“And do you see the remains of a house near the church?” Godmother asked, pointing to all that was left of a beautiful mansion which workmen were even then pulling down. “That’s where Sir Thomas More lived for many years. You see it being destroyed before your eyes in the reign of George the Second. So it seems they were no more careful to preserve beautiful or interesting buildings in the eighteenth century than we are who live in the twentieth! Every time you walk down Beaufort Street, Chelsea, you may remember that you are on the site of that old house and its gardens.”
One other building besides the church, Betty had recognized. Like the church, it stood surrounded by fields and gardens, instead of by the houses and streets of modern days. This was the Chelsea Hospital which, as she already knew, had been built by Charles the Second as a home for the old soldiers of his day and was still the home for the old soldiers of our own times. She knew well by sight the old men in their scarlet coats, and almost every day she walked through the gardens belonging to the Hospital. But the gardens she now saw from the boat looked much larger, and had an altogether different appearance.
“What’s that great round thing among the trees, Godmother?” she asked.
“That’s the Rotunda of Ranelagh.”
“But what is it? It’s not there now in our time!”
“No, but in this reign it’s a very celebrated place of amusement for all the gay world of London. The two fashionable pleasure gardens are Vauxhall and this Ranelagh, close to Chelsea Hospital. Do you know Doulton’s big factory on the opposite side of the river?”
“Yes, the place with the tall terra-cotta chimney, you mean?”
“Well, just about where the factory stands in our day, stretches a garden laid out with winding walks and avenues of trees. You can just see it from this point. That is the famous Vauxhall. Eighteenth-century novels are full of mention of Ranelagh and Vauxhall, and Boswell tells us how fond Dr. Johnson was of both of them.”
“Oh, can’t we land, and see one of them?” Betty implored.