From this Tea Garden they drove to the Bermondsey Spa Gardens. Let me extract this account of this place, which was once so popular:
'We found the entrance presents a vista between trees, hung with lamps, blue, red, green, and white; nor is the walk in which they are hung inferior (length excepted) to the grand walk in Vauxhall Gardens. Nearly at the upper end of the walk is a large room, hung round with paintings, many of them in an elegant and the rest in a singular taste. At the upper end of the room is a painting of a butcher's shop, so finely executed by the landlord that a stranger to the place would cheapen a fillet of veal or a buttock of beef, a shoulder of mutton or a leg of pork, without hesitation, if there were not other pictures in the room to take off his attention. But these paintings are not seen on a Sunday.
'The accommodations at this place on a Sunday are very good, and the charges reasonable, and the captain, who is very intimate with Mr. Keyse, declares that there is no place in the vicinity of London can afford a more agreeable evening's entertainment.
'This elegant place of entertainment is situate in the lower road, between the Borough of Southwark and Deptford. The proprietor calls it one, but it is nearer two miles from London Bridge, and the same distance from that of Black-Friars. The proprietor is Mr. Thomas Keyse, who has been at great expense, and exerted himself in a very extraordinary manner, for the entertainment of the public; and his labours have been amply repaid.
'It is easy to paint the elegance of this place, situated in a spot where elegance, among people who talk of taste, would be little expected. But Mr. Keyse's good humour, his unaffected easiness of behaviour, and his genuine taste for the polite arts, have secured him universal approbation.
'The gardens, with an adjacent field, consist of not less than four acres.
'On the north-east side of the gardens is a very fine lawn, consisting of about three acres, and in a field, parted from this lawn by a sunk fence, is a building with turrets, resembling a fortress, or castle. The turrets are in the ancient style of building. At each side of this fortress, at unequal distances, are two buildings, from which, on public nights, bomb shells, &c., are thrown at the fortress; the fire is returned, and the whole exhibits a very picturesque, and therefore a horrid, prospect of a siege.
'After walking a round or two in the gardens we retired into the parlour, where we were very agreeably entertained by the proprietor, who, contrary to his own rule, favoured us with a sight of his curious museum, for, it being Sunday, he never shows to any one these articles; but, the captain never having seen them, I wished him to be gratified with such an agreeable sight.
'Mr. Keyse presented us with a little pamphlet, written by the late celebrated John Oakman, of lyric memory, descriptive of his situation, which a few years ago was but a waste piece of ground. "Here is now," said he, "an agreeable place, where before was but a mere wilderness piece of ground, and, in my opinion, it was a better plan to lay it out in this manner than any other wise, as the remoteness of any place of public entertainment from this secured to me in my retreat a comfortable piece of livelihood."
'We perfectly coincided in opinion with our worthy host, and, after paying for our liquor, got into our carriage, but not before we had tasted a comfortable glass of cherry brandy, for which Mr. Keyse is remarkable for preparing.'
I am not here writing a history of South London. Were this a history, Vauxhall Gardens would demand its own place, and a very large place. A garden which continued to be a favourite resort from the year 1660 or thereabouts until the year 1859, when it was finally abandoned, which occupies so large a part in the literature of that long period, must have its history told in length when a history is written of the place where it stood. In this place I desire to do no more than to take off my hat to this Queen of Gardens, and to recognise her importance. The history of Vauxhall is an old story; it has been told at greater or less length, over and over again. We seem to know all the anecdotes which have been copied from one writer by another, and all the literature and all the poetry about Vauxhall. The poetry is, indeed, very poor stuff. The best are the lines of Canning:
There oft returning from the green retreats
Where fair Vauxhallia decks her sylvan seats;
Where each spruce nymph, from City counters free,
Sips the frothed syllabub or fragrant tea:
While with sliced ham, scraped beef, and burnt champagne,
Her 'prentice lover soothes his amorous pain.
