[151] Pinks states that Price had been starring at the Three Hats, Islington, prior to his performance at Dobney’s in 1767 (cp. Memoirs of J. de Castro (1824), p. 29, who says that Price, Thomas Johnson, and old Sampson exhibited at the Three Hats). This may have been the case, though from 1758 to the spring of 1767, Thomas Johnson was certainly the chief equestrian performer at the “Three Hats.”
[152] London Evening Post, August 1776. The Pantheon is the tea-house in Exmouth Street.
[153] Tomlins in his Perambulation of Islington, published in 1858, but written in part about 1849, describes Prospect House as still existing behind Winchester Place, though the bowling green (he says) had been already covered by Winchester Place.
[154] Busby’s Folly is first mentioned in 1664 as a meeting-place of the Society of Bull Feathers Hall, a fraternity of Odd Fellows. It is supposed to have derived its name from Christopher Busby, landlord of the White Lion Inn, Islington, in 1668.
[155] Prologue written and spoken by Mr. Gibson before the Orphan at the New Theatre in the Haymarket on 31 May, 1762 (Owen’s Weekly Chronicle or Universal Journal, June 5 to 12, 1762). The “wonder of a Chelsea field” mentioned in this prologue is evidently Coan, the dwarf (called “the jovial pigmy”), who attracted visitors to the Dwarf’s Tavern in Chelsea Fields (see infra, Star and Garter, Chelsea).
[156] According to Nelson and Lewis, the house facing to the south at the northern termination of Colebrooke Row, was occupied about 1772 by the Rev. John Rule, who there kept a school, of some repute, for gentlemen’s sons. The Castle Inn was the adjoining house and a house next to the Castle was supposed by a doubtful tradition (cp. J. Knight, art. “Cibber” in Dict. Nat. Biog.) to be that in which Colley Cibber died 12 December, 1757 (see Nelson and Lewis). The old house with a red-tiled roof, still existing, though divided into the dwelling houses Nos. 56 and 57 Colebrooke Row, was apparently the Castle Inn. The southern end of Colebrooke Row was built in the present century. The Row also now extends a little farther to the north than when Nelson wrote, so that Rule’s house is not now at the extreme northern end of the Row.
[157] Sampson’s Riding School at Islington is mentioned in the Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine for January 1773, p. 162, together with Astley’s and Hughes’s.
[158] They were probably in existence before this date, but are not marked in the survey of Islington of 1735. An advertisement in The Morning Herald of 22 April, 1786, announces the sale of the ground-rents of an Islington copyhold estate. This estate, situated “in the Lower Street, opposite Cross Street, Islington, and extending down to Frog Lane,” comprised a brick mansion and garden, four dwelling-houses and gardens, and the Barley Mow Tea House and Gardens. A plan of the estate was to be seen at Mr. Spurrier’s, the auctioneer’s, Copthall Court, Throgmorton Street. The estate was therefore between the present Essex Road, where it is touched by Cross Street, and Popham Road.
[159] See the survey of roads in Islington parish in 1735 (Nelson’s Islington, p. 20).
[160] Hone, Every Day Book, i. p. 860. Tomlins (Islington, 204, 205) discovered that in 1753 it was occupied by a currier, and supposes, therefore, that it was not a place of entertainment till after that date. The meeting of the Highbury Society there before 1740 seems however to bear out Hone’s assertion that Copenhagen House was already an inn in the first half of the eighteenth century.