GARDENS***


Transcribed from the 1907 Elliot Stock edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org.  Many thanks to the Royal Borough of Kensington and
Chelsea Libraries for allowing their copy to be consulted in making this
transcription.

                          [Picture: Book cover]





                                 CREMORNE
                                 AND THE
                           LATER LONDON GARDENS


                                * * * * *

                                    BY
                              WARWICK WROTH
             ASSISTANT-KEEPER OF COINS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM;

                                AUTHOR OF
         ‘THE LONDON PLEASURE-GARDENS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY’

                                * * * * *

                      WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS

                                * * * * *

                                  LONDON
                 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
                                   1907

  [Picture: Waterside entrace, Cremorne.  From an etching by W. Greaves,
                                  1871]




PREFACE


THE open-air resorts described in this volume lack the romantic
associations of the classic pleasure-gardens of the eighteenth century,
and it is impossible to impart to Cremorne or the Surrey ‘Zoo’ the
historic dignity of a Vauxhall or a Ranelagh.  Yet, if these places are
undeserving of the detailed treatment that has been accorded to their
prototypes, they may claim at least a brief and modest chronicle, which
may seem the more necessary because it has mainly to be constructed, not
from books, but from stray handbills and forgotten newspapers.  Already,
indeed, we are growing accustomed to speak of the nineteenth century as
the ‘last,’ and to recognize that the London of Dickens, and
Thackeray—the London of the thirties, the forties, and even of the
sixties—had a physiognomy of its own.

Such places of resort, for the most part, enjoyed no kind of fashionable
vogue; they were frequented (if invidious distinctions must be made) by
the lower middle classes and the ‘lower orders.’  Yet they offer some
curious glimpses of manners and modes of recreation which may be worth
considering.  I have endeavoured to describe some twenty of these places,
selecting those which seem, in various ways, to be typical.  To the
general reader this selection will be enough—though, I trust, not more
than enough—but the London topographer who turns to the appendix and the
notes will find a quite formidable list of tea-gardens and
tavern-gardens, which, if my aim had been to omit nothing, I could have
described in greater detail.

I have taken some pains in compiling these lists, partly from
topographical curiosity, partly from the conviction that their
enumeration almost rises to the dignity of pointing a moral.  The main
contrast is between the tavern and public-house of former days and the
gin-palace, with whose aspect—externally, if not (in any sense of the
word) internally—we are only too familiar.  A description that I have
found in a London guide-book of 1846 of the tea and tavern gardens of
that date has already an old-world air: ‘The amusements are innocent, the
indulgence temperate; and a suitable mixture of female society renders it
[our guide means _them_] both gay and pleasing.’  The public-house was
then, as now, no inconspicuous feature of the Metropolis; yet in the
earlier half of the nineteenth century it had, if not exactly gaiety and
innocence, some characteristics which tended in that direction—its little
gardens in summer, its tavern concerts in winter-time.  In the fifties,
or earlier, many of these garden spaces—often, it is true, of Lilliputian
dimensions—were marked out as building-ground, which was either sold to
alien contractors or utilized by the proprietor of the tavern when he
thought fit to erect thereon a roomier and more imposing edifice.  At the
same period, or some years later, the increase of music-halls, of local
theatres, and places of entertainment, rendered the tavern concert, with
its unambitious glee-parties and comic singing, a superfluity.  The
disappearance of the tavern concert may not be a matter of keen regret,
but the abolition of the garden has altered—and for the worse—the whole
character of the public-house.

In the garden a man might sit with a friend or chance acquaintance as
long as his pleasure and a treacherous climate permitted.  In the
gin-palace he practically cannot sit at all, but is huddled, sometimes
with his wife and children, into a kind of pen, from which custom and a
sort of shy politeness bid him depart at the earliest moment to make room
for new-comers.  The London public-house has thus become a mere counter
for the hurried consumption of drink; it has lost any convenience or
merit it may once have had as an improvised club and a cheerful resort.

The proprietors of the larger houses seem, indeed, to have had a
suspicion of this, for they sometimes offer, for the behoof of their
wealthier customers, a comfortable lounge or smoking-saloon.  But this
does not benefit the humbler classes, and it has often seemed to me that
a good way of discouraging intemperance in a great city is not to attempt
the heroic, unpopular, and impossible task of abolishing the traffic in
drink, but to compel the owners of licensed houses to dispense their
stock-in-trade under more rational and recreative conditions—_to give us_
‘_clubs_’ _for_ ‘_pubs_,’ or, at any rate, cafés and café-restaurants.

We have our obvious models on the Continent in the large café, the
beer-garden, and even in the small café.  The poor man would not be
‘robbed of his beer,’ nor would the change be quite ‘un-English,’ as the
record of our little tavern gardens will show.  Even in London at this
moment there is an (almost solitary) instance of a café-restaurant of
this kind, in Leicester Square.

The one feature common to all these Continental places is the custom of
sitting down at a table; there is no standing at a bar, or the rapid
displacement of one customer by another.  The coffee, the liqueur, or the
lager, is not only drained—shall I say, to its dregs?—but is spun out and
husbanded to the utmost, and for an hour or so there is at least the
semblance of the comfort and convenience of a club.

