THE SPRING GARDEN, STEPNEY
This Spring Garden was situated a little distance to the north of the Mile End Road and its eastern side abutted on what is now Globe Road.
It was in existence at least as early as 1702, and at that period seems to have been sometimes known as the Jews’ Spring Garden,[86] probably because it was owned or frequented by some of the wealthy Jews who at that time and long afterwards resided in Goodman’s Fields and the neighbourhood. There was a tavern attached to the gardens, the keeper of which, in 1743, was a Mr. Dove Rayner,[87] described as a man of “agreeable mirth and good humour.”
The garden continued to exist till 1764 when we hear of it as a Sunday evening resort of holiday-makers,[88] but it does not appear to be mentioned at a later date.
In Horwood’s Plan (G) of 1799 the garden (or its site), together with a few buildings, is marked as Spring Garden Court. Later on, in the present century, the ground was known as Spring Grove. Nicholas Street and Willow Street, between Globe Road and St. Peter’s Road on the west, now appear to occupy part of the site.
About the middle of the last century Stepney is described as[89] a village consisting principally of houses of entertainment to which vast crowds of people of both sexes resorted on Sundays and at Easter and Whitsuntide, to eat Stepney buns and drink ale and cyder.
One of these inns was known as The Treat; and there is a print[90] of it, dated 1760, inscribed with the couplet:—
At Stepney now with cakes and ale,
Our tars their mistresses regale.