WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE
White Conduit House was originally a small ale-house of the seventeenth century, and, according to tradition, the workmen who built it were carousing there to celebrate its completion on the day of the execution of Charles I.
It derived its name from the water-conduit, faced with white stone, which stood in a field nearly opposite. In 1731 White Conduit House was still a one-storied building, but between that date and about 1745 it was pulled down, or altered,[134] and a Long Room added.
From about 1745 the garden was well laid out, and possessed a circular fish-pond and a number of pleasant arbours. Robert Bartholomew, the proprietor in 1754, added a long walk, and, to prevent his visitors being in the “least incommoded from people in the fields,” constructed a fence some seven feet in height. Hot loaves, tea, coffee and liquors ‘in the greatest perfection’ were the refreshments offered, and he assured those who drank his milk, procured directly from the cow, that his animals “eat no grains.” Cricket was played at this time (1754) in a meadow adjoining the house; bats and balls being provided by the proprietor.[135]
The house contained rooms for tea-drinking, and also the Long Room, from whence “is the most copious prospects and airy situation of any now in vogue,” a description ungrammatical but correct, for White Conduit House at this time, and until about 1775, was picturesquely situated. Standing on rising ground, and environed by pleasant country lanes and pastures, it commanded towards the north fine views of Hampstead and Highgate.
In 1774 the gardens at the back of the house were described as being laid out with several pleasing walks, prettily disposed, with the pond in the centre, and an avenue of trees. For the accommodation of the tea-drinkers, there were “genteel boxes” let into the hedges, and decorated with Flemish paintings. A large painting was placed at the far end of the avenue, and seemed to increase its length.
Under Robert Bartholomew (who was probably proprietor until his death in 1766) White Conduit had become a popular tea-garden, and till about the end of the eighteenth century, its visitors, though never in the least people of fashion, were on the whole of a respectable class. The favourite day was Sunday in the spring and summer-time, when large numbers of holiday-folk crowded the house and gardens. The ‘City prig,’ in white satin waistcoat and scratch wig; the graver man of business, clad in brown, his wife and family, were persons of consequence here; while their dependants also spent their holiday at the same place:—
Wish’d Sunday’s come, mirth brightens ev’ry face,
And paints the rose upon the housemaid’s cheek,
Harriot, or Mol, more ruddy. Now the heart
Of ’prentice, resident in ample street,
Or alley, kennel-wash’d, Cheapside, Cornhill,
Or Cranbourne, thee for calcuments renown’d,
With joy distends. His meal meridian o’er
With switch in hand, he to White Conduit House
Hies merry-hearted. Human beings here
In couples multitudinous assemble,
Forming the drollest group that ever trod
Fair Islingtonian plains. Male after male,
Dog after dog succeeding, husbands, wives,
Fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, friends,
And pretty little boys and girls. Around,
Across, along the gardens’ shrubby maze
They walk, they sit, they stand. What crowds press on,
Eager to mount the stairs, eager to catch
First vacant bench, or chair in long room plac’d.
Here prig with prig holds conference polite,
And indiscriminate the gaudy beau
And sloven mix. Here he who all the week
Took bearded mortals by the nose, or sat
Weaving dead hairs, and whistling wretched strain,
And eke the sturdy youth, whose trade it is
Stout oxen to contund, with gold-bound hat
And silken stocking strut. The red-arm’d belle
Here shows her tasty gown, proud to be thought
The butterfly of fashion.[136]
Curtseys, bows and compliments were the order of the day. A White Conduit method of effecting an introduction was for the gallant ’prentice to tread on the lady’s train, to apologise profusely, and finally to suggest an adjournment for tea in one of the arbours. By five o’clock on a fine Sunday afternoon a seat was hardly procurable; for the tea-drinking was then in full vigour, and the famous White Conduit loaves[137] in great request.
Among its frequenters White Conduit House could number Oliver Goldsmith, who was wont (circ. 1768) to call there at tea-time on his “shoemaker’s holidays.”[138] (cp. Highbury Barn, infra). On one occasion, meeting in the gardens the wife and daughters of a tradesman to whom he was under some obligation, he treated the ladies handsomely to refreshments; only to find when the reckoning came, that his purse was empty.[139] Abraham Newland, the famous cashier of the Bank of England, was also a visitor at White Conduit, and, at a later time George Cruikshank[140] made many of his character sketches there. The visitors came to dread his sketchbook, and children who made faces were set on their good behaviour by the threat that Mr. Cruikshank would put them in his book.
