Beginning in what are now the densely populated districts of Clerkenwell and central London, he would find himself in the open fields and in a region abounding in mineral springs. Islington Spa (1684–1840) and its opposite neighbour Sadler’s Wells (from 1683) had chalybeate springs that claimed to rival the water (“so mightily cry’d up”) of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and if the water itself was unpalatable, the adjoining pleasure gardens and Long Rooms, with their gay company, tended to make the drinking of medicinal water both pleasant and seductive. At no great distance from Sadler’s Wells were the Wells of Bagnigge (from 1759), the London Spa (from 1685), St. Chad’s Well, and Pancras Wells (from circ. 1697); and a walk to Old Street would be rewarded by a plunge in the clear waters of the Peerless Pool, or by a basket of carp and tench caught in the fish pond close by.
Behind the Foundling Hospital there might be found a bowling green; at the Mulberry Garden (Clerkenwell) a skittle-ground and an evening concert; in Rosoman Street, a wonderful grotto and an enchanted fountain[3] and (at the New Wells, circ. 1737–1750), a complete “variety” entertainment.
Sunday afternoon, if you did not mind the society of prentices and milliners, might be spent in Spa Fields at the Pantheon tea-house and garden (1770–1776), or at the Adam and Eve Gardens at Tottenham Court.
Farther west lay the Marylebone Bowling Green and Garden, developed in 1738 into the well-known Marylebone Gardens, and in this neighbourhood were several humbler places of entertainment, the Jew’s Harp House, The Queen’s Head and Artichoke, and The Yorkshire Stingo.
Islington and North London were full of rural resorts, the Sunday haunts of the London “cit” and his family. In Penton Street was the renowned White Conduit House, and near it Dobney’s Bowling Green, both visited in early days for their delightful prospects of the distant country. The Three Hats in Islington attracted visitors who wished to see the surprising horsemanship of Sampson and of Johnson “the Irish Tartar.” Canonbury, Highbury, Kentish Town, and Hornsey were pleasant places farther afield.
Still farther north were Belsize House, with its fashionable gambling and racing; the popular Wells of Hampstead, and the Kilburn Wells. The Spaniards, and New Georgia with its maze and mechanical oddities, were Sunday attractions in Hampstead for the good wives and daughters of tradesmen like Zachary Treacle.[4]
Chelsea could boast of at least two gardens in addition to the famous gardens and Rotunda of Ranelagh. In Pimlico was Jenny’s Whim. At Brompton, the Florida (or Cromwell’s) Gardens, a pleasant place, half garden, half nursery, where you could gather cherries and strawberries “fresh every hour in the day.”
London south of the Thames was not less well provided for. Nearly opposite Somerset House were Cuper’s Gardens (circ. 1691–1759). Lambeth had its wells and its Spring Garden (Vauxhall Gardens). In St. George’s Fields and Southwark were the mineral springs of the notorious Dog and Duck; the Restoration Spring Gardens, and Finch’s Grotto Gardens. Farther east were the Bermondsey Spa, and the St. Helena Gardens at Rotherhithe.
Such was the geographical distribution of the London pleasure gardens. “A mighty maze—but not without a plan.” Or, at least a clue to their intricacies may be found by arranging them in three groups, each with its distinctive characteristics.
In our first division we may place pleasure resorts of the Vauxhall type, beginning with the four great London Gardens—Cuper’s Gardens, the Marylebone Gardens, Ranelagh, and Vauxhall itself. These were all well-established in popular favour before the middle of the last century, and all depended for their reputation upon their evening concerts, their fireworks,[5] and their facilities for eating and drinking. Ranelagh relied less on the attractions of its gardens than did the other resorts just mentioned. Here the great Rotunda overshadowed the garden, and the chief amusement was the promenade in an “eternal circle” inside the building. Except on gala nights of masquerades and fireworks, only tea, coffee and bread and butter were procurable at Ranelagh; and a Frenchman about 1749 hints at more than a suspicion of dulness in the place when he comments “on s’ennuie avec de la mauvaise musique, du thé, et du beurre.”