MARYLEBONE GARDENS
§ 1. Origin of Marylebone Gardens.
The principal entrance[91] to these well-known gardens was through The Rose (or Rose of Normandy), a tavern situated on the east side of the High Street, Marylebone, opposite (old) Marylebone Church. The gardens extended as far east as the present Harley Street; and Beaumont Street, part of Devonshire Street, part of Devonshire Place, and Upper Wimpole Street now occupy their site. When enlarged (in 1753) to their fullest extent they comprised about eight acres, and were bounded on the south by Weymouth Street, formerly called Bowling Green Lane or Bowling Street.
As a place of amusement of the Vauxhall type, the gardens date, practically, from 1738, but the Marylebone garden and bowling-green came into existence at a much earlier period.
The gardens were originally those belonging to the old Marylebone Manor House,[92] and were detached from it in 1650. There were several bowling-greens in the immediate vicinity, the principal of which was a green appurtenant to the Rose, and situated in the gardens behind this tavern. In 1659 the gardens of the Rose, the nucleus of the later Marylebone Gardens, consisted of gravel walks, a circular walk, and the bowling-green which formed the central square. The walks at that time were “double-set with quick-set hedges, full grown and indented like townwalls.” On the outside of the whole was a brick wall, with fruit trees.
Pepys records a visit in 1668 (7 May):—“Then we abroad to Marrowbone, and there walked in the garden: the first time I ever was there, and a pretty place it is.”
In 1691 the place was known as Long’s Bowling Green at the Rose, and for several years (circ. 1679–1736) persons of quality might be seen bowling there during the summer time:—
At the Groom Porter’s batter’d bullies play;
Some Dukes at Marybone bowl time away.[93]
Less innocent amusement was afforded by the tavern, which, at the end of the seventeenth and in the early part of the eighteenth century, was notorious as a gaming-house. Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham (d. 1712) was wont at the end of the season to give a dinner at the Rose to its chief frequenters, proposing as the toast, “May as many of us as remain unhanged next spring meet here again.” “There will be deep play to-night (says Macheath in the Beggar’s Opera), and consequently money may be pick’d up on the road. Meet me there, and I’ll give you the hint who is worth setting.”