2. Old Merlin’s Cave near the New River Head, Rosoman Street. A drawing by C. H. Matthews, 1833. Crace, Cat. p. 592, No. 70.
BAGNIGGE WELLS
A modern public-house, “Ye olde Bagnigge Wells,” standing on the west side of the King’s Cross Road (formerly Bagnigge Wells Road), and the building yard of Messrs. Cubitt, behind it, now occupy part of the site of these famous Wells.
Bagnigge House, the building which formed the nucleus of the place of entertainment called Bagnigge Wells, is believed to have been a summer residence of Nell Gwynne. It fronted Bagnigge Wells Road, and was pleasantly situated, lying in a hollow called Bagnigge Wash (or Vale); and being well sheltered on all sides, except the south, by the rising grounds of Primrose Hill, Hampstead and Islington.[50]
In 1757 a Mr. Hughes, described as a man curious in gardening, and apparently the tenant of Bagnigge House, found that the more he watered his plants with the water drawn from a well in the garden, the less they seemed to thrive. He asked the opinion of a doctor, John Bevis, who analysed the water, and pronounced it a valuable chalybeate. At the same time the water of another well, sunk in the ground adjoining Bagnigge House, was discovered to possess cathartic properties. Hughes, realising the commercial possibilities of these wells, opened the house and gardens to the public, at least as early as April 1759. The place was open daily, including Sundays, and in 1760 Bevis published a pamphlet, setting forth the virtues of the waters.
The chalybeate well was situated just behind the house, and the cathartic well about forty yards north of the chalybeate. The water of the two wells, which were each some twenty feet in depth, was, however, brought to one point, and thence drawn from a double pump placed within a small circular edifice consisting of pillars supporting a dome, erected behind the house. This was commonly called the Temple. The chalybeate was of a ferruginous character having “an agreeable and sprightly sub-acid tartness,” and was, according to Bevis, “apt to communicate a kind of giddiness with an amazing flow of spirits and afterwards a propensity to sleep if exercise be not interposed.” The purging water left a “distinguishable brackish bitterness on the palate,” and three half-pints were “sufficient for most people,” without the addition of salts to quicken their virtue.
The charge for drinking the water at the pump was threepence: half a guinea entitled the visitor to its use throughout the season. At a later date when Bagnigge Wells was mainly frequented for its tea-gardens, a general charge of sixpence was made for admission.
The Long Room,[51] the old banqueting hall of Bagnigge House, was about seventy-eight feet by twenty-eight feet with a rather low ceiling and panelled walls. At one end of the room was a distorting mirror, a source of considerable amusement, which, for instance, revealed to Captain Tommy Slender of the Middlesex Militia, so odd a figure, that he was almost “hyp’d to death.” Filled with apprehension he consulted a physician, who understanding the use of the concave and convex mirror made his patient take copious draughts of the water, and, after pocketing his fee, led him to another panel of the glass, where the Captain beheld a portly well-conditioned man. Vastly pleased he went home convinced of the virtues of the wells. At the other end of the room was a good organ[52] which provided music for the company. A water organ was also to be heard in the grounds. The organ performances were prohibited on Sundays by the magistrates from about 1772, apparently with the idea of rendering the attractions of Bagnigge Wells less dangerously seductive. The organ was, however, played regularly on the week-day afternoons.[53]
“THE BREAD AND BUTTER MANUFACTORY, OR THE HUMORS OF BAGNIGGE WELLS,” 1772.