The Bowling Green House, a tavern with a large bowling green attached to it on the south, was situated at the back of the Foundling Hospital, and south of the New Road. A lane turning out of Gray’s Inn Lane led to it. It is first mentioned in 1676,[65] and it afterwards gained notoriety as a resort of gamesters. On a day in March, 1696, the house was suddenly surrounded by soldiers and constables, who seized and conveyed before a Justice of the Peace every person found on the premises. Some of the offenders had to pay a fine of forty shillings apiece.[66]
In the course of years, the character of the place changed, and in 1756 the proprietor, Joseph Barras,[67] announced that he had greatly altered and fitted up the Bowling Green House[68] in a “genteel manner.” The Bowling Green was declared to be in exceeding fine order, and coffee, tea, and hot loaves were to be had every day. J. P. Malcolm[69] says that the Bowling Green House was for many years a quiet country retreat, but shortly before 1811 it was removed, and Judd Street, Tonbridge Street, &c., began to cover the space south of New Road. Hastings Street and part of Tonbridge Street appear to be on the site.
[Authorities cited in the notes.]
ADAM AND EVE TEA GARDENS, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD
The premises of the Adam and Eve stood at the north-west extremity of Tottenham Court Road, at the lower end of the road leading to Hampstead, and occupied the site of the manor-house of the ancient manor of Tottenhall or Tottenham.
The Adam and Eve Tavern is known to have been in existence under that sign in 1718.[70] Already in the seventeenth century Tottenham Court is mentioned as a place of popular resort, one of “the City out-leaps” (Broome, New Academy, 1658). George Wither (Britain’s Remembrancer, 1628) speaks of the London holiday-makers who frequented it:—
“And Hogsdone, Islington and Tottenham Court,
For cakes and cream had then no small resort.”
In 1645 Mrs. Stacye’s maid and two others (as the Parish books of St. Giles in the Fields record) were fined one shilling apiece for the enormity of “drinking at Tottenhall Court on the Sabbath daie.”[71] In Wycherley’s Gentleman Dancing-master (1673) a ramble to Totnam Court is mentioned together with such fashionable diversions as a visit to the Park, the Mulberry Garden, and the New Spring Garden (i.e. Vauxhall).
In the succeeding century Tottenham Court Fair and the “Gooseberry Fair” doubtless brought many a customer to the Adam and Eve, and in the spring-time, as Gay expresses it, “Tottenham fields with roving beauty swarm.” The Adam and Eve then possessed a long room, with an organ, and in its spacious gardens in the rear and at the side of the house were fruit-trees and arbours for tea-drinking parties. There were grounds for skittles and Dutch-pins, and in the fore-court which was shadowed by large trees, tables and benches were placed for the visitors. At one time it could boast the possession of a monkey, a heron, some wild fowl, some parrots, and a small pond for gold fish.