Brunswick House, an ugly but spacious brick mansion (No. 54, Wandsworth Road), is still standing, and is now used as a Club for the employés of the London and South-Western Railway. The garden space is absorbed by yards and wharves.
[Bills and newspaper advertisements; a plan of the gardens, 1844; and a drawing.—W.]
FLORA GARDENS, CAMBERWELL
These gardens, entered from the Wyndham Road, Camberwell, had a brief but lively existence from 1849 till about 1857. A central walk, adorned with fountains and lawns on either hand, led to a ball-room on the right, and on the left to a maze described as ‘the nearest to that of Hampton Court.’ This maze was intricate and verdant, and provided with a competent guide, while in the middle—in which respect it surpassed ‘that of Hampton Court’—it had a magic hermitage inhabited by a learned Chaldean astrologer.
Concerts and dancing took place every evening in the summer, the admission being sixpence. On special occasions there were costume balls with a large band. From 1851 to 1854 James Ellis, the former lessee of Cremorne, was manager. He gave a ball à la Watteau, and in 1854 repeated Lord Chief Baron Nicholson’s ‘1,000 guineas fête,’ [79] which had the genuine, and slightly risky, Nicholson flavour. It lasted three days, and included a steeplechase by lady jockeys, a Coventry procession by torchlight, with Lady Godiva and other characters sustained ‘by artists’ (presumably not R.A’s) ‘from the Royal Academy.’ There were also Arabian Nights’ entertainments, and a mock election for Camberwell, in which the candidates addressed the free and independent voters from the hustings.
On Sundays the Flora Gardens granted free admissions, and a representative of Paul Pry who visited the place in 1857 describes the local frequenters. Polly P*rs*ns was, he tells us, quite up to the door in her summer turn-out, while that pretty, gazelle-like girl from the ‘Manor,’ Lizzie B., accompanied by her particularly especial friend Polly P*rk*r, amused themselves by firing at targets for nuts. [80]
[Plan of Gardens in 1855 (W.); bills, advertisements, etc. (W.); Theatrical Journal, 1851.]
MONTPELIER TEA GARDENS, WALWORTH
These gardens, attached to the Montpelier House tavern, came into existence in the later years of the eighteenth century. William Hazlitt, the essayist (born in 1778), recalls with pleasure his ‘infant wanderings’ in this place, to which he used to be taken by his father. [81a]
In July, 1796, the newly formed Montpelier Club played their first match in their cricket ground at Montpelier Gardens; and on August 10 and 11 of that year the same ground was the scene of a match of a rather painful, if curious, character. The game, like all the cricket of the period, had high stakes dependent on it—in this case 1,000 guineas—and the players were selected (by two noble lords) from the pensioners of Greenwich Hospital: eleven men with one leg against eleven with one arm. The match began at ten, but about three a riotous crowd broke in, demolished the gates and fences, and stopped the proceedings till six o’clock, when play was resumed. On the second day the elevens reappeared, being brought to the scene of action in three Greenwich stage-coaches, not without flags and music. The match was played out, and the one-legged men beat the poor one-arms by 103. [81b]