2. An engraving published in Gent. Mag. 1819, pt. 2, p. 401; reproduced in Clinch’s Marylebone, facing p. 40.
THE JEW’S HARP HOUSE AND TEA GARDENS
The Jew’s Harp House was in Marylebone Park, a little to the north-west of the Queen’s Head and Artichoke, from which it was separated by fields. It is marked in Rocque’s map of 1745, and while still a quiet inn, is said to have been a favourite haunt of Arthur Onslow, the famous Speaker (b. 1691, d. 1768), who used to take his pipe and glass in the chimney corner. One day when driving to the House of Commons in his coach, he was recognised by the landlord, and on his next visit to the inn was welcomed by the family as befitted Mr. Speaker. His incognito was thus betrayed, and he returned no more.
By 1772 it had become a recognised place of amusement provided with “bowery tea-gardens,” skittle-grounds,[119] a trap-ball ground and a tennis court. A large upper room, reached by a staircase from the outside, was used as a dining-room for large parties and occasionally for evening dances. Facing the south of the premises was a semi-circular enclosure with boxes for ale and tea drinking, guarded by painted deal-board soldiers.
The place was in existence till about 1812, when it was removed for the formation of Regent’s Park. It stood between the present Broad Walk of the Park, and the north-east corner of the Botanic Gardens.
JEW’S HARP HOUSE, 1794.
[J. T. Smith’s Book for a Rainy Day, pp. 17, 18 (ed. 1833); Hone’s Year Book, p. 318; Larwood and Hotten, Signboards, pp. 340, 341, where J. T. Smith’s description of the Jew’s Harp, Marylebone, is wrongly referred to the Jew’s Harp, Islington; Timbs’s Club Life (1866), ii. p. 236; Chambers’s Book of Days, ii. p. 74; Wheatley’s London, s.v. “Jew’s Harp”; Walford, v. p. 255; Clinch’s Marylebone and St. Pancras, p. 48; Picture of London, 1802, p. 370.]
VIEWS.
The Jew’s Harp public-house in Marylebone Park. A water-colour drawing by Bigot, 1794. Crace, Cat. p. 569, No. 106; cp. a sketch in Clinch’s Marylebone, p. 48.