What a chain of anecdotes it is! We begin in 1661 with Evelyn, who treats the place with his accustomed brevity and coldness; we go on to Pepys, who records how the visitors picked cherries, and how the nightingales sang, and lets us understand how much he enjoyed his visits there, and how delightful he found the place, and how much after his own heart; we proceed to Congreve and Tom Brown, to Addison, to Fielding, to Horace Walpole. We all know the Dark Walk, and how the ladies were taken there, not unwillingly, to be frightened: we know the stage where they danced: we know the orchestra; we know the Chinese Room: we know Rowlandson's picture of the evening at Vauxhall with the Prince of Wales, putting on princely arrogance in the middle, and the Duchess of Devonshire and her friends apparently making fun of him; and in the side box, having supper, Goldsmith and Boswell, and Mrs. Traill, and Dr. Johnson; with Miss Linley singing; and we all know about the forty thousand coloured lamps festooned about the trees.
London was not London, life was not worth having, without Vauxhall. Like Mrs. Cornelys's masquerades and assemblies, Vauxhall was the great leveller of the eighteenth century. A man might be an earl or a prince: he would get no more enjoyment out of Vauxhall than a 'prentice who had a little money to spare. And the milliner going to Vauxhall with that 'prentice was quite as happy as any lady in the land could be.
When one thinks of Vauxhall and all it meant, one is carried away by admiration. To the City Miss who might belong to the City Assembly, but most likely did not, there was no such spectacle in the world as those avenues of trees with their thousands of coloured lamps; there was nothing that so much made her heart leap up as the sight of the dancing in the open air to the music of the orchestra in the high stand; there was nothing so delightful as to sit in an arbour dimly lighted, and to make a supper off cold chicken with a glass of punch afterwards – girls drank punch then – to look out upon the company, resplendent, men and women alike, in their dress, and ceremonious in their manners; to be told how the one was the young Lord Mellamour and the angel with him was a danseuse of Covent Garden: and that other gentleman behind them was the Rev. Dr. Scattertext of St. Bride's; and that the dashing young fellow in peach-coloured velvet was no other than Sixteen String Jack the highwayman. Vauxhall, in fact, for two hundred years, was nothing less than a national institution. All classes who could command a decent coat went to Vauxhall. The Prince of Wales went there – once or twice he was recognised and mobbed; all the great ladies went there; all the lesser ladies; all the ladies of the half world; all the citizens, from the Alderman to the 'prentice; all the adventurers; all the gallant highwaymen. There was a charming toleration about the visitors to Vauxhall. They were not in the least disturbed by the presence of the highwaymen, of the adventurers, or of the ladies corresponding to those gentlemen – not in the least; they walked together in the lanes and aisles of the place; they ate supper in the next arbour; they saw the young rakes carrying on openly and without the least disguise. The sober citizen saw it; his sober wife saw it; her daughter saw it. There were no complaints, save occasionally from the Surrey magistrates. The place and the behaviour of the people are typical of the eighteenth century, in which the maintenance of order was thrown upon the public, and there were no police. If things got very bad in a pleasure garden, the magistrates refused a license; if the visitors were robbed by highwaymen on their way to and from the place, guards were appointed by the managers. Vauxhall, however, was safer than most places, because most of the people came by boat. In common with all places of amusement in the eighteenth century, Vauxhall was late. The people seem to have been allowed to stay there nearly all night.
There is a passage quoted in Chambers's 'Book of Days,' which I should like to transfer with acknowledgments to this page. It is from the 'Connoisseur' of 1755, and discusses a Vauxhall slice of ham.
'When it was brought, our honest friend twirled the dish about three or four times, and surveyed it with a settled countenance. Then taking up a slice of the ham on the point of his fork, and dangling it to and fro, he asked the waiter how much there was of it. "A shilling's worth, sir," said the fellow. "Prithee," said the cit, "how much dost think it weighs?" "An ounce, sir." "Ah! a shilling an ounce, that is sixteen shillings per pound; a reasonable profit, truly! Let me see. Suppose, now, the whole ham weighs thirty pounds: at a shilling per ounce, that is sixteen shillings per pound. Why, your master makes exactly twenty-four pounds off of every ham; and if he buys them at the best hand, and salts and cures them himself, they don't stand him in ten shillings a-piece!"'
In 1841 there seemed every prospect that the gardens would be closed; they were not closed, however, but were reopened and continued open until the year 1859, where they were finally closed and the farewell night was celebrated.
