This building was removed for the formation of the present Southwark Bridge Road in 1825 and a public house named The Goldsmith’s Arms—still standing—was built on the western side of the new road, more upon the site of the old Grotto Gardens. The main site of the gardens is now occupied by the large red-brick building, which forms the headquarters of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
[Wilkinson’s Londina Illustrata, vol. ii., “Finch’s Grotto Gardens”; Manning and Bray’s Surrey, iii. 591; Brayley and Mantell’s Surrey, v. 371; Rendle and Norman’s Inns of Old Southwark, 360–364; Walford, vi. 64; newspaper cuttings, W. Coll.]
VIEWS.
The only view is one of the second tavern published in Wilkinson’s Londina Illustrata, 1825:—
“South-east view of the Grotto, now the Goldsmith’s Arms in the Parish of St. George’s, Southwark.” This shows the inscription: “Here Herbs did grow.”
CUPER’S GARDENS
Cuper’s Gardens, a notable resort during the first half of the last century, owe their name and origin to Boyder Cuper, who rented, in the parish of Lambeth on the south side of the Thames opposite Somerset House, a narrow strip of meadow land surrounded by water-courses.
About 1691 or earlier he opened the place as a pleasure garden with agreeable walks and arbours and some good bowling-greens. As an old servant of the Howard family he obtained the gift of some of the statues that had been removed when Arundel House in the Strand was pulled down. These, though mutilated and headless, appeared to the proprietor to give classic distinction to his garden, and they remained there till 1717, when his successor, a John Cuper, sold these ‘Arundel Marbles’ for £75.[272]
During the first twenty or thirty years of the last century, Cuper’s was a good deal frequented in the summer-time. A tavern by the waterside, called The Feathers, was connected with the grounds.
It is not certain that music and dancing were provided at this period, and the company appears to have consisted chiefly of young attorneys’ clerks and Fleet Street sempstresses, with a few City dames, escorted by their husbands’ ’prentices, who (perhaps after paying a visit to the floating ‘Folly’) sat in the arbours singing, laughing, and regaling themselves with bottle-ale.[273]