Cremorne and the later London gardens

by Warwick William Wroth

In the last years of the fifties, pantomime and drama, romantic and sensational, figure largely in the bills. From 1857 George Conquest, the proprietor’s son, began to take a prominent part as actor and stage-manager, and finally made the Grecian pantomime one of the features of the minor stage. In conjunction with H. Spry, the younger Conquest wrote or produced more than twenty-one pantomimes at this theatre, and was always to the fore in the performance itself. Unsurpassed in daring feats of the trap and trapeze kind, he was no less remarkable for his wonderful make-up and changes. In the Wood Demon (1873–1874), for instance, he presented the title-rôle as a tree, appearing next as a dwarf, an animated pear, and finally as an octopus. He became sole proprietor on his father’s death (July 5, 1872), and built a new Grecian theatre, [64a] opened in October, 1877, with Harry Nicholls; George Conquest, junior, and Miss M. A. Victor in the company.

In 1879 Conquest sold the Eagle property to Mr. T. G. Clark, taking his farewell benefit on March 17. He migrated to the Surrey Theatre, where, as lessee, he continued the traditions of the Grecian pantomimes. He died on May 14, 1901.

Mr. Clark, the new proprietor, [64b] had made money in the marine-store business, and would have been better qualified to command the Channel Fleet than to manage the Eagle. He had, it is true, been for a short time the lessee of the Adelphi, but he had no eye for theatrical business, and his new venture, chiefly in the regions of melodrama, was once more disastrous to his pocket. Perhaps the failure was not entirely his own fault. Tastes were changing, and the Eagle garden, with its public dancing—now that Cremorne had passed away—seemed something like a scandal or an anachronism. In the time of the Conquests there had been complaints of the company that frequented the Eagle. Such charges are too often exaggerated, because they are often made by well-meaning people who really know nothing at first hand of popular amusements, and who go to the garden or the music-hall to collect evidence, as it were, for the prosecution. At the same time, there is generally something in complaints of the kind, nor are managers quite the immaculate beings that their counsel represent them to be when licences come on for renewal in October. It is right to say that George Conquest seems to have done his best to keep out notoriously bad characters, and that he warned mere boys and girls off his monster platform and his concert-hall.

Mr. Clark’s difficulties and the belief, well founded or not, that the Eagle was an undesirable public influence formed the opportunity of ‘General’ Booth and the Salvation Army. The Army wanted a barracks and a headquarters for their social and religious work. That they should have obtained these—and largely by public subscription—few will complain. But it is not quite clear that it was imperative to make an onslaught on the Eagle, being, as it was, a centre of amusement in the colourless life of the district. A new theatre might well have arisen under a new Conquest, even if the garden and the dancing had to go.

In June, 1882, the Eagle was purchased by the Army. In August the stage appliances were sold off, and the Army entered the citadel in triumph. In September the public were admitted. A great tent for religious services took the place of the monster platform—the pernicious spot on which, as Mr. Booth’s friends declared, so many ‘had danced their way to destruction.’ Curiously enough, though one object of the movement was to annihilate the Eagle tavern, that stronghold of beer-drinking and spirit-drinking, Mr. Booth discovered that the law compelled him to keep up the drinking licence, and beer is sold in the Eagle public-house at this very moment. Unfortunately, also, for its funds, the Army got involved in litigation about alterations and repairs—a costly business which was carried up to the House of Lords.

At last the ancient domain of the Shepherd and Shepherdess was deserted even by the Salvation Army. In September, 1899, the newspapers announced that the Eagle premises were in the hands of the house-breakers. A few old frequenters hastened to revisit the place, and some others, no doubt, who had only heard of the Eagle as a somewhat low resort associated with that enigmatic song of their childhood, ‘Pop goes the Weasel,’ must have been surprised to find the buildings—rather handsome in their way—still in existence. The Eagle garden presented itself to such visitors as a large paved square, which, judging from its two surviving trees, could never have been truthfully described as thickly wooded. Conspicuous features were the large rotunda opposite the entrance, with its pit, now floored over, and the ‘new’ theatre (of 1877), adjoining Shepherdess Walk, practically unaltered, though dingy and dirt-begrimed beyond description.

The Oriental orchestra in the garden still showed traces of its gaudy colouring, and a melancholy brick wall displayed remnants of primitive grotto-work. One could trace near the centre of the grounds the concrete-covered circle where many a light-hearted couple had danced before the days of the Conquests. [66] The rows of alcoves, with the balcony for promenaders above them, were still there, though no longer brightly painted, but mostly boarded up and filled with headless Venuses and Cupids—pagan deities of the gardens who nourished circa A.D. 1838–1882.

Soon after this, the huge Eagle tavern, surmounted by its proud stone bird, was demolished, and a smaller public-house of neat red brick (opened August, 1900) now covers part of its site. On the site of the theatre and its entrance, which faced Shepherdess Walk, and was adorned with two more stone eagles, we have now a police-station. Though all the old buildings have been destroyed, much of the garden space is still unoccupied, and in due season a solitary tree puts forth its leaves.

[Newspaper notices, bills, and photographs taken at the time of the demolition of the Eagle (W.); Blanchard’s Life, by Clement Scott and Cecil Howard; Hollingshead’s Footlights and My Lifetime; Ritchie’s Night Side of London; Baker’s London Stage.] [67]