In October 1826 the magistrates in granting the license stipulated that the music should cease at 11.30 P.M., and that the gardens should close at 11.45. Masquerades and fireworks were prohibited. These restrictions, however, appear to have been subsequently withdrawn or disregarded.
About this period (1826) part of the south side of the gardens was cut off by the formation of Warren Street; and a few years later (before 1833) a gasometer and a tall chimney disfigured the north-east corner of the grounds.
The accommodation of White Conduit House having now become insufficient, a new hotel was contemplated. The first stone was laid on 2 February 1829, Messrs. Bowles and Monkhouse being then the proprietors. About the middle of June 1829[145] the new building, referred to in the bills as “New Minor Vauxhall: White Conduit House, Hotel and Tavern,” was opened with a concert and ball. It was a tall, plain structure. Its chief room, a large hall about eighty feet by sixty, was much used for dances, dinners, and political meetings.
From many of the laudatory press notices, from about 1826 onwards, it might appear that White Conduit House was a crowded and even fashionable resort. But this was by no means the case. Surrounding buildings had spoilt the place, and at this period “Vite Cundick Couse,” as its Cockney visitors called it, was comparatively neglected: the chimes of the miniature steeple were silent, and the gardens had lost their rural charm.
Hone[146] severely describes it as a “starveling show of odd company and coloured lamps” possessing a mock orchestra with mock singing, and a dancing room, in which no respectable person would care to be seen. In 1832 (November) the magistrates refused to grant the license, and in 1834 (15 February) the proprietor was fined £5 for the “rowdy” conduct of some of the audience. A satirical visitor in 1838[147] ridicules the vocal attainments of the singers, and the gaudy dresses of the female performers, whose heads were decorated with blue roses and adorned with corkscrew curls. The audiences were now composed of the artisan class, the small shop-keeper, the apprentice and shop lad; with a sprinkling of lawyers’ clerks recognisable by their long hair, worn-out “four and ninepenny gossamers,” short trousers, and blucher boots, and by their conversation, which is described as no less objectionable than their cabbage-leaf cigars.
From 1830 till the close of the place in 1849 the entertainments, beginning about 7.30, were of a very varied character; concerts, juggling, farces and ballets. The admission, occasionally sixpence, was usually one shilling; half of which was sometimes returned in refreshments. Ladies and children generally came in half price. A diorama, and moonlight view of Holyrood were exhibited in 1830; and about the same time Miss Clarke made one of her ascents upon an inclined rope attached to a platform above the highest trees in the garden, reaching this eminence “amidst a blaze of light.” Here, too, in 1831 (August), and also in 1836 and 1837, Blackmore of Vauxhall made some of his “terrific ascents.” A play of T. Dibdin’s entitled the ‘Hog in Armour’ was performed in 1831 (April), and Charles Sloman, the clever impromptu versifier, appeared in August and September 1836.
In 1839 Breach the proprietor, who exerted himself in popularising the house, placed its amusements under the management of John Dunn,[148] styled the English Jim Crow on account of his imitations of T. D. Rice in “Jump Jim Crow.” In 1841 a large painting of Windsor Castle and the park-troops was placed at the end of the centre (then denominated the Chinese) walk; and in 1842 (July and August), a Mr. Bryant being the landlord, Batty’s Circus was engaged.
In 1843 R. Rouse was the proprietor, and in these later years the amusements of White Conduit House gradually deteriorated, until they were terminated on 22 January, 1849, by a Ball given for the benefit of the check-takers. Three days afterwards the demolition of the house was begun, and it was soon levelled for a new line of streets, the present White Conduit public-house being erected on part of the site.
The gardens had extended from Penton Street, in an easterly direction, to White Conduit Street, now called Cloudesley Road. Albert Street now approximately marks their southern boundary; and Denmark Road the northern limit.
[Fillinham’s collection relating to White Conduit House in Brit. Mus.; Pinks’s Clerkenwell; Walford’s Old and New London; Wheatley’s London P. & P.; Lewis’s Islington; Tomlins’s Peramb. of Islington; Cromwell’s Islington; Hone’s Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 1201, ff.; Mirror, 1833, vol. xxi. p. 426; Nelson’s Islington; Brayley’s Londiniana; Era Almanack, 1871; newspaper cuttings in W. Coll.]