MARBLE HALL, VAUXHALL
Marble Hall was situated on the Thames, at the spot afterwards occupied by the southern abutment of Vauxhall Bridge. Part of the road to the bridge now occupies the site.
Joseph Crosier, the proprietor in 1740, “enlarged, beautified and illuminated” the gardens,[313] and built a Long Room facing the river, which was opened in May 1740, and used for dancing during the spring and summer.
From circ. 1752–1756 the proprietor was Naphthali Hart,[314] teacher of music and dancing, who held assemblies at Marble Hall in the season, devoting his energies in the winter to Hart’s Academy, Essex House, Essex Street, Strand, where (as his advertisements state) “grown gentlemen are taught to dance a minuet and country dances in the modern taste, and in a short time.” “Likewise gentlemen are taught to play on any instrument, the use of the small Sword and Spedroon.” “At the same place is taught musick, fencing, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, High German, Low Dutch, Navigation, or any other part of the Mathematicks.” “A sprightly youth is wanted as an apprentice.”
In the spring of 1756 Marble Hall was opened as a coffee house and tavern, but little appears to be known of it after this date, though it was in existence till about August 1813, when the abutment of Vauxhall Bridge on the Surrey side was begun.
[Advertisements in “Public Gardens” collection in Guildhall Library, London; Manning and Bray, Surrey, iii. 484, and map, p. 526; Allen’s Lambeth, 368; Walford, vi. 339.]
THE CUMBERLAND TEA-GARDENS AND TAVERN, VAUXHALL
Originally Smith’s Tea-Gardens
These small gardens, about one acre and a half in extent, were pleasantly situated on the south bank of the Thames, immediately to the south of Vauxhall Bridge (built 1811–1816). Under the name of Smith’s Tea-Gardens they were probably in existence some years previous to 1779. “A Fête Champêtre, or Grand Rural Masked Ball,” with illuminations in the garden and the rooms, was advertised to take place on 22 May, 1779, at 10 P.M., the subscription tickets being one guinea.
About May 1784 the gardens were taken by Luke Reilly, landlord of the Freemasons’ Tavern in Great Queen Street, who changed the name to the Cumberland (or Royal Cumberland) Gardens.[315] At this time they were open in the afternoon and evening, and visitors to Vauxhall Gardens sometimes had refreshments there in the arbours and tea-room while waiting for Vauxhall to open; or adjourned thither for supper when tired of the larger garden.
In August 1796 a silver cup given by the proprietor was competed for on the river by sailing boats. In 1797 a ten years’ lease of the gardens and tavern was advertised to be sold for £1,000.
From 1800 to 1825 the gardens were much frequented by dwellers in the south of London. Between three and four o’clock in the morning of May 25, 1825, the tavern was discovered to be on fire. The engines of Vauxhall Gardens and of the various Insurance Offices came on the scene, but the fire raged for more than an hour, and the tavern and the ball-room adjoining were completely destroyed and the plantation and garden greatly injured. In October of the same year the property on the premises was sold by the lessors under an execution and at that time the gardens were, it would seem, finally closed.[316]
WATERSIDE ENTRANCE TO CUMBERLAND GARDENS.
The South Lambeth Water Works occupied the site for many years and the Phœnix Works of the South Metropolitan Gas Company are now on the spot.[317]
[Newspaper cuttings in W. Coll.; Walford, vi. 389, 449; Timbs, Curiosities of London (1868), p. 18, and Club Life, ii. 261; Picture of London, 1802, 1823 and 1829; the Courier for 25 and 26 May, 1825; Allen, Lambeth, p. 379.]
VIEWS.
“Cumberland Gardens, &c.” A view by moonlight of the waterside entrance to the gardens. Undated (circ. 1800?). W. Coll.
The gardens are well marked in Horwood’s Plan, D. 1799.