[19] Entertainments under Baum: Simmons’s balloon ascent, June 29, 1874; Audrian the dog-faced man, and his son, from a Russian forest, 1874; Boisset family, gymnasts, 1874; De Vere, conjuror, 1877; Doughty’s performing dogs, 1877.
[22] Percy Fitzgerald in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1880, ‘Cremorne to Westminster.’
[24] In October, 1904, this nursery was advertised for sale for building purposes, 100,000 feet and 900 feet frontage, but at the present moment (April, 1907) it has not yet been built over. In the rear of Messrs. Wimsett’s, and also on the site of Cremorne, was the nursery-ground of W. J. Bull, but since 1897 this space—an acre and a half—has been covered with flats and other buildings. The iron entrance-gates (see Frontispiece) now stand in Tetcott Street, on the premises of the Royal Chelsea Brewery (Welsh Ale Brewery, Limited), not far from the site of Cremorne.
[25a] Blunt’s Chelsea, p. 19.
[25b] About 1809 the Manor-House had been occupied by James Pilton, manufacturer of ornamental works for country residences (fences, summer-houses, etc.), and the grounds were neatly laid out as an open-air showroom, with a small menagerie and aviaries. A view of the garden and house from the Gentleman’s Magazine is here reproduced. See also Faulkner’s Chelsea, 1829, ii., p. 215.
[28a] Blanchard says the theatre became absorbed in a building known as the Commercial Room (? the present Welsh Chapel in Radnor Street). By an evident slip he speaks of ‘Rodney’ instead of Radnor Street.
[28b] There were a number of minor gardens in Chelsea and Pimlico, in the latter district the Gun and the Monster being the best known. Two others may be briefly noticed:
New Ranelagh and Minor Vauxhall, Millbank.—These gardens were near the river, and occupied a small space between the Belgrave Docks Wharf and Ranelagh Road. Part of the engineering works of James Simpson and Co., Limited (101, Grosvenor Road, Pimlico), now covers the site. They were advertised from about 1809. In the summer months (1809, 1811) there were ‘grand galas’ and balls, with concerts, and fireworks by Signora Hengler, the fireworker to Vauxhall Gardens. The admission tickets for the balls were neatly executed (see pp. 27, 28), but cost only 2s. 6d., and the dancers can hardly have been of the rank of the famous Chelsea ‘Ranelagh,’ which had come to an end in 1803. In 1810 and 1811 the proprietors gave a silver cup for sailing matches. The gardens retained some popularity till about 1829 (Picture of London; tickets, cuttings, etc., in the writer’s collection).
The Flask, Ebury Square.—An old tavern, of which there are various mentions in the eighteenth century (Crace, Catal., p. 311, No. 59; Beaver’s Chelsea, p. 307). In the thirties it had a tea-garden with a colonnade overgrown by creepers running round two sides of the garden, and a fine fountain. A skittle club played in the garden or in a covered pavilion adjoining. The tavern seems to have been demolished about 1868, when Ebury Square was partly rebuilt. There is an engraving of ‘The Flask Tavern,’ showing the garden, published in 1837 by J. Moore, from a drawing by H. Jones.
[30] Hampton’s balloon, and Graham’s, which came into collision with the Exhibition, June 16, 1851 (Turnor’s Astra Castra, p. 220).