“’Tis not wisdom to love without reason,
Or to censure without knowing why;
I had witness’d no crime, nor no treason;
‘Oh, life, ’tis thy picture,’ said I.
’Tis just thus we saunter along;
Months and years bring their pleasure or pain.
We sigh midst the right and the wrong;
And then we go round them again!”
Though Bloomfield’s metre can be scarce held faultless, yet his power of detailed description has preserved us a living picture of Ranelagh in the height of its glory. Balls and fêtes succeeded each other. Lysons tell us that “for some time previously to 1750 a kind of masquerade, called a Jubilee Ball, was much in fashion at Ranelagh, but 94 they were suppressed on account of the earthquakes in 1750.”
The masked balls were replaced by other festivities. In 1775 a famous regatta was held at Ranelagh, and in 1790 a magnificent display of fireworks, at which the numbers in attendance reached high-water mark, numbering between 3,000 and 4,000 exclusive of free admissions. In 1802 an aeronaut ascended from the gardens in a balloon, and the last public entertainment was a ball given by the Knights of the Bath in 1803. The following year the gardens were closed. Sir Richard Phillips, writing in 1817, says that he could then trace the circular foundation of the rotunda, and discovered the broken arches of some cellars which had once been filled with the choicest wines. And Jesse, in 1871, says he discovered, attached to one or two in the avenue of trees on the site of the gardens, the iron fixtures to which the variegated lamps had been hung. The promenades at Ranelagh, for some time before its end, were thinly attended and the place became unprofitable. It was never again opened to the public after July 8, 1803.
In 1805 Ranelagh House and the rotunda were demolished, the furniture and fittings sold, and the organ made by Byfield purchased for the church of Tetbury, in Gloucestershire. Lysons adds that the site was intended to be let on building leases. 95 This plan was, however, never carried out, and the ground reverted to the Royal Hospital. The gardens are now quite differently planned from what they were originally. The public is admitted to them under certain restrictions. One or two massive elms, which must have seen the Ranelagh entertainments blossom into life and fade away, are the only ancient relics remaining.
With this account of the Ranelagh Gardens we close our description of Chelsea, having wandered west and east, north and south, and found everywhere some memento of those bygone times, which by their continuity with the present constitute at once the glory and fascination of London, the greatest city in the world.
INDEX
Addison, [54]
Alston House, [30]
Apothecaries’ Garden, [22]
Arthur Street, [59]
Ashburnham House, [52], [53]
Astell, Mrs. Mary, [19]
Atterbury, [44]
Attwood, Thomas, [28]
Bartolozzi, [61]
Beaufort Street, [46], [49]
Blantyre Street, [52]
Bowack, [44]
Braganza, Catherine of, [27]
Bramah, [51]
Bramerton Street, [36]
Bray, Sir Reginald, [5]
Brunel, [51]
Burial-ground, [8]
Burnaby Street, [54]
Burton’s Court, [14], [87]
Butler, Dr. Weedon, [27]
Byron, [66]
Cadogan Place, [66]
Cadogan Square, [64]
Cadogan Street, [63]
Cale Street, [63]
Carlyle, [35]
Carlyle Square, [59]
Caroline, Queer, [84]
Chamberlayne, Dr., [45]
Chelsea Barracks, [8]
Chelsea china, [32]
Chelsea College, [67]
Chelsea Creek, [54]
Chelsea Embankment, [24]
Chelsea House, [66]
Chelsea Public Library, [59]
Chelsea Workhouse, [61]
Cheyne, Charles, [6], [32]
Cheyne House, [30]
Cheyne, Lady Jane, [6], [32], [43]
Cheyne Row, [35]
Cheyne Walk, [24], [34]
Church Lane, [44]
Church Street, [37]
Churches:
Christ, [17]
St. Columba, [64]
Holy Trinity, [65]
St. Jude’s, [10]
Lawrence Chapel, [39]
St. Luke’s, [61]
St. Mary’s (Roman Catholic), [63]
Old Parish, [37]
Park Chapel, [57]
St. Saviour’s, [65]
St. Simon Zelote’s, [64]
Cipriani, [61]
Cleves, Anne of, [6]
Clock House, [24]
Cremorne Villa, [52]
