Fireworks were occasionally displayed, and when a ball was given, the place was illuminated at a cost of about five pounds, and horns and clarionets played till twelve in the garden. In 1771 and 1772 a grand transparent painting forty feet wide and thirty high, with illuminations, was displayed. Over the centre arch of this masterpiece was a medallion of Neptune supported by Tritons: on each side were two fountains “with serpents jetting water, representing different coloured crystal.” On one wing was Neptune drawn by sea-horses; on the other, Venus rising from the sea; and the back arches showed a distant prospect of the sea. In June 1771 a representation was given “of the famous Fall of Water call’d Pystill Rhiader near the seat of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, Bart., in Denbighshire.”
Apparently these entertainments failed to pay the proprietor and in 1773 (?) he pulled down the grotto over the spring and rooted up the shrubs to form a skittle ground in connection with the tavern, which still continued to be carried on.
About 1777 the “messuages and lands known as the Grotto Gardens” were purchased for the parish of St. Saviour’s, Southwark, part of the ground being used for the erection of a workhouse and part for a Burial Ground (consecrated in 1780). In 1799 the Workhouse was sold to Mr. John Harris, hat manufacturer, and M.P. for Southwark in 1830, who used it as his manufactory and residence. Some relics of the old Grotto were to be found many years after the closing of the Gardens, notably the Octagon Room, which was converted into a mill and at one time used as the armoury of the Southwark Volunteers.
In 1824 “a very large and old mulberry tree” was standing at the end of a long range of wooden tea-rooms formerly belonging to the gardens and converted into inferior cottages. Behind the cottages was a water-course derived from Loman’s Pond dividing them from a field, once part of the gardens, though only occupied at that time by dust and rubbish.
The tavern attached to the Gardens continued to be carried on under the sign of the Grotto till 28 May, 1795, when it was destroyed by fire. The new tavern erected in its place bore the sign of The Goldsmith’s Arms, and afterwards of the “Old Grotto new reviv’d.”
In the front of this house was inserted a stone bearing the inscription:—
Here Herbs did grow
And Flowers sweet,
But now ’tis call’d
Saint George’s Street.[271]