In 1794, or earlier, the owner of White Conduit was Mr. Christopher Bartholomew,[141] a man of considerable means, who did much to improve the grounds. At one time he owned the freeholds of both the Angel Inn, Islington, and White Conduit House, and was said to be worth £50,000. Having won a lottery prize, he gave a public breakfast in the Conduit gardens “to commemorate the smiles of fortune,” as the invitation tickets expressed it. Unfortunately his taste for gambling in the Lottery increased, and soon his entire fortune was squandered, and he ultimately died in poverty at a mean lodging in March, 1809, at the age of sixty-eight.
The surroundings of White Conduit House were still agreeable, and in 1803 we find references to the fine prospect, and the mild refreshing breezes from the abundant hay crops for which the district was noted. By about 1833, however, brickfields and rows of houses had destroyed its rural aspect.
Until about the beginning of the present century, White Conduit House appears to have had no entertainments apart from its tea-gardens, and from the organ performances[142] in the house. But under the proprietorship of Sharpe and Warren (from about 1811, or earlier, till 1828) several changes took place. The pond was filled in and planted over, and a new tea and dancing saloon, dignified by the name of the Apollo Room, and subsequently converted into a billiard-room, was erected in the north-west angle of the gardens. The tea-boxes were enlarged, and the old paintings removed or defaced. A pretty miniature steeple, set up in the last century, and a maze were still to be seen in the garden. From about 1825 White Conduit House possessed a band-stand, and a small stage erected at the north-east end of the grounds, which were further embellished with fountains and statuary.
Bowls and dutch-pins were played, and archery (in 1827) was a popular amusement. Balloon-ascents were also a feature; the most important being those made by Graham (1823–1825); Mrs. Graham (1826); Charles Green (1828); and John Hampton in 1842, and on 19 August 1844 when Hampton was accompanied by “Mr. Wells” (Henry Coxwell). In 1824 (September) at a Benefit and Gala Fête thirty kinds of fireworks were displayed: fiery pigeons flew across the gardens, and two immense snakes went in pursuit of one another.
In 1825 the place was advertised as “the New Vauxhall: White Conduit Gardens,” and evening concerts, variety entertainments and firework displays were given in the grounds. On 21 June of this year, in commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo, a grand Gala and Rural Fête took place in the evening, with a concert and fireworks. There was music in the Quadrille Room and the Country Dance Room; and for dancing in the Grand Walk, the Pandean band The gardens were illuminated by variegated lamps; “vigilant officers” were in attendance, and no person was admitted “in dishabille.” The admission was two shillings.
WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE.
Chabert,[143] the fire-eater, was here in 1826 (June). After swallowing arsenic, oxalic acid, boiling oil and molten lead, without, it is said, feeling any inconvenience, he entered a large heated oven, supported by four pillars, and there cooked a leg of lamb and a rump steak, which he proceeded to divide among the spectators. The admission was half a crown and eighteenpence. In July of this year, Mrs. Bland here made her last public appearance. This singer,[144] well-known for the sweet quality of her mezzo-soprano voice and unaffected rendering of English ballads, was long attached to Drury Lane Theatre, and for several years appeared at Vauxhall. About 1824 her mind became affected, and on her recovery she was glad to accept an engagement at an inferior place of entertainment.
In October 1826 the magistrates in granting the license stipulated that the music should cease at 11.30 P.M., and that the gardens should close at 11.45. Masquerades and fireworks were prohibited. These restrictions, however, appear to have been subsequently withdrawn or disregarded.
About this period (1826) part of the south side of the gardens was cut off by the formation of Warren Street; and a few years later (before 1833) a gasometer and a tall chimney disfigured the north-east corner of the grounds.
The accommodation of White Conduit House having now become insufficient, a new hotel was contemplated. The first stone was laid on 2 February 1829, Messrs. Bowles and Monkhouse being then the proprietors. About the middle of June 1829[145] the new building, referred to in the bills as “New Minor Vauxhall: White Conduit House, Hotel and Tavern,” was opened with a concert and ball. It was a tall, plain structure. Its chief room, a large hall about eighty feet by sixty, was much used for dances, dinners, and political meetings.
From many of the laudatory press notices, from about 1826 onwards, it might appear that White Conduit House was a crowded and even fashionable resort. But this was by no means the case. Surrounding buildings had spoilt the place, and at this period “Vite Cundick Couse,” as its Cockney visitors called it, was comparatively neglected: the chimes of the miniature steeple were silent, and the gardens had lost their rural charm.
Hone[146] severely describes it as a “starveling show of odd company and coloured lamps” possessing a mock orchestra with mock singing, and a dancing room, in which no respectable person would care to be seen. In 1832 (November) the magistrates refused to grant the license, and in 1834 (15 February) the proprietor was fined £5 for the “rowdy” conduct of some of the audience. A satirical visitor in 1838[147] ridicules the vocal attainments of the singers, and the gaudy dresses of the female performers, whose heads were decorated with blue roses and adorned with corkscrew curls. The audiences were now composed of the artisan class, the small shop-keeper, the apprentice and shop lad; with a sprinkling of lawyers’ clerks recognisable by their long hair, worn-out “four and ninepenny gossamers,” short trousers, and blucher boots, and by their conversation, which is described as no less objectionable than their cabbage-leaf cigars.