It is too late now to restore the little summer gardens, but it should be
possible to convert our public-houses, not into coffee-palaces, which do
not meet the general need, but into cafés, by which I mean places where
varied drinks, strong or otherwise, would be obtainable, though under
less absurd and demoralizing conditions than at present.  Every one
should be made to sit down, should be waited on—by a waitress if we
like—and the great bar itself should be dissolved, except as a counter
for the attendants.  There could be cafés both large and small—places
that the London Baedeker would describe as (relatively) ‘expensive,’ and
others to suit the pence of the people.  The café might even be musical,
though perhaps a line would be drawn at the _café chantant_.  Probably
many small places would not be able to conform to these conditions, and
would have to be closed; but, in view of the diminished competition, the
larger houses could be called upon without hardship to undertake the
necessary reconstruction.

But I am converting this preface into a temperance pamphlet, and, before
is it too late, I break off to ask a kindly consideration for a little
volume which recalls, I think, some interesting and not uninstructive
features of old London life.  In reading the proof-sheets I have had the
kind help of my brother, Mr. A. E. Wroth.

                                                            WARWICK WROTH.

1907.




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                            _Frontispiece_

From an etching by W. Greaves, 1871.
THE STADIUM, CHELSEA                                                 3

From a lithograph, published in 1831.
‘BARON’ NICHOLSON AT A ‘JUDGE AND JURY’ TRIAL                        3

From _Life in London Illustrated_, _circa_ 1855.
PLAN OF CREMORNE, _circa_ 1870–1877                                  6
THE DANCING-PLATFORM, CREMORNE, 1847                                 9

From the _Pictorial Times_, June, 1847.
CREMORNE GARDENS IN THE HEIGHT OF THE SEASON                        11

By M’Connell, 1858.
THE FIREWORK GALLERY, CREMORNE                                      17

From an etching by W. Greaves, 1870.
THE DANCING-PLATFORM, CREMORNE                                      23

From an etching by W. Greaves, 1871.
MANOR-HOUSE GARDEN, CHELSEA, _circa_ 1809                           25
ADMISSION TICKETS, NEW RANELAGH, PIMLICO, 1809, ETC.                28
THE HIPPODROME, BAYSWATER (NOTTING HILL), _circa_                   35
1838
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                             55

From an engraving, _circa_ 1830.
A TAVERN-CONCERT SINGER, MISS FRAZER (OR FRASER)                    59
JAMES, _circa_ 1838
PLEASURE-GARDENS, EAGLE TAVERN, _circa_ 1838                        67
NEW GLOBE TAVERN PLEASURE-GROUNDS                                   71

From a lithograph after H. M. Whichelo, _circa_
1846.
THE RED HOUSE, BATTERSEA                                            73

From a view published by J. Rorke, _circa_ 1845.
BARRY, THE CLOWN, ON THE THAMES                                     74

(Cp. Red House, Battersea.)
A SOUTH-EAST VIEW IN THE SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS                  83

After a lithograph published by Havell, 1832.
STIRRING UP THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON (SURREY ZOO)                   87

After George Cruikshank, 1844.
‘OLD LONDON’ AT THE SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS                       89

After a lithograph published by Webb, 1844.




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.

  [Picture: The Stadium, Chelsea.  From a lithograph, published in 1831]

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}

  [Picture: ‘Baron’ Nicholson at a ‘Judge and Jury’ Trial.  From Life in
                     London Illustrated, circa 1855]

The transformation of this failing arena of British sport into the
full-blooded pleasure-garden of Cremorne was effected by another Baron,
though he was such only by the courtesy of Bow Street and Maiden Lane.
Renton Nicholson (for that was his name), like most of the managers of
Cremorne, was a man who knew a thing or two.  He was born early in the
century, and his boyhood was spent in the quiet village of Islington,
where his two sisters kept a young ladies’ seminary.  His tastes early
led him to the distractions of Sadler’s Wells, and at sixteen, {4a} when
he became a pawnbroker’s assistant in Shadwell, he began to acquire his
remarkable knowledge of the ‘flash’ life of London in all its grades.
About 1830 he opened a jeweller’s shop in the West End, which supplied
the ‘swells’ of the day and their female friends, and by this time his
London acquaintanceships were extensive and peculiar, consisting, as we
are told, of shady journalists, players, tavern vocalists, and rooks of
all shades from the welsher to the skittle sharp.  He knew the taste of
his public, and in 1837 began to issue the scurrilous journal called _The
Town_, for which Dr. Maginn and other lively contributors used to write.
After a minor experience of gambling-houses and doubtful premises of
various kinds, he became (in 1841) proprietor of the Garrick’s Head in
Bow Street, and here, in a room holding about 300 people, and fitted up
like a law-court, he presided—as Lord Chief Baron Nicholson—over the
judge and jury trials that were so attractive to the Londoner of the
forties and fifties.  The causes that came before this tribunal were
chiefly matrimonial—the