The scare, however, in 1841 produced in June a brief history of Vauxhall Gardens in one of the morning papers – I do not know which – I have it as a cutting only. It is as follows:
'Vauxhall Gardens are announced for public sale under Gye and Hughes's bankruptcy, and their past celebrity deserves a notice, if only as a memento of the pleasure the old and young have experienced in their delightful retreats, while their hundredfold associations, such as the journey of Sir Roger de Coverley to the gardens, old Jonathan Tyers, and the paintings in the pavilions by Hayman and Hogarth, create an interest seldom to be met with. The gardens derive their name from the manor of Vauxhall, or Faukeshall, but the tradition that the property belonged to Guy Fawkes is erroneous. The premises were in 1615 the property of Jane Vaux, and the mansion was then called Stockdens. The gardens appear to have been originally planted with trees and laid out into walks for the pleasure of a private gentleman, Sir Samuel Moreland, who displayed in his house and gardens many whimsical proofs of his skill in mechanics. It is said these gardens were planted in the reign of Charles I.; nor is it improbable, since, according to Aubrey, they were well known in 1667, when Sir Samuel Moreland, the proprietor, added a public room to them, "the inside of which," he says, "is all looking-glass and fountains and very pleasant to behold, and which is much visited by strangers." The time when they were first opened for the entertainment of the public is involved in some uncertainty; their celebrity is, however, established to be upwards of a century and a half old. In the reign of Queen Anne they appear to have been a place of great public resort, for in the "Spectator," No. 383, dated May 20, 1712, Addison has introduced Sir Roger de Coverley as accompanying him in a voyage from Temple-stairs to Vauxhall, then called Spring Gardens. He says: "We made the best of our way to Foxhall;" and describes the gardens as "exceedingly pleasant at this time of the year. When I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers with the choirs of birds that sung upon the trees and the tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look on this place as a sort of Mohammedan Paradise." Masks were then worn, at least by some visitors, for Addison talks of "a mask tapping Sir Roger on the shoulder and inviting him to drink a bottle of mead with her." A glass of Burton ale and a slice of hung beef formed the supper of the party. The place, however, resembled a tea-garden of our days till the year 1730, when Mr. Jonathan Tyers took a lease of the premises, and shortly afterwards opened Vauxhall with a Ridotto al Fresco. The novelty of the term attracted great numbers, and Mr. Tyers was so successful in occasional repetitions as to be induced to open the gardens every evening during the summer. Hogarth at this time had lodgings at Lambeth-terrace, and, becoming intimate with Tyers, was induced to embellish the gardens with his designs, in which he was joined by Hayman. The house which he occupied is still shown, and a vine pointed out which he planted. Tyers's improvements consisted of sweeps of pavilions and saloons, in which these paintings were placed. He also erected an orchestra, engaged a band of music, and placed a fine statue of Handel by Roubiliac in a conspicuous part of the gardens. Mr. Cunningham dates the appearance of this statue, which was Roubiliac's earliest work, at 1732. Mr. Tyers afterwards purchased the whole of the estate, which is copyhold of inheritance, and held of the Prince of Wales, as lord of Kennington manor, in right of his Duchy of Cornwall. The gardens were originally opened daily (Sunday excepted), and till the year 1792 the admission was 1s.; it was then raised to 2s.; including tea and coffee; in 1809 several improvements were made, lamps added, &c., the price was raised to 3s. 6d., and the gardens were only opened three nights in the week; in 1821 the price was again raised to 4s. Upon the death of Mr. Jonathan Tyers, the gardens became the property of Mr. Bryant Barrett, who married the granddaughter of the original proprietor. They next descended to Mr. Barrett's sons, and from them by right of purchase to the late proprietors. Mr. Thomas Tyers, a son of the famous Jonathan Tyers, and author of "Biographical Sketches of Johnson," and "Political Conferences," who died on February 1, 1787, contributed many poetic trifles to the gardens. The representation of the Ridotto al Fresco is thus described by one of the newspapers of June 21, 1732: "On Wednesday, at the Ridotto al Fresco at Vauxhall, there was not one half of the company as was expected, being no more than 203 persons, amongst whom were several persons of distinction, but more ladies than gentlemen, and the whole was managed with great order and decency; a detachment of 100 of the Foot Guards being posted round the gardens. A waiter belonging to the house having got drunk put on a dress and went to fresco with the rest of the company, but being discovered he was immediately turned out of doors." The season of 1739 was for three months, and the admittance was by silver tickets. The proprietors then announced that "1,000 tickets would only be delivered at 25s. each, the silver of every ticket to be worth 3s. 2d., and to admit two persons every evening (Sunday excepted) during the season." It appears that these silver tickets were struck after designs by Hogarth, and a plate of some of them shows the following: – Mr. John Hinton, 212, 1794; on the reverse side the figure of