From 1830 till the close of the place in 1849 the entertainments, beginning about 7.30, were of a very varied character; concerts, juggling, farces and ballets. The admission, occasionally sixpence, was usually one shilling; half of which was sometimes returned in refreshments. Ladies and children generally came in half price. A diorama, and moonlight view of Holyrood were exhibited in 1830; and about the same time Miss Clarke made one of her ascents upon an inclined rope attached to a platform above the highest trees in the garden, reaching this eminence “amidst a blaze of light.” Here, too, in 1831 (August), and also in 1836 and 1837, Blackmore of Vauxhall made some of his “terrific ascents.” A play of T. Dibdin’s entitled the ‘Hog in Armour’ was performed in 1831 (April), and Charles Sloman, the clever impromptu versifier, appeared in August and September 1836.
In 1839 Breach the proprietor, who exerted himself in popularising the house, placed its amusements under the management of John Dunn,[148] styled the English Jim Crow on account of his imitations of T. D. Rice in “Jump Jim Crow.” In 1841 a large painting of Windsor Castle and the park-troops was placed at the end of the centre (then denominated the Chinese) walk; and in 1842 (July and August), a Mr. Bryant being the landlord, Batty’s Circus was engaged.
In 1843 R. Rouse was the proprietor, and in these later years the amusements of White Conduit House gradually deteriorated, until they were terminated on 22 January, 1849, by a Ball given for the benefit of the check-takers. Three days afterwards the demolition of the house was begun, and it was soon levelled for a new line of streets, the present White Conduit public-house being erected on part of the site.
The gardens had extended from Penton Street, in an easterly direction, to White Conduit Street, now called Cloudesley Road. Albert Street now approximately marks their southern boundary; and Denmark Road the northern limit.
[Fillinham’s collection relating to White Conduit House in Brit. Mus.; Pinks’s Clerkenwell; Walford’s Old and New London; Wheatley’s London P. & P.; Lewis’s Islington; Tomlins’s Peramb. of Islington; Cromwell’s Islington; Hone’s Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 1201, ff.; Mirror, 1833, vol. xxi. p. 426; Nelson’s Islington; Brayley’s Londiniana; Era Almanack, 1871; newspaper cuttings in W. Coll.]
VIEWS.
The Crace, Fillinham, and other collections contain numerous views, from which the following may be selected:—
1. South view of White Conduit House in Lempriere’s Set of Views, 1731; reproduced in Lewis’s Islington and Pinks’s Clerkenwell.
2. White Conduit House, 1749. Engraving in Knight’s Old England, vol. ii. fig. 2,402.
3. White Conduit House near Islington (circa 1771). A print, Crace, Cat. No. 200.
4. White Conduit House in the last century (circa 1780). A woodcut, Crace, Cat. No. 201.
5. The Old White Conduit Tea Gardens, Islington. Coloured view, 1822 (W. Coll.).
6. Old White Conduit House Tea Gardens. Sepia drawing, signed C. H. M. Fillinham Coll. p. 46.
7. White Conduit House Tavern and Tea Gardens, 1828. Engraved heading of a White Conduit bill. Fillinham Coll.
8. General View of the Gardens, White Conduit House. Fillinham Coll. p. 46.
9. White Conduit House. Engraving in Cromwell’s Clerkenwell, p. 216.
10. White Conduit Gardens from Islington Terrace. Sepia drawing, signed C. H. M. 1829. Fillinham Coll. p. 46.
11. Old White Conduit House. P. H. D. 1831, engraved in Rogers’s Views of Pleasure Gardens of London, p. 53 (showing balloon and old conduit).
12. The White Conduit Gardens, north view. Sepia drawing by C. H. Matthews, 1832. Crace, Cat. No. 204.
13. View in Gardens showing stage, &c. Water-colour drawing, signed I. F., June 2, 1832. Fillinham Coll. p. 48.
14. A view in the Gardens of White Conduit House with the rope-dancing and fireworks. Sepia drawing, 1848. Crace, Cat. No. 207; cp. Ashton’s The Fleet.
15. White Conduit House, Hotel and Tavern. North-west view of front. A water-colour drawing by Matthews, 1849. Crace, Cat. No. 208.
16. Bird’s-eye view of the gardens of White Conduit House, taken from the balcony. A coloured drawing by Mr. Crace, 1849. Crace, Cat. No. 209.