of Noorthouck, must, I am inclined to think, be regarded as rhetorical, and to a great extent unwarranted. On the other hand, one can hardly accept without a smile the statement of a Vauxhall guide-book of 1753, that “even Bishops have been seen in this Recess without injuring their character,” for it cannot be denied that the vigilant officers had enough to do. There were sometimes scenes and affrays in the gardens, and Vauxhall and Cuper’s were favourite hunting-grounds of the London pickpocket. At the opening Ridotto at Vauxhall (1732) a man stole fifty guineas from a masquerader, but here the watchman was equal to the occasion, and “the rogue was taken in the fact.” At Cuper’s on a firework night a pickpocket or two might be caught, but it was ten to one that they would be rescued on their way to justice by their confederates in St. George’s Fields.
The dubious character of some of the female frequenters of the best known gardens has been necessarily indicated in our detailed accounts of these gardens, though always, it is hoped, in a way not likely to cause offence. The best surety for good conduct at a public garden was, after all, the character of the great mass of its frequenters, and it is obvious that they were decent people enough, however wanting in graces of good-breeding and refinement. Moreover, from the end of the year 1752, when the Act was passed requiring London gardens and other places where music and dancing took place to be under a license, it was generally the interest of the proprietor to preserve good order for fear of sharing the fate of Cuper’s, which was unable to obtain a renewal of its license after 1752, and had to be carried on as a mere tea-garden. The only places, perhaps, at which disreputable visitors were distinctly welcome were those garish evening haunts in St. George’s Fields, the Dog and Duck, the Temples of Flora and Apollo and the Flora Tea-Gardens. All these were suppressed or lost their license before the end of the eighteenth century.
Of the more important gardens, Marylebone and Cuper’s ceased to exist before the close of the last century. Ranelagh survived till 1803 and Vauxhall till 1859. Finch’s Grotto practically came to an end about 1773 and Bermondsey Spa about 1804. Many of the eighteenth-century tea-gardens lasted almost to our own time, but the original character of such places as Bagnigge Wells (closed 1841), White Conduit House (closed 1849), and Highbury Barn (closed 1871) was greatly altered.
During the first thirty or forty years of the nineteenth century numerous gardens, large and small, were flourishing in or near London. Some of these, like Bagnigge Wells, had been well-known gardens in the eighteenth century, while the origin of others, such as Chalk Farm, Camberwell Grove House, the Rosemary Branch Gardens at Islington, or rather Hoxton, the Mermaid Gardens, Hackney, and the Montpelier Gardens, Walworth, may be probably, or certainly, traced to the last century. These last-mentioned places, however, had little or no importance as public gardens till the nineteenth century, and have not been described in the present work.
Many new gardens came into existence, and of these the best known are the Surrey Zoological Gardens (1831–1856); Rosherville (established 1837); Cremorne (circ. 1843–1877); and the Eagle Tavern and Gardens (circ. 1825–1882), occupying the quiet domain of the old Shepherd and Shepherdess.
The sale of Vauxhall Gardens in August 1859, or perhaps the closing of Highbury Barn in 1871, may be held to mark the final disappearance of the London Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century. “St. George’s Fields are fields no more!” and hardly a tree or shrub recalls these vanished pleasances of our forefathers. The site of Ranelagh is still, indeed, a garden, and Hampstead has its spring and Well Walk. But the Sadler’s Wells of 1765 exists only in its theatre, and its gardens are gone, its spring forgotten, and its New River covered in. The public-house, which in London dies hard, has occupied the site, and preserved the name of several eighteenth-century gardens, including the London Spa, Bagnigge Wells, White Conduit House and the Adam and Eve, Tottenham Court, but the gardens themselves have been completely swept away.
Vauxhall, Belsize House, and the Spa Fields Pantheon, none of them in their day examples of austere morality, are now represented by three churches. From the Marylebone Gardens, the Marylebone Music Hall may be said to have been evolved. Pancras Wells are lost in the extended terminus of the Midland Railway, and the Waterloo Road runs over the centre of Cuper’s Gardens. Finch’s Grotto, after having been a burial ground and a workhouse, is now the headquarters of our London Fire Brigade. Copenhagen House with its fields is the great Metropolitan Cattle Market. The Three Hats is a bank; Dobney’s Bowling Green, a small court; the Temple of Apollo, an engineer’s factory, and the sign of the Dog and Duck is built into the walls of Bedlam.
PLAN
showing distribution of the
London Pleasure Gardens.