Calliope. Mr. Wood, 63, 1750; on the reverse side three boys playing with a lyre, and the motto "Jocosæ conveniunt Lyræ." Mr. R. Frankling, 70; on the reverse side figure of Euterpe. Mr. Samuel Lewes, 87; on the reverse side the figure of Erato. Mr. Carey, 11; on the reverse side the figure of Thalia. This plate also exhibits the gold ticket, a perpetual admission given to Hogarth by Jonathan Tyers, in gratitude for his advice and assistance in decorating the gardens. After his decease it remained in the hands of Mrs. Hogarth, his widow, who bequeathed it to her relation, Mrs. Mary Lewis, who subsequently left it to Mr. P. F. Hart, who in his will, in 1823, bequeathed it to Mr. John Tuck. It is hardly necessary to say that the ticket is after Hogarth's own design. The face of it presents the word "Hogarth," in a bold hand, beneath which is "In perpetuam beneficii memoriam." On the reverse there are two figures, surrounded with the motto, "Virtus voluptas felices una." It also appears that Roubiliac furnished a statue of Milton for the gardens. Among the singers Beard and Lowe were early favourites; then came Dignum, Mrs. Weichsel, Mrs. Billington, Signora Storace, Incledon, Mrs. Bland, &c. In later years, Misses Tunstall, Noel, Melville, and Williams; Stephens, Love, Madame Cornega, and Madame Vestris; Mr. Braham, Mr. Sinclair, Mr. Robinson, and Signor de Begnis, &c., with Signor Spagnoletti as leader.'
CHAPTER XVII
SOUTH LONDON OF TO-DAY
The expansion of London during the Nineteenth Century is in itself a fact unparalleled in the history of cities. Those who call attention to this miracle always point to the filling up of the huge area between Highgate and Hampstead and Clerkenwell in the North, or the extension of the town to Hammersmith on the West. Perhaps a little consideration of the South may show a still more remarkable growth. I have before me a map of the year 1834, only sixty-four years ago, showing South London as it was. I see a small town or collection of small towns, occupying the district called the Borough Proper, Lambeth, Newington, Walworth, and Bermondsey. In some parts this area is densely populated, filled with narrow courts and lanes; in other parts there are broad fields, open spaces, unoccupied pieces of ground. At the back of Vauxhall Gardens, for instance there are open fields; in Walworth there is a certain place, then notorious for the people who lived there, called Snow's Fields; in Bermondsey there are also open spaces, some of them gardens, or recreation grounds, without any buildings. Battersea is a mere stretch of open country. I myself remember the old Battersea Fields perfectly well; one shivers at the recollection; they were low, flat, damp, and, I believe, treeless; they were crossed, like Hackney Marsh, by paths raised above the level; at no time of year could the Battersea Fields look anything but dreary. In winter they were inexpressibly dismal. As a boy I have walked across the fields in order to get to the embankment or river wall from which one commanded a view of the Thames with its barges and lighters going up and down – pleasant when the sun shone on the river, but a mere shadow of the ancient glory when the pleasure barges and the State barges swept majestically up the river with the hautboys and the trumpets in the bows; when the swans by thousands sailed upon the broad bosom of the waters, and in the middle of the river the fisherman cast his net, as Edric had done fifteen hundred years before at St. Peter's orders, when he brought out his famous salmon. One walked along the embankment; the fields on one side were lower than the waters on the other. Beyond the river were the trees of Chelsea Hospital. Close to the river bank was an enclosure which was called the Subscription Ground; here the subscribers came to shoot pigeons – noble sport. If I remember aright, while the subscribing sportsmen shot at the pigeons in the enclosure, others of low condition who were not subscribers lurked about on the outside to shoot down those birds which escaped from the murderers within. Close by the Subscription Ground was a certain famous tavern called the Red House. I do not know why it was famous, but everybody always said it was. I believe it was much frequented on summer evenings, and that the subscribing sportsmen close by, whether they hit their pigeon or not, proved excellent customers for the drinks of the Red House. At that time there were 'famous' taverns all up and down the river on either bank. There are still Riverside taverns, but the invasion of the new streets and houses has driven them, considered as 'famous' taverns, either higher up, or lower down. As mere commonplace public houses they probably remain still. Duels were conducted on the Battersea Fields, and there were certain historical associations in connection with these dreary flats. Here, for instance, the Duke of Wellington fought his duel with Lord Winchilsea. Other important people were also connected either with the Fields or the Village of Battersea, but at the time I knew not anything about them. The Battersea of my boyhood is gone absolutely: no trace of it remains, except the Church. The Grosvenor Railway Bridge passes over the site of the famous Red House; the most beautiful of all our Parks covers the Subscription Shooting Grounds, together with most of the flat and dreary fields; and houses by the thousand, with streets mean and monotonous, stand where formerly the pigeons flew wildly, hoping to escape those who waited outside the grounds as they had escaped those who potted at them from within.
