The grottos, which, according to the fashion of the time, were built in the garden, and richly decorated, must have seen some interesting sights. One in which Queen Caroline was royally entertained in 1729 was taken down in 1795. The entertainment was extremely sumptuous. The last of these grottos disappeared only when the Embankment was being made. In 1741 the Minister retired with the title of Earl of Orford, which afterwards descended to his well-known son, Horace, and a pension of £4,000 a year. 85
The house afterwards passed through the hands of John, Earl of Dunmore, and George Aufrere, and we find it in 1796 assigned to Charles, Lord Yarborough, who was living here in 1808. The building being then required by the Hospital, he consented to give up the remainder of his lease, a period of seventeen years, upon compensation being paid to the amount of £4,775 15s. Sir John Soane, the architect, who had all through been strongly in favour of adding on to Walpole House instead of purchasing new ground, designed the necessary additions. The building, like the Hospital itself, consists of two wings, east and west, abutting out from a connecting flank, with a vestibule in the front. The eastern wing is Walpole House. The room which was originally the dining-room is now one of the wards, and contains eight beds. It is strange to see the worn, homely faces of the infirm pensioners, in contrast with the magnificent white marble mantelpiece and the finely moulded ceiling. The connecting wing holds the Matron’s room in addition to the wards. The patients suffer from the complaints of old age, rheumatism, blindness, paralysis; few of them are permanently in the infirmary, and with the season of the year the numbers vary. In the summer it is found possible to close one ward entirely. There is a staff of nurses, and the old men are well looked after. Besides Walpole House, it was considered 86 advisable to have a supplementary infirmary. So when the lease of Gordon House fell in, it was adapted for the purpose. It stands in the southwest corner of the grounds, about 150 yards from the infirmary, and will be familiar to those who visited the Military and Naval Exhibitions, at which period it was used as a refreshment-house. The first recorded lease of the land on which it was built was in 1690.
The charity is directed by Royal Commissioners, who include representatives of the War Office, Horse Guards, Treasury, and the Hospital itself, through its Governor and Lieutenant-Governor.
The Governor is Sir Henry Norman. The officers who reside at the Hospital, under the authority of the Governor, are: Mayor and Lieutenant-Governor; six Captains of Invalids; Adjutant; Quartermaster; Chaplain; Physician and Surgeon; Deputy Surgeon.
Besides these there is a large staff, including Matron, Dispenser, Organist, etc. The pensioners themselves are formed into six companies, and their pension varies according to their rank, from the colour-sergeants at a shilling a day to privates of the third rank at a penny. The grounds of the Hospital were originally only twenty-eight acres, but have been added to by purchase from time to time; they now amount to between sixty and 87 seventy. A portion in the south-western corner was let on building leases not long ago.
The large open space exactly opposite to the Hospital, on the north side of the Queen’s Road, is known as Burton’s Court. How it came by the name is a matter of doubt. In Hamilton’s Survey it is called College Court. Lysons refers to it as follows: “To the north of the college is an enclosure of about thirteen acres, planted with avenues of limes and horse-chestnuts.” Its dimensions have since been reduced by the land given up to the parish for road-making. In 1888 it was decided to allow the soldiers quartered at the adjacent barracks to use it as a recreation-ground. Through the centre of it runs an avenue of trees in direct continuation from the Hospital gates. This opens on to St. Leonard’s Terrace in two fine iron gates with stone pillars, surmounted by military arms in stone. Beyond these gates, still in the same straight line, runs the Royal Avenue, formerly known as White Stiles. It is mentioned very early in the Hospital records, payments for masonry and carpentry work being noted in 1692. Faulkner repeats a tradition to the effect that Queen Anne intended to have extended this avenue right through to the gates of the palace at Kensington, and was only prevented from carrying it out by her death. At present the avenue 88 intersected by Queen’s Road and St. Leonard’s Terrace is disjointed and purposeless.
RANELAGH GARDENS.
The site of Ranelagh Gardens, which in their zenith eclipsed even the Vauxhall Gardens as a place of entertainment, is now included in the grounds of the Royal Hospital.
Richard, Earl of Ranelagh, Paymaster-General of the Forces in the reign of James II., was a thoroughly unscrupulous but an able man. He was three times censured for appropriating the public money to his own private use, and was finally expelled from his office in the fourth year of Queen Anne’s reign. Notwithstanding this, he obtained a grant of some land belonging to the Royal Hospital in 1690, when the building was nearly completed. This land lay to the south of the burial-ground, and between the Hospital and what is now known as Bridge Road. This was leased to him for sixty-one years at an annual rent of £15 7s. 6d. He built a house on it, and soon after obtained fifteen acres more at £30 4s. per annum, and finally a third grant, which in 1698 was confirmed to him with that portion he already held, to be held in fee on condition of his paying an annual rent of £5 to the Hospital. This Earl, described by Swift as the “vainest old fool I 89 ever saw,” seems to have had great delight in landscape-gardening. He laid out his land with fastidious care, and thus paved the way for the public gardens of the future. His grounds are described in “Views of the Gardens near London, December, 1691,” by Gibson:
“My Lord Ranelagh’s garden being but lately made, plants are but small; but the plats, borders, and walks are curiously kept and elegantly designed, having the advantage of opening into Chelsea College walks. The kitchen-garden there lies very fine, with walks and seats, one of which being large and covered was then under the hands of a curious painter. The house here is very fine within, all the rooms being wainscoted with Norway oak, and all the chimneys adorned with carving, as in the Council Chamber in Chelsea College.”