J. W. Lockwood, Chairman.

Chelsea Board Room, April 22, 1834.

APPENDIX No. 23.
CHELSEA HOSPITAL GROUNDS.

To the Right Honourable William Cowper, M.P., Chief Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Works and Public Buildings.

The Memorial of the Vestry of the Parish of Chelsea, in the County of Middlesex,

Sheweth,

That your Memorialists are sensible of, and grateful for, the benefit which has resulted to their parish and to the public from the improvements which have of late years been made in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, and from their having been thrown open for the recreation and resort of the crowded neighbouring population.

That by the present regulations, the grounds are closed during the months of May, June, July, and August, at eight o’clock in the evening.

That an extension of the time of closing the gardens, particularly on Sunday evenings, would, in the opinion of your Memorialists, be much esteemed by their frequenters; and as evidence that this would be so, a correspondent of your Memorialists writes: “An extension of the time of closing the Royal Hospital Grounds to the same hours as Battersea Park, would be accepted as a great boon by all classes, more especially on the Sunday evenings in the hot weather, as, though the grounds are opened on Sundays at two o’clock in the afternoon, they are not generally much attended till after tea, which makes it half-past six o’clock, or even seven, before the mass of visitors arrive (according to the distance they have to come, as many come from London by the steamboats), and at a quarter to eight o’clock in the very height of summer, they begin to clear the grounds, and at eight o’clock precisely they are finally closed.

It is naturally felt to be a great hardship to be so turned out when the sun is shining brightly on a warm summer evening, and when, though comparatively early, still too late to go anywhere else (except Cremorne), and the consequences may at once be seen by the fact of the public houses and beer shops in the neighbourhood being immediately filled, a state of things much to be deplored.