Let us turn to another part of the map and inquire into Rotherhithe. It is curious that at one end we get Rotherhithe, the Place of Cattle; and at the other Lambeth or Lambhythe, if it be the 'Place of Lambs' and not the 'Place of Mud.' In 1834 the Commercial Docks are already there, but without prejudice to the ancient and venerable docks of the preceding century, Acorn Dock and Lavender Dock. A single street runs along the Embankment, which it hides and covers: at the back of this street there is a succession of small lanes and courts running back with tiny houses – two or four rooms to each – on either side, and ending generally in gardens of greenery – leaves and palings. You may still see, in 1898, if you are lucky, the bows and bowsprit of a ship in one of the old docks, sticking across the street, causing a momentary confusion in the mind between land and water; there are riverside taverns which look as if at a touch they would yield and slide into the mud below. In 1834 this street with these little lanes was the whole of Rotherhithe. Inland – or in-marsh – ponds and ditches and creeping streams lay about; one of the ponds survives to this day; you will find it in the middle of the pretty garden they call Southwark Park, of which it forms the ornamental water. And the rest of Rotherhithe, between the Park and Bermondsey, is one unbroken mass of streets with no green thing and no open space. All is filled up and built upon.
A little beyond Rotherhithe lies Deptford. On my map of 1834 I see a little town, lying partly on the bank of the Thames, partly on the bank of the Ravensbourne, which here widens out and forms Deptford Creek. The greater part of the area of Deptford is taken up by the Dockyard, not yet closed. As for the town, which now contains nearly 100,000 people, about five-and-twenty little streets sufficed for all its people; it boasted of two churches and two almshouses. One of these Havens of Rest was so picturesque and so beautiful that it could not be suffered to remain. Almshouses which are perfectly beautiful are only vouchsafed to man for a limited period, lest other buildings become intolerable. Their time expired, they are then carried off Heavenward.
Or turn your eyes further south. London in this direction now covers – for the most part completely, in some parts leaving spaces and fields here and there – Greenwich, Blackheath, Brockley, Peckham, Forest Hill, Dulwich, Brixton, Stockwell, Camberwell, Clapham, Balham, Wandsworth, Vauxhall, and Penge, and many others.
It is difficult, now that the whole country south of London has been covered with villas, roads, streets, and shops, to understand how wonderful for loveliness it was until the builder seized upon it. When the ground rose out of the great Lambeth and Bermondsey Marsh – the cliff or incline is marked still by the names of Battersea Rise, Clapham Rise, and Brixton Rise – it opened out into one wild heath after another – Clapham, Wandsworth, Putney, Wimbledon, Barnes, Tooting, Streatham, Richmond, Thornton, and so south as far as Banstead Downs. The country was not flat: it rose at Wimbledon to a high plateau; it rose at Norwood to a chain of hills; between the Heaths stretched gardens and orchards; between the orchards were pasture lands; on the hill sides were hanging woods; villages were scattered about, each with its venerable church and its peaceful churchyard; along the high roads to Dover, Southampton, and Portsmouth bumped and rolled, all day and all night, the stage coaches and the waggons; the wayside inns were crowded with those who halted to drink, those who halted to dine, and those who halted to sleep: if the village lay off the main road it was as quiet and as secure as the town of Laish. All this beauty is gone; we have destroyed it: all this beauty has gone for ever; it cannot be replaced. And on the south there was so much more beauty than on the north. On the latter side of London there are the heights with Hampstead, Highgate, and Hornsey – one row of villages; but there is little more. The country between Hatfield or St. Albans and Hampstead is singularly dull and uninteresting: it is not until one reaches Hertford or Rickmansworth that the explorer comes once more into lovely country. But the loveliness of South London lay almost at the very doors of London: one could walk into it; the heaths were within an easy walk, and the loveliness of Surrey lay upon all.
