Nothing is known of the garden subsequent to 1752. The site was used about 1797 as the exercising ground of the Clerkenwell Association of Volunteers, and the House of Detention (now replaced by a Board School) was subsequently built on it.
[Pinks’s Clerkenwell.]
VIEWS.
Two engravings, probably contemporary, showing well-dressed gentlemen playing at ninepins near the mulberry tree: Guildhall Library, London (Catal. p. 210). One of these views is engraved in Pinks, p. 128.
SADLER’S WELLS
Towards the close of the seventeenth century there stood on the site of the present Sadler’s Wells Theatre (Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell), a wooden building of a single story erected by Sadler, a surveyor of the highways, as a Music House. The house stood in its own grounds, and the New River flowed past its southern side.
It was in the garden of this house that in 1683 some workmen in Sadler’s employ accidentally unearthed an ancient well, arched over and curiously carved. Sadler, suspecting the water to have medicinal properties, submitted it for analysis to a doctor, who advised him to brew ale with it. This he did with such excellent results that the ale of Sadler’s Wells became, and long remained, famous. In 1684, Dr. Thomas Guidot issued a pamphlet setting forth the virtues of the water which he described as a ferruginous chalybeate, akin to the waters of Tunbridge Wells, though not tasting so strongly of steel and having more of a nitrous sulphur about it. Being neither offensive nor unpleasant to taste, a man was able to drink more of it than of any other liquor. It might be taken with a few carraway comfits, some elecampane, or a little preserved angelica to comfort the stomach. A glass of Rhenish or white wine might also accompany the tonic, and habitual smokers would find it very convenient to take a pipe after drinking.
Sadler lost no time in advertising his Wells,[43] and in preparing for the reception of the water-drinkers. He laid out his garden with flowers and shrubs, and constructed in the centre a marble basin to receive the medicinal water. Posturers, tumblers and rope-dancers, performing at first in the open-air, were engaged. A Mrs. Pearson played on the dulcimer on summer evenings at the end of the Long Walk, and visitors danced to the strains of a band stationed on a rock of shellwork construction. The place soon became popular, and hundreds of people came daily to drink the water.
Epsom and Tunbridge Wells (in Kent) saw in Sadler’s Wells a serious rival to their own spas, and in 1684 a tract was issued protesting against this “horrid plot” laid to persuade people that “Sadler’s Musick House is South-Borrow and Clarkenwell Green Caverley Plain.” Was it possible for water from such a source to “bee effectual as our wonder-working fountains that tast of cold iron, and breathe pure nitre and sulphur”? Audacious and unconscionable Islington should surely be content with its monopoly from time immemorial of the sale of cakes, milk, custards, stewed prunes, and bottled ale. But even if the waters “could be conceited somewhat comparable, where is the air? Where the diversions? Where the conveniences?”
Possibly this tirade was not ineffectual; at any rate, about 1687 the place was comparatively deserted and the well fell into disuse. “Sadler’s excellent steel waters” were, however, again advertised in 1697 as being as full of vigour, strength and virtue as ever they were and very effectual for curing all hectic and hypochondriacal heat, for beginning consumptions and for melancholy distempers. The water-drinking appears to have finally ceased early in the eighteenth century;[44] though the place, surrounded by fields till quite late in the century, remained a pleasant resort for Londoners.