Cremorne and the later London gardens

by Warwick William Wroth

The frequenters of the Red House were not all pigeon-shooters. Around it extended the drear and marshy waste of Battersea Fields, abounding in plants many and curious, but also in strange specimens of humanity. In the early years of the nineteenth century an informal fair was held at Easter in the Fields; in 1823 it was prohibited, but the spirit of fairing was not dead, and from 1835 onwards the fair became perpetual, and especially vigorous on the Day of Rest. A Battersea missionary, the Rev. Thomas Kirk, states his recollections of this fair as follows: ‘If ever there was a place out of hell which surpassed Sodom and Gomorrah in ungodliness and abomination, this was it.’ ‘I have gone,’ he says, ‘to this sad spot in the afternoon and evening of the Lord’s Day, when there have been from 60 to 120 horses and donkeys racing, foot-racing, walking matches, flying boats, flying horses, roundabouts, theatres, comic actors, shameless dancers, conjurers, fortune-tellers, gamblers of every description, drinking-booths, stalls, hawkers, and vendors of all kinds of articles.’ It would be impossible to describe the ‘mingled shouts and noises and the unmentionable doings of this pandemonium on earth.’

This is graphic enough, but perhaps a trifle severe, for it will be noted that in the worthy missionary’s indictment the donkeys and the roundabouts are hardly less heinous counts than the gambling and the unmentionable doings. However this may be, Battersea Fields for years not only outraged the notion of a quiet Sunday, but in the summertime attracted by thousands the choicest specimens of the loafer, the ‘gypsey,’ and the rowdy. It might have been left to the local builder to cover the objectionable fields with bricks and mortar, but a better way was found. In 1846 an Act of Parliament empowered the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to form a park in the Fields, and in 1850 the Red House and its shooting-ground were purchased by them for £10,000. But the landlord (James Ireland) and the fair people had still two years to run. Mr. Ireland, on his part, considerably forced the pace, and made his garden into a minor Vauxhall, where we hear of balloons and fireworks, a ballet, a circus, a dancing-platform, and a tight rope. All this must have been on a humble scale, for sixpence and threepence were the highest charges. It was in 1852 that Mr. John Garratt raced Mr. Hollyoak from the Old Swan to the Red House for £5, their boats being washing-tubs drawn by geese. Nothing is new in ‘amusements,’ and even this silly contest was as old as 1844, when John Barry, the clown of Astley’s, had conducted (in full canonicals) a similar craft from Vauxhall to Westminster. [75] As another attraction Ireland introduced the pedestrian Searles to perform the dismal feat of walking 1,000 miles in 1,000 consecutive hours. Mr. Searles walked for six weeks, from July 7 to August 18 (1851), and an ox was roasted whole in the grounds to celebrate his achievement. A monster loaf, a plum-pudding weighing a hundredweight, and a butt of Barclay’s best, were at the same time presented to the public. A calf, a fat sheep, and a prime pig were promised for future Sundays.

The fair was suppressed by the magistrates in May, 1852, and from this time the formation of Battersea Park went slowly on till its formal opening on March 28, 1858. It occupies 198 acres of the old Fields, and has absorbed, besides the Red House, some other places of resort—the Tivoli Gardens on the river front, and the Balloon tavern and gardens in the marshland.

[Bills and advertisements (W.); H. S. Simmonds, All about Battersea; Picture of London, 1841–1846; Colburn’s Kalendar, 1840; and Bell’s Life (for the pigeon-shooting); Walford, vi. 476 f.; Sexby’s Municipal Parks.]

There are several lithographs and water-colour drawings, all showing the front of the house and the jetty. A similar view (an oil-painting) in Mr. Gardner’s collection is reproduced in Birch’s London on Thames, Plate XVII.

BRUNSWICK GARDENS (OR VAUXHALL PLEASURE-GARDENS), VAUXHALL

‘These beautiful grounds, once the resort of Royalty,’ were opened by a Mr. King in 1839, and flourished for a few years, till about 1845. Their famous neighbour ‘Vauxhall’ was no longer what it had been, and in 1840 was actually closed for a year. There was thus an opening for a ‘Minor Vauxhall’ with summer concerts à la Musard.

A band of from thirty to fifty performers was engaged under Blewitt as director and composer, and the grand gala concerts twice a week were hardly inferior to those of Vauxhall as it then was. Operatic and dance music, and plenty of ballads and comic songs, formed the programme. The comic singer was the popular Henry Howell; the other vocalists are not much known to fame—Mr. Hart and Mr. Frost, and two ladies, Mademoiselle Braehem and Miss Gieulien, who seem to have modelled their names on those of better-known musicians. The concerts were followed by Darby’s fireworks and by ascents of Montgolfier balloons, which, ‘on reaching a certain height,’ discharged parachutes, and themselves descended quietly into the gardens, instead of wandering off to risky trees and ponds in remote English counties. The admission was a shilling or sixpence, with refreshments, and in 1840 the experiment was tried of admitting ladies free.

‘The resort of Royalty’ to the gardens was legitimately inferred from the fact that the grounds were at the back of Brunswick House, the former residence of the Duke of Brunswick. The local resident entered his pleasure-garden from the Wandsworth Road, and respectfully skirted the house and its private grounds till he reached a spacious lawn at the back. This was bordered on two sides by rustic boxes and refreshment bars, and by an orchestra and assembly-room. The pleasantest feature of the garden was a promenade platform erected on piles over the Thames. Close by was the river entrance and the pier of the Vauxhall Hotel, at which the steamboats from Hungerford Market and the City landed visitors at about seven o’clock.