[47] The Sadler’s Wells anglers are mentioned in the Field Spy, a poem of 1714. The New River remained open until 1861–62 when it was covered in.
[48] A newspaper cutting in “Public Gardens” collection in Guildhall Library, records the death on 2 February, 1786, of Mrs. Bennet, of Merlin’s Cave, Spa Fields, who was the successor of her uncle, Mr. Hood.
[49] A view of the Merlin’s Cave at Richmond forms the frontispiece of Gent. Mag. 1735; on the cave, see Walford’s Greater London, ii. 345, ff
[50] A square stone bearing the inscription given below was, about 1760, over an old gateway in the wall to the north of the Long Room, and was still there in 1843. In 1850 it was to be seen in Coppice Row, now Farringdon Road.
S T
THIS IS BAGNIGGE
HOUSE NEARE
THE PINDER A
WAKEFEILDE
1680.
The Pinder a Wakefielde (the modern representative of which stands near the old site in Gray’s Inn Road) was a tavern; and some writers have inferred from the above inscription that Bagnigge Wells itself was a place of entertainment as early as 1680.
[51] Over one of the chimney-pieces of the room was the garter of the order of St. George, in relief, and over another the bust of a woman in Roman dress, popularly supposed to represent Nell Gwynne. This bust was let into a circular cavity of the wall, bordered with festoons of fruit and flowers moulded in delft earth and coloured after nature. Owing to the number of visitors promenading in the Long Room to the hindrance of the waiters, the room was, before 1797, divided into two, though we are told that the “former elegance” remained.
[52] The organ and its organist (under Davis), Charley Griffith, are shown in an engraving “The Bagnigge Organfist” (undated). “Published for the benefit of decayed musicians.”
[53] Picture of London, 1802.
[54] “Bagnigge Wells,” a song in the London Magazine, June, 1759.