Arthur Edgar Wroth

“ The third division of the London gardens consists of those that were mainly tea-gardens. Many of these though small and unpretending possessed a distinctly rural charm. Such were Highbury Barn, and the Canonbury House tea-gardens, Hornsey with its romantic wood, and Copenhagen House standing alone in the hay-fields. Bagnigge Wells and White Conduit House, the classic tea-gardens of London, were prettily laid out and pleasantly situated, but in their later days became decidedly cockneyfied. The great day at these gardens was Sunday, especially between five and nine o’clock. ”

“ But the adventitious attractions of these places had a tendency to obscure their importance as spas. Bagnigge Wells and, to some extent, Islington Spa became after a time little more than tea-gardens. Sadler’s lost sight of its Wells early in the eighteenth century, and relied for profit on the development of the rope-dancing and pantomime in its theatre. The Dog and Duck (St. George’s Spa) became at last a tea-garden and a dancing-saloon which had to be suppressed as the haunt of “the riff-raff and scum of the town.” ”

“ The sale of Vauxhall Gardens in August 1859, or perhaps the closing of Highbury Barn in 1871, may be held to mark the final disappearance of the London Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century. “St. George’s Fields are fields no more!” and hardly a tree or shrub recalls these vanished pleasances of our forefathers. The site of Ranelagh is still, indeed, a garden, and Hampstead has its spring and Well Walk. But the Sadler’s Wells of 1765 exists only in its theatre, and its gardens are gone, its spring forgotten, and its New River covered in. ”

“ Behind the Foundling Hospital there might be found a bowling green; at the Mulberry Garden (Clerkenwell) a skittle-ground and an evening concert; in Rosoman Street, a wonderful grotto and an enchanted fountain [3] and (at the New Wells, circ. 1737–1750) , a complete “variety” entertainment.
Sunday afternoon, if you did not mind the society of prentices and milliners, might be spent in Spa Fields at the Pantheon tea-house and garden (1770–1776) , or at the Adam and Eve Gardens at Tottenham Court. ”

“ Here are fine pavilions, shady groves, and most delightful walks, illuminated by above one thousand lamps, so disposed that they all take fire together, almost as quick as lightning, and dart such a sudden blaze as is perfectly surprising. Here are among others, two curious statues of Apollo the god, and Mr. Handel the master of musick; and in the centre of the area, where the walks terminate, is erected the temple for the musicians, which is encompassed all round with handsome seats, decorated with pleasant paintings, on subjects most happily adapted to the season, place and company. ”

“ When I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan Paradise.” You must understand, says the Knight, there is nothing in the world that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. ”

“ White Conduit had become a popular tea-garden, and till about the end of the eighteenth century, its visitors, though never in the least people of fashion, were on the whole of a respectable class. The favourite day was Sunday in the spring and summer-time, when large numbers of holiday-folk crowded the house and gardens. ”

“ Vauxhall, Marylebone, Cuper’s, and Ranelagh often numbered among their frequenters people of rank and fashion, who subscribed for season-tickets, but (with the possible exception of Ranelagh) were by no means exclusive or select. The Tea-gardens, and, as a rule, the Wells, had an aristocracy of aldermen and merchants, young ensigns and templars, and were the chosen resorts of the prentice, the sempstress, and the small shop-keeper. ”

“ They’ll always soothe my ear.
The account of England’s Gazetteer of 1751 is naturally more prosaic, but takes the exalted tone that characterises the old descriptions of the gardens:—“This (Foxhall) is the place where are those [293] called Spring Gardens, laid out in so grand a taste that they are frequented in the three summer months by most of the nobility and gentry then in and near London; and are often honoured with some of the royal family, who are here entertained, with the sweet song of numbers of nightingales, in concert with the best band of musick in England. ”

“ The dubious character of some of the female frequenters of the best known gardens has been necessarily indicated in our detailed accounts of these gardens, though always, it is hoped, in a way not likely to cause offence. The best surety for good conduct at a public garden was, after all, the character of the great mass of its frequenters, and it is obvious that they were decent people enough, however wanting in graces of good-breeding and refinement. ”

“ Ranelagh (she writes) looks like the enchanted palace of a genio, adorned with the most exquisite performances of painting, carving, and gilding, enlightened with a thousand golden lamps that emulate the noonday sun; crowded with the great, the rich, the gay, the happy and the fair ”

“ Finch’s Grotto Gardens situated on the western side of St. George’s Street, Southwark, near St. George’s Fields, [265] derived their name from Thomas Finch, a Herald Painter, who, having inherited from a relation a house and garden, opened both for the entertainment of the public in the spring of 1760. The garden possessed some lofty trees, and was planted with evergreens and shrubs. In the centre was a medicinal spring over which Finch constructed a grotto, wherein a fountain played over artificial embankments and formed “a natural and beautiful cascade.” ”

