Early in the fifties the spirited proprietor (William Barton) was advertising his ball-room and monster platform, and introduced Moffatt’s Equestrian Troupe and the Brothers Elliot, two clever acrobats from Batty’s Hippodrome. {51} The Chinese Exhibition, transplanted from Hyde Park, was expounded by a native interpreter, ‘whose pleasing description of the manners and customs of these Eastern people was in itself highly instructive and amusing.’ John Hampton, a noted balloonist of the time, was also engaged for many ascents. On July 27, 1853, the timber circus caught fire, and an ill-fated troupe of trained dogs and seven horses perished. I do not suggest that these seven horses constituted the whole of the garden stud, but after this time we happen to hear little of the Rosemary Branch as an open-air resort. It was always a place for visitors of humble rank, the admission being sixpence or a shilling. A ticket of 1853 notifies that persons not ‘suitably attired’ will be excluded. It was, moreover, announced that the M.C.’s (Messrs. Franconi and Hughes) ‘keep the strictest order,’ and a policeman or two hovered in the background. All, therefore, should have gone well. The successor of the Rosemary Branch is a public-house, the Rosemary Branch and Shepperton Distillery, No. 2, Shepperton Road, N., lying between Rosemary Street and Brunswick Place. Houses now occupy the space behind the building. In the background the tall chimney of the white-lead works (Messrs. Campion, Druce, No. 35, Southgate Road) has taken the place of the windmills. [Tomlins’ _Islington_, p. 151; Cromwell’s _Islington_; _Era Almanack_, 1871, p. 6; _Theatrical Journal_ for 1852; newspaper advertisements, and bills. Views: _Crace Catalogue_, p. 599, No. 135 (water-colour by Storer); _ibid._, p. 599, No. 136, a woodcut showing the gardens with pony-racing, etc., 1846; an engraving (1812) of the white-lead mills taken from the garden of the Rosemary Branch shows the boating on the pond.] SIR HUGH MYDDELTON’S HEAD THIS was a picturesque old inn, built, it is said in 1614, standing by the water-side opposite the New River Head and Sadler’s Wells. It is shown in Hogarth’s ‘Evening’ (1738)—a gable-ended, vine-clad house with the portrait of the great Sir Hugh as its pendent sign. It will be remembered that this picture represents a portly dame, accompanied by an evidently ill-used husband and two crying children, passing by the tavern, wherein a merry drinking-party is seen through the open window. Perhaps the mantling vine is not a natural feature of the place, but bitter Hogarthian symbolism—‘Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thy house.’ On the other hand, Clerkenwell has still its Vine Yard Walk, and twenty years ago in one or two of the gardens in a square near Sadler’s Wells, there might be found a vine which produced a passable grape.