Cremorne Pleasure Gardens, [53]
Dacre Tomb, [42]
Dacres, The, [49]
Danvers House, [46]
Danvers, Sir John, [46]
Danvers Street, [46]
Doggett’s Coat and Badge, [22]
D’Orsay, Count, [29]
Duke of York’s School, [10]
Durham House, [14]
Durham Place, [15]
Dyce, William, [26]
Elgin marbles, [56]
Eliot, George, [26]
Elizabeth, Princess, [25]
Emerson, [35]
Faulkner, [16]
Flood Street, [17], [29]
Fox, Sir Stephen, [69]
Franklin’s Row, [10]
Gordon, General, [58]
Gordon House, [86]
Gothic House, [29]
Gough House, [20]
Grey, Lady Jane, [25]
Gwynne, Nell, [54], [69]
Halsey Street, [64]
Hamilton, Duke of, [6]
Hamilton, Sir William, [56]
Hans Place, [64], [65]
Haweis, Rev. H. R., [27]
Hazlitt, [28]
Heber, Reginald, [45]
Hoadly, Bishop, [25]
Hoadly, Dr. Benjamin, [53]
Hogarth, [27]
Holbein Place, [7], [66]
Hospitals:
Cancer, [62]
Consumption, [59]
Incurable Children, [36]
Royal, [67]
Victoria, [20]
Howard, James, [6]
Howard, Lady, [6]
Hunt, Holman, [36]
Hunt, Leigh, [35], [36]
Jews’ Burial-ground, [58]
Johnson, Dr., [33]
Jubilee Place, [63]
Keats collection, [60]
King, Dr. John, [45]
Kingsley, Rev. Charles, [45]
King’s Road, [57], [60]
Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, [64]
Lawrence House, [37]
Lawrence Street, [36]
Lennox Gardens, [64]
Letters of Junius, [34]
Lindsey, Earl of, [51]
Lindsey House, [50]
Lindsey Row, [51]
Linnæus, [24]
Lot’s Road, [54]
Lower Sloane Street, [9], [66]
Lowndes Square, [66]
Maclise, Daniel, [26]
“Magpie and Stump,” The, [34]
Manor House, [15]
Markham Square, [63]
Markham Street, [63]
Marlborough Road, [63]
Martin, [51]
Martineau, Harriet, [36]
Mazarin, Duchess of, [18]
Mendelssohn Gardens, [10]
Meredith, [27]
Miller, Mr., [24]
Milman Street, [49]
Milner Terrace, [64]
Mitford, Miss, [65]
Monmouth House, [37]
Moore Street, [64]
Moravian Burial-ground, [50]
More, Sir Thomas, [46]
Neild, James, [26]
New Manor House, [24]
Norman, Sir Henry, [86]
North, Hon. Brownlow, [25]
Northcote, R.A., Sir James, [34]
Northumberland, Duke of, [5]
Nottingham, Countess of, [6]
Oakley Crescent, [30]
Oakley Street, [30]
Old Chelsea Bun House, [7]
Old Swan House, [24]
Ormond, Duke of, [20]
Ormond Row, [14]
Palace of the Bishops of Winchester, [25]
Paradise Row, [18], [22]
Paradise Walk, [22]
Park Walk, [57]
Parr, Queen Catherine, [5]
Paulet, Sir William, [49]
Pavilion Road, [65]
Petyt’s School, [44]
Phené, Dr., [30]
Pimlico Road, [7]
Pont Street, [64]
Prince’s Cricket Ground, [64]
Queen’s Elm, [58]
Queen’s House, [27]
Queen’s Road, [8]
Queen’s Road West, [17]
Radnor House, [16], [17]
Radnor Street, [16]
Ranelagh, Earl of, [88]
Ranelagh Gardens, [67], [88]
Rectory, The, [45]
Redesdale Street, [16]
Revelstoke, [10]
Robinson’s Street, [16]
Rossetti, D. G., [27]
Royal Avenue, [14], [87]
Royal Military Asylum, [10]
Ruskin, Mr., [13], [36]
Saltero, Don, [28]
Sandford Manor House, [54]
Sandys, Lord, [5]
Seaton Street, [52]
Seymour, Lord, [5]
Shadwell, Thomas, [44]
Shawfield Street, [16]
Shelley, [65]
Shelley House, [22]
Shrewsbury House, [31]
Sloane Court, [10]
Sloane Gardens, [66]
Sloane, Sir Hans, [7], [22], [43], [49]
Sloane Street, [65]
Sloane Terrace, [66]
Smith Street, [14], [16]
Smith Terrace, [16]
Smollett, Dr., [37]
South Parade, [59]
St. Albans, Duke of, [20]
St. Leonard’s Terrace, [10], [14], [37]
St. Mark’s College, [55]
Stadium Street, [54]
Stanhope, Lord, [6]
Stanley House, [55]
Steele, Sir Richard, [34]
Suett, [20]
Swift, Dean, [44]
Swinburne, [27]
Sydney Street, [61]
Tedworth Square, [16]
Tennyson, [36]
Tite Street, [20]
Trafalgar Square, [59]
Tree, Mr. Beerbohm, [26]
Tudor House, [27]
Turk’s Row, [9]
Turner, [51]
Tyndall, [36]
Walpole House, [85]
Walpole, Sir Robert, [14], [83]
Walpole Street, [14]
Walton Street, [65]
Wellesley, Hon. and Rev. Dr., [45]
Wellington Square, [14]
Wentworth House, [22]
Westbourne, The, [2]
Whistler, Mr., [20], [51]
Whitelands Training College, [13]
Winchester House, [30]
World’s End Passage, [52]
Zinzendorf, Count, [51]