“ The London Spa public-house, standing at the corner of Rosoman Street and Exmouth Street, marks the site of a seventeenth-century inn called The Fountain.
A spring of chalybeate water was discovered on the premises of this inn about 1685, and was a special inducement held out to the public by the proprietor, John Halhed, vintner, to visit his house. In August 1685, Halhed, in advertising the virtues of the water, stated that no less an authority than Robert Boyle, the chemist, had adjudged and openly declared it to be the strongest and very best of these late found out medicinal waters. ”

“ Copenhagen House was a favourite Sunday tea-garden with the middle-classes [166] who flocked there, especially in the summer-time during the hay harvest in the fields around. [167] Although the builders were making their way up to Copenhagen House from London on the south, it still commanded an extensive view of the metropolis and western suburbs, with the heights of Hampstead and Highgate, “and the rich intervening meadows.” In 1841 [168] the tavern and tea-gardens were still in existence, and the space between them and Highgate was still open fields. ”

“ In our first division we may place pleasure resorts of the Vauxhall type, beginning with the four great [5] London Gardens—Cuper’s Gardens, the Marylebone Gardens, Ranelagh, and Vauxhall itself. These were all well-established in popular favour before the middle of the last century, and all depended for their reputation upon their evening concerts, their fireworks, [5] and their facilities for eating and drinking. Ranelagh relied less on the attractions of its gardens than did the other resorts just mentioned. ”

“ Fashion probably soon again deserted the Spa; but from about 1750 to 1770 it was a good deal frequented by water-drinkers and visitors who lodged for a time at the Wells. One young lady of good family, who was on a visit to London in June 1753, wrote home to her friends [15] that New Tunbridge Wells was “a very pretty Romantick place,” and the water “very much like Bath water, but makes one vastly cold and Hungary.” A ticket costing eighteenpence gave admission to the public breakfasting [16] and to the dancing from eleven to three. ”

“ Until about the beginning of the present century, White Conduit House appears to have had no entertainments apart from its tea-gardens, and from the organ performances [142] in the house. But under the proprietorship of Sharpe and Warren (from about 1811, or earlier, till 1828) several changes took place. The pond was filled in and planted over, and a new tea and dancing saloon, dignified by the name of the Apollo Room, and subsequently converted into a billiard-room, was erected in the north-west angle of the gardens. The tea-boxes were enlarged, and the old paintings removed or defaced. ”

“ There were sometimes scenes and affrays in the gardens, and Vauxhall and Cuper’s were favourite hunting-grounds of the London pickpocket. At the opening Ridotto at Vauxhall (1732) a man stole fifty guineas from a masquerader, but here the watchman was equal to the occasion, and “the rogue was taken in the fact.” At Cuper’s on a firework night a pickpocket or two might be caught, but it was ten to one that they would be rescued on their way to justice by their confederates in St. George’s Fields. ”

“ On one day in May (29, 1666) he found two handsome ladies calling on Mrs. Pepys. He was burdened with Admiralty business—“but, Lord! to see how my nature could not refrain from the temptation, but I must invite them to go to Foxhall, to Spring Gardens.”
In a few years the Spring Garden became well known. [288] Fine people came thither to divert themselves and the citizen also spent his holiday there, “pulling off cherries [says Pepys] and God knows what.” The song of the birds was charming, but from about 1667 more sophisticated harmony was furnished by a harp, some fiddles, and a Jew’s trump. ”

“ From about 1745 the garden was well laid out, and possessed a circular fish-pond and a number of pleasant arbours. Robert Bartholomew, the proprietor in 1754, added a long walk, and, to prevent his visitors being in the “least incommoded from people in the fields,” constructed a fence some seven feet in height. Hot loaves, tea, coffee and liquors ‘in the greatest perfection’ were the refreshments offered, and he assured those who drank his milk, procured directly from the cow, that his animals “eat no grains.” ”

“ The old tiled outhouses were used as a bake-house for the pastry and rolls till 1840, when they were pulled down.
About 1823 the builders had invaded the rural neighbourhood of Canonbury, but the tea-gardens continued to be frequented as a pleasant resort till 1843, or later.
At sometime between 1843 and 1866 the Canonbury Tavern was rebuilt. It now stands on the north side of Canonbury Place, a little to the east of Canonbury Tower and on the opposite side of the road.
A garden, though not of the old dimensions, is still attached to the tavern and open to the public during the summer. ”