I have mentioned already some of the heaths, those which remain at the present moment. It will be a matter of surprise to the reader to hear of the many waste and wild places which have been appropriated and built over in the last two hundred years. In the parish of Lambeth alone, an extensive tract, it is true, there was nearly 500 acres of commons: namely, Kennington, Norwood, Norwood Common (in another part of Norwood), Hall Lane, Knight's Hill Green, Half Moon Green, Rush Common, South Stockwell Common, South Lambeth and North Stockwell Common. With the exception of the first all these are now gone.
Look at Dulwich – the peaceful and picturesque village of Dulwich on this map of 1834. It lies among its trees, its gardens, and its fields: the venerable college of Alleyn is the glory of the village – nothing more beautiful than this almshouse with its hall and its picture gallery. Yet the people flocked out to Dulwich less for the picture gallery than the shady walks, the fields, and a certain tavern – the Greyhound – which was beloved by everybody, and believed to contain a particular brew of beer, a particular kind of old Jamaica for punch, and a particular vintage of port not to be found anywhere else, even in a City company's cellars. There was, in fact, no more favourite place of resort for the better sort of citizens of London than Dulwich in the summer. For the poorer sort it was too far off, and cost too much in conveyance. The Dulwich stage ran two or three times a day: it was not too long a drive from the city; the young men rode – in those days the young men could all ride – even John Gilpin thought he could ride; they hired a horse as we now get into a cab. For those who lived in any suburb on the south, Dulwich was an easy walk. Not far from the college and the village – Mr. Pickwick lived there in 1834 – were the Dulwich Fields, as beautiful and interesting as those of Battersea were the contrary: there were, I think, five of them in succession: the little stream called the Effra rose somewhere in the neighbourhood, and ran about, winding through the fields in a deep channel with rustic bridges across. In older days – at the end of the eighteenth century, for example, the Effra, a bright and sparkling stream, ran out of the fields above what is now called the Effra Road, and so along the south side – or was it the north? – of Brixton Road. Rustic cottages stood on the other side of the stream, with flowering shrubs – lilac, laburnum, and hawthorn – on the bank, and beds of the simpler flowers in the summer: the gardens and the cottages were approached by little wooden bridges, each provided with a single rail painted green. That, however, was before my time. In the 'fifties the boys used to play in these fields, jumping over the stream: when they left the fields and got into the village they looked about for Mr. Pickwick and for Sam Weller, if haply they might see either. But I do not learn that either sage or servant ever gratified those eyes of faith by an incarnation.
Here are three hills close together: Herne Hill, Denmark Hill, and Champion Hill. On Denmark Hill Ruskin once lived; but in the 'fifties I was not conscious of that fact or of his greatness. It must be saddening to a great man to reflect that the schoolboys have no respect for him. The road up the hill was somewhat gloomy on account of the trees: the houses, with their gardens and lawns, and carriage drives, and smoothness and snugness, betokened in those years the institution of evening prayers. I fear I may be misunderstood. At that time great was the power and the authority of seriousness. To be serious was fashionable, if one may say so, in City circles. Respectability was nearly always serious: it was divided into two classes: that which had morning prayers only, and that which had evening prayers as well. With the young, the latter institution was unpopular – no one of the present younger generation can understand how unpopular it was: a house which had evening prayers made a deliberate profession of a seriousness which was something out of the common, which the young people disliked, as a rule; and it insisted on the sons getting home in time for prayers. This profession of seriousness generally belonged to a large house, beautiful gardens, rich conservatories, a large income, and a carriage and pair. Denmark Hill used to appear to outward view as more especially a suburb belonging to the serious rich, who could afford a profession of more than common earnestness.