VIEWS.
1. The entrance to the St. Helena Tavern and tea-garden, water-colour drawing, signed R. B. 7 June, 1839 (W. Coll.).
2. Admission ticket in white metal. Size 1·5 inch. Nineteenth century, circ. 1839? (British Museum). Obverse: View of the entrance to the tavern and gardens (similar to No. 1); in foreground, two posts supporting semi-circular board inscribed “St. Helena Tavern and Tea Gardens. Dinners dress’d”: in exergue, “Rotherhithe.” Reverse: “Refreshment to the value of sixpence” within floral wreath.
3. Lithographed poster of the St. Helena Gardens, circ. 1875, showing the orchestra, dancing-platform, and gardens illuminated at night (W. Coll.).
FINCH’S GROTTO GARDENS
Finch’s Grotto Gardens situated on the western side of St. George’s Street, Southwark, near St. George’s Fields,[265] derived their name from Thomas Finch, a Herald Painter, who, having inherited from a relation a house and garden, opened both for the entertainment of the public in the spring of 1760. The garden possessed some lofty trees, and was planted with evergreens and shrubs. In the centre was a medicinal spring over which Finch constructed a grotto, wherein a fountain played over artificial embankments and formed “a natural and beautiful cascade.” The spring enjoyed some local celebrity, and was recommended to his patients by a doctor named Townshend, who resided in the Haymarket and afterwards in St. George’s Fields. In our own time Dr. Rendle has described the water as “merely the filtered soakage of a supersaturated soil,” which could be obtained almost anywhere in Southwark.
A subscription ticket of a guinea entitled the holder to such benefits, as Finch’s spring conferred and gave admission to the evening entertainments that were introduced from about 1764. The ordinary admission was a shilling, raised on special nights to two shillings. The gardens were open on Sunday when sixpence was charged, though the visitor was entitled for his money to tea, half a pint of wine, cakes, jelly or cyder.
ADMISSION TICKET, FINCH’S GROTTO.
An orchestra containing an organ by Pike, of Bloomsbury, stood in the garden, and there was another orchestra attached to a large octagonal music-room decorated with paintings and festoons of flowers. This Octagon Room was used for occasional balls and for the promenade and concert on wet evenings.