CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| Preface | [v] |
| Cremorne Gardens | [1] |
| Manor-House Baths and Gardens, Chelsea | [25] |
| Batty’s Hippodrome and Soyer’s Symposium, Kensington | [30] |
| The Hippodrome, Notting Hill | [34] |
| The Royal Oak, Bayswater | [37] |
| Chalk Farm | [39] |
| Eel-Pie (or Sluice) House, Highbury | [42] |
| Weston’s Retreat, Kentish Town | [44] |
| The Mermaid, Hackney | [46] |
| The Rosemary Branch, Hoxton | [48] |
| Sir Hugh Myddelton’s Head, Islington | [52] |
| The Panarmonion Gardens, King’s Cross | [54] |
| The Eagle and Grecian Saloon | [57] |
| Albert Saloon and Royal Standard Pleasure-Gardens | [68] |
| New Globe Pleasure-Grounds, Mile End Road | [70] |
| The Red House, Battersea | [72] |
| Brunswick Gardens (or Vauxhall Pleasure-Gardens), Vauxhall | [77] |
| Flora Gardens, Camberwell | [79] |
| Montpelier Tea-Gardens, Walworth | [81] |
| Surrey Zoological Gardens | [83] |
| List of Minor London Gardens, Nineteenth Century | [93] |
| Index | [98] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| PAGE | |
| Waterside Entrance, Cremorne From an etching by W. Greaves, 1871. | Frontispiece |
| The Stadium, Chelsea From a lithograph, published in 1831. | [3] |
| ‘Baron’ Nicholson at a ‘Judge and Jury’ Trial From Life in London Illustrated, circa 1855. | [3] |
| Plan of Cremorne, circa 1870–1877 | [6] |
| The Dancing-Platform, Cremorne, 1847 From the Pictorial Times, June, 1847. | [9] |
| Cremorne Gardens in the Height of the Season By M’Connell, 1858. | [11] |
| The Firework Gallery, Cremorne From an etching by W. Greaves, 1870. | [17] |
| The Dancing-Platform, Cremorne From an etching by W. Greaves, 1871. | [23] |
| Manor-House Garden, Chelsea, circa 1809 | [25] |
| Admission Tickets, New Ranelagh, Pimlico, 1809, etc. | [28] |
| The Hippodrome, Bayswater (Notting Hill), circa 1838 | [35] |
| Plan of the Hippodrome, Notting Hill, 1841 | [36] |
| The Tea-Gardens, Rosemary Branch, 1846 | [49] |
| Admission Ticket, Rosemary Branch, 1853 | [50] |
| Suspension Railway, Panarmonion Gardens From an engraving, circa 1830. | [55] |
| A Tavern-Concert Singer, Miss Frazer (or Fraser) James, circa 1838 | [59] |
| Pleasure-Gardens, Eagle Tavern, circa 1838 | [67] |
| New Globe Tavern Pleasure-Grounds From a lithograph after H. M. Whichelo, circa 1846. | [71] |
| The Red House, Battersea From a view published by J. Rorke, circa 1845. | [73] |
| Barry, The Clown, on the Thames (Cp. Red House, Battersea.) | [74] |
| A South-East View in the Surrey Zoological Gardens After a lithograph published by Havell, 1832. | [83] |
| Stirring up the Great Fire of London (Surrey Zoo) After George Cruikshank, 1844. | [87] |
| ‘Old London’ at the Surrey Zoological Gardens After a lithograph published by Webb, 1844. | [89] |
CREMORNE GARDENS
The old house by the river had often changed hands, but the new possessor, who was reputed to be a Baron, somewhat puzzled the quiet inhabitants of Chelsea. Great oaks and elms surrounded the grounds, but through the fine iron gates, which were left half open, it was not difficult—as on this summer morning of 1830—to catch a glimpse of the owner, engaged, apparently, in the survey and measurement of his estate. He was a man of over sixty, dressed in a faded military uniform of no known pattern, but which seemed to have done service in some company of sharpshooters in the days of Napoleon. In the middle of the lawn was a table, on which a rifle reposed amid a litter of plans and papers. But if the Baron had a gun it was not to shoot you, but one of the targets at the far end of the garden, and his successive bull’s-eyes certainly proclaimed the hand of a master. A little intrusion he did not seem to mind, and as you advanced he only offered you a prospectus: ‘The Stadium, Cremorne House, Chelsea, established for the tuition and practice of skilful and manly exercises generally.’ [1]
The estate of Cremorne House (or Farm), which was afterwards to be developed into the notorious Cremorne Gardens, had once belonged to the pious Lady Huntingdon, and George Whitfield had prayed and discoursed within the house. Later on, it passed to the Earl of Cremorne, then to his widow, a descendant of William Penn. The last owner was Granville Penn. [2a] The purchaser of 1830, in whom we are interested, was Charles Random de Berenger, who styled himself Baron de Beaufain, or, more often, the Baron de Berenger. His name seemed French, but he boasted of ancient Prussian lineage, and long before this date had settled in London. He was a skilful draughtsman, an inventor of peculiar guns [2b] and explosives, and believed to be the owner of innumerable patents, which had only brought him to a debtors’ prison. In the summer of 1815 he had emerged from a term of imprisonment in the King’s Bench, for it was he who with consummate skill and audacity had carried through the great Stock Exchange hoax of 1814, in which Lord Cochrane and his friends were so painfully involved. [2c] In fifteen years these things were nearly forgotten, and the Baron, who was a sportsman and a dead shot, found himself well supported when he opened his Cremorne Stadium in 1832.
The subscription was two or three guineas, and the members, under the Baron’s tuition, could shoot, box and fence, and practise ‘manly exercises generally’ in his beautiful grounds. He also established, so to speak, a ‘Ladies’ Links,’ with its clubroom, ‘which Gentlemen cannot enter,’ unless (such is his quaint proviso) ‘by consent of the Ladies occupying such.’ In 1834 George Cruikshank made a design for a ‘Chelsea Stadium Shield,’ which was quite Homeric in its form, and showed every conceivable kind of sport and exercise, including pole-jumping and golf. [2d]
The Stadium flourished, or, rather, lingered on, till 1843, but only with the adventitious aid of occasional galas and balloon displays that already foreshadowed Cremorne. [3]