The builders soon went to work upon the twelve acres of Vauxhall Gardens, and in 1864 the church of St. Peter, Vauxhall, erected on part of the site, was consecrated. Numerous streets of small houses have for many years completely obliterated all traces of the gardens, the boundaries of which, it is, however, interesting to trace. The western boundary is marked by the present Goding Street, and the eastern by St. Oswald’s Place. Leopold Street and a small portion of Vauxhall Walk define their northern limit, and Upper Kennington Lane marks their southern extent. The space within these boundaries is occupied by Gye Street, Italian Walk, Burnett Street, Auckland Street, Glynn Street, and part of Tyers Street,[362] and also by St. Peter’s Church and the Lambeth District School of Art.
The Farewel to Vaux Hall.]
As late as 1869 “the Supper Colonnade of Vauxhall” was advertised to be sold cheap,[363] and with this prosaic detail of our own time, we must perforce take leave of the pleasure gardens of a past century.
AUTHORITIES AND VIEWS.
The literary and pictorial matter available for a history of Vauxhall Gardens is almost inexhaustible and, except in a monograph, it would be impossible to set forth a detailed list of authorities and views. The present sketch is primarily based on the materials furnished by an extensive collection in the writer’s possession, consisting of views, portraits, songs, bills, and cuttings from newspapers and magazines, and covering the period 1732–1859. Among many other authorities that have been consulted, the following may be mentioned:—Pepys’s Diary: A Sketch of the Spring Garden, Vauxhall (by John Lockman, 1753?); A Description of Vauxhall Gardens, London, S. Hooper, 1762 (Guildhall Library, London); Kearsley’s Stranger’s Guide (1793?); Sale Catalogues of Vauxhall Gardens, 1818 (Brit. Mus.) and 1841 (W. Coll.); A Brief Historical and Descriptive Account of the Royal Gardens, Vauxhall, 1822; The Vauxhall Papers, 1841; the histories of Lambeth and Surrey; W. H. Husk in Grove’s Dict. of Music, art. “Vauxhall Gardens”; Austin Dobson’s Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 1st ser. p. 230, ff.; Cunningham’s Handbook of London; Wheatley’s London Past and Present; Walford, vi. 447, ff.; Blanchard in Era Almanack for 1870, p. 9, ff.
INDEX
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