South London

by Walter Besant

VAUXHALL JUBILEE ADMISSION TICKET

Many things were required to make a Pleasure Garden. There must be, first, abundance of trees—at first cherry trees, but these afterwards disappeared: if possible, there should be avenues of trees: aisles and dark walks of trees. There must be, next, an ornamental water with a fountain and a bridge: there must be a row of rustic bowers or retreats in which tea and supper could be served: there must be a platform for open-air dancing and promenading: there must be card-rooms: there must be a long room for dancing and for promenading, with a gallery for the orchestra and the singers. Add to these things a crowd every night including all classes and conditions of men and women. The eighteenth century was by no means a leveller of distinctions, but all classes met together without levelling. Distinctions were preserved: each party kept to itself: the nobleman wore his star and sash: he did not pretend to be on a level with the people around him: they liked him to keep up the dignity of aristocratic separation: he brought Ladies to the Gardens, sometimes in domino, sometimes not. They were not expected to speak to the ladies outside their set: they danced together in the minuets: after the minuets they withdrew. The main point about the company of the Gardens was that each party was separate and kept separate. In the Park, either in the morning or the afternoon, it was not difficult to make acquaintances. The reason was that in the Park were only to be found in the morning or the afternoon those people who were not engaged in earning their livelihood. Accordingly, all professional men—lawyers, physicians, attorneys, surgeons, artists, architects, literary people: all those engaged in trade, from the greatest merchant to the smallest shopkeeper, were excluded: they were occupied elsewhere. Therefore, the servants and footmen not being allowed in the Park, but compelled to wait outside, the people of position had the place to themselves, and access was easy. In the Gardens it was different: all could enter who paid the shilling for an entrance fee. Among them were the gentlemen in the red coat who bore His Majesty's Commission: the young fellows about town, a noisy disreputable band with noisy and disreputable companions: the plain citizen with his wife and daughter, the young fellow who was courting her: the young tradesman taking a holiday for once: the highwayman: the common pickpocket, and whole troops of the customary courtesan. All were here enjoying together—but separated into tiny groups of two or three—the strings of coloured lamps, the blare of the orchestra, the songs, the dances, and the supper. As for the last, it seems to have been always a cold collation: it generally consisted of chicken and a thin slice of ham, with a bowl of punch and a bottle of Port. There was no affectation of fine or polite behaviour; everybody behaved exactly as he pleased: the citizen was not gêné by the presence of the great lady: he prattled his vulgar commonplaces without being abashed: nor did the great lady put on 'side,' or behave among her own company with any affectation of dignity or reserve in the presence of the mercer of Ludgate Hill in the next box. Perhaps the recognition of rank made them all behave more naturally. After all, the mercer had his own rank. He could look forward to becoming Alderman, Sheriff, and Lord Mayor: he understood very well that he was already a good way up the ladder: the social precedence which belongs to the possession of money and the employment of many servants had already placed him in front of a vast crowd of inferiors: he was perfectly satisfied with his own position, although he could certainly never become a noble earl or wear a star upon his breast, or hope to consort on equal terms with the jewelled lady in silks which he knew (professionally) to be beyond all price, with her rouged face and high-dressed head, who laughed so loud and talked so fast with the noble lords her companions, one of whom was blind drunk and the other was a little mincing beau who walked on his toes with bent knees and carried his hat under his arm, and spoke under his breath as if every word was to be listened to. Do you think the honest mercer was indignant at the manners of the great? Not he: he called for another bowl of punch and tied his handkerchief over his wig to keep off the damp. In the box on the other side of the citizen from Ludgate Hill was a party also taking supper and punch, with plenty of the latter. They were under the lead of an extremely fine gentleman: his white coat was covered with gold lace: his hat was laced in the same way: his waistcoat was of flowered silk: his ruffles were of white lace—lace of Valenciennes. The ladies with him were dressed with a corresponding splendour. Everybody knew that the gentleman was a highwayman: his face was perfectly well known: he had been going on so long that his time must soon be up. In a few months at most he would take that fatal journey in the cart to Tyburn, there to meet the end common to his kind. A good many people in the Gardens knew, besides, that the ladies with him—ladies of St. Giles in the Fields—were dressed from the stores of a receiving house for stolen goods. Perhaps the consciousness of this cheap and easy way of getting one's clothes made the ladies so buoyantly and extravagantly happy, with their sprightly sallies and their high-bred courtesy of adjectives. But the mercer troubled himself not at all about them.

The toleration of the mercer ought to endear his memory to us. For in all public assemblies there are things which must be tolerated. Less wise, we shut up the Assembly. We cannot keep out the Lady of the Camellias from the Pleasure Garden. Therefore we shut up the place. In the eighteenth century this lady was told that everybody must behave with a certain amount of restraint: we have improved upon that manner: we cut off our nose to spite our face: we shut up the lovely Garden because we cannot keep her out.

For the same reason we have practically forbidden the youth of the lower middle class to practise the laudable, innocent, and delightful diversion of dancing. Not a single place, except certain so-called clubs, where the young people can now go to dance. Why? Because the magistrates in their wisdom have concluded that vice free and unchecked out of doors is better for the people than vice fettered and restrained by the necessity of behaving decently, and compelled to hide itself under the semblance of virtue. The Pleasure Gardens were shut up one after the other for that reason. When will they return? And in what form?

The Gardens of South London were not so celebrated as those of the North. Against Ranelagh, Cremorne, Marylebone, Bagnigge Wells, the White Conduit House—the South can only point to Vauxhall as a national institution. They were, however, of considerable note in their time, and were greatly frequented. They lay in a half circle, like pearls on a chain, all round South London. There were the Lambeth Wells, the Marble Hall, and the Cumberland Gardens at Vauxhall, besides Vauxhall itself; the Black Prince, Newington Butts; the Temple of Flora, the Temple of Apollo, the Flora Tea Gardens, the Restoration Spring Gardens, the Dog and Duck, the Folly on the Thames; Cuper's Gardens; Finch's Grotto, the Bermondsey Spa, and St. Helena Gardens, Rotherhithe. No doubt there were others, but these were the principal Gardens.

Cuper's Gardens lay exactly opposite to Somerset House. When Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Bridge Road were constructed the latter passed right through the former site of the Gardens. St. John's Church marks the southern limit of the Gardens. They were opened about the year 1678 by one Cuper, gardener to the Earl of Arundel. He begged such of the statues belonging to his master as were mutilated, and decorated the new gardens with them. Aubrey mentions them as belonging to Jesus College, Oxford; he calls them Cupid's gardens, and speaks of the arbours and walks of the place. There was a tavern connected with the gardens by the riverside, and fireworks were exhibited. These gardens continued until 1753, when they were suppressed as a nuisance. Cunningham quotes the prologue to Mrs. Centlivre's 'Busy Body.'

The Fleet Street sempstress, toast of Temple sparks,
That runs spruce neckcloths for attorneys' clerks,
At Cupid's Gardens will her hours regale,
Sing 'Fair Dorinda,' and drink bottled ale.

THE DOG AND DUCK, BETHLEM