‘the rabble guard,
Whilst t’other’s half-asleep on watch and ward,
Don’t rob the people they pretend to save.’
Belsize is noticed in an old London guide-book of 1724 as ‘an academy of music, dancing, and play for the diversion of the ladies,’ and it adds with heavy playfulness that ‘where they are the gentlemen will not fail to be also.’ It describes the ballroom and gaming-rooms as particularly fine and handsomely adorned, and intimates that it would surprise one to see so much good company as came hither in the season.
Concerts of music, open-air fêtes, hare and buck hunting, fine grounds and sweet gardens, with fishing, dancing, etc., from six in the morning till eight at night, were sufficient inducements to render a less agreeable spot attractive. The free admission was, of course, a bait by which the visitors were drawn in just far enough to induce them to go farther. At any rate, it became a place of resort for persons of all ranks, and some of the most questionable characters, and according to contemporary writers, appears to have exceeded in immorality and dissipation any place of the kind in modern times.
In 1729 Galloway Races, to be run for a Plate of £10 value, were advertised to take place at Belsize, the horses to pay one guinea entrance, and to be kept in the stable at Belsize from entrance to the time of running.
Long after rank and fashion had deserted it, Belsize continued to be popular with the multitude, and remained open as a tea-drinking house, etc., till 1745, when foot-races were advertised to take place. This, however, was nothing new. A paragraph under the head of ‘Domestic Intelligence’ in the Grub Street Journal of April 1, 1736, informs its readers that ‘yesterday Mr. Pidgeon and Mr. Garth ran twelve times round Belsize for £50 a side, which was won with great difficulty by Mr. Pidgeon, although Garth fell down and ran ten yards on the wrong side of the post, and was forced to return back; yet he lost it only by a foot.’
This diversion appears to have been amongst the last devices of the proprietor to retain the patronage of the people. But new tea-gardens had been opened; New Tunbridge Wells at Islington had put forth renewed claims to popular favour, and a new generation had arisen indifferent to the past prestige of Belsize House, which was subsequently restored as a private mansion, and tenanted by several persons of importance, amongst them the unfortunate Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, who was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons, May 15, 1812, by Bellingham, ‘a mild-mannered man,’ maddened by misfortune.
Mr. Perceval, whose character, both in public and private life, appears to have been unimpeachable, had taken an active interest in all that concerned the well-being of Hampstead and its inhabitants, especially where the poorer classes of them were concerned. But when, on the suggestion of his colleagues in the conduct and support of the Sunday-school (less than half of the scholars in which were unable to attend a day-school for want of funds), it was proposed to introduce the Lancastrian system, Mr. Perceval withdrew his patronage and resigned his presidency of the schools, to which Mr. Holford (an old and honoured name in Hampstead), who had been vice-president for years, was nominated. Park says nothing of it, but in the Lady’s Magazine, 1812-13, it is noted that Mr. Samuel Hoare had obtained permission to establish a Lancastrian school.
Subsequently Belsize House was let to other persons of position, and in 1811-12 Mr. Everett occupied it, and afterwards Mr. Henry Wright, a London banker, resided here.[294] How it was afterwards tenanted I do not know. In 1841 the house and demesne were offered for sale for building purposes, and subsequently the whole fell into dilapidation and decay. When I first knew it a great gloom seemed to have settled on the place. Many of the windows were boarded up, and the house assumed that air of mystery that always appertains to large, old uninhabited houses. If one inquired, unknowing that it waited purchasers, the reason for the neglected appearance of the mansion and grounds, curiosity was met by a common cause for it in those days, viz., that the property was in Chancery, which it was not.