"Will you go to Bagnigge Wells,
Bonnet builder, O!
Where the Fleet ditch fragrant smells,
Bonnet builder, O!
Where the fishes used to swim,
So nice and sleek and trim,
But the pond's now covered in,
Bonnet builder, O!
Punch, too, when it was young, and had warm blood coursing through its veins, visited Bagnigge Wells, and recorded the visit in its pages (Sept. 7, 1843). After a description of the walk thither, it says, "We last visited Bagnigge Wells about the beginning of the present week, and, like many travellers, at first passed close to it without seeing it. Upon returning, however, our eye was first arrested by an ancient door in the wall over which was inscribed the following:— [39]
"This inscription, of which the above is a fac simile was surmounted by a noseless head carved in stone; and, underneath, was a cartoon drawn in chalk upon the door, evidently of a later date, and bearing a resemblance to some of the same class in Gell's 'Pompeii.' Underneath was written in letters of an irregular alphabet, 'Chucky'—the entire drawing being, without doubt, some local pasquinade.