PLAN OF CUPER’S GARDENS.
J. T. Smith[283] tells us that he walked over the place when occupied by the Beaufoys, and saw many of the old lamp-irons along the paling of the gardens, humble reminders of the days when the walks of Cuper’s Gardens were “beautifully illuminated with lamp-trees in a grand taste, disposed in proper order.” In 1814 part of the ground was required for making the south approach to Waterloo Bridge. The “fireworks” building and the rest of Messrs. Beaufoys’ works were then taken down and the Waterloo Road, sixty feet in width, was cut through the three acres, thus passing through the centre of Cuper’s Gardens which had extended up to the site of the present St. John’s Church (built in 1823) opposite Waterloo Station.
The Royal Infirmary for Children and Women erected in 1823 on the eastern side of the Waterloo Road stands on (or rather over) the centre of the site of the gardens. The Feathers was used during the building of the bridge for the pay-table of the labourers, and when it was taken down (about 1818?) its site was occupied by a timber-yard, close to the eastern side of the first land-arch of the Waterloo Bridge.
The public-house now called the Feathers, standing near the Bridge and rising two stories above the level of the Waterloo Road was built by the proprietor of the old Feathers in 1818.
[Wilkinson’s Londina Illustrata, vol. ii. “Cuper’s Gardens,” Public Gardens Coll. in Guildhall Library, London (newspaper cuttings, &c.); Charles Howard’s Historical Anecdotes of the Howard Family (1769), 98, ff.; Pennant’s Account of London, 3rd ed. 1793, 32–34; Musical Times, February 1894, 84, ff.; Hone’s Every Day Book, i. 603; E. Hatton’s New View of London, 1708, ii. 785; Lysons’s Environs, 1792, i. 319, 320; Walford, vi. 388, 389; The Observator, March 10, 1702-3; newspaper cuttings, W. Coll.]
VIEWS.
1. View of the Savoy, Somerset House, and the water entrance to Cuper’s Gardens, engraved by W. M. Fellows, 1808, in J. T. Smith’s Antiquities of Westminster, from a painting (done in 1770, according to Crace, Cat. 188, No. 219) by Samuel Scott.
2. Woodcuts in Walford, vi. 391, showing entrance to the gardens (the back entrance) and the “orchestra” during the demolition of the buildings; cp. ib. 390. Walford also mentions, ib. p. 388, a view showing the grove, statues, and alcoves, of the gardens.
3. Water-colour drawings of Beaufoys’ and Cuper’s in 1798 and in 1809 (Crace, Cat. 648, Nos. 49, 50).
4. Wilkinson, Lond. Illust. (1825), vol. ii. gives three views, Pl. 155, view of the Great Room as occupied for Beaufoys’ manufactory, with a plan of the gardens; Pl. 156, another similar view; Pl. 157, view of the old Feathers Tavern.