In 1845 De Berenger died, and this year Littlejohn (the refreshment caterer to the gardens) and Tom Matthews managed the place between them. Charles Green, the balloonist, was called in, and began that long series of Cremorne ascents which a spice of eccentricity and danger always rendered popular. For example, in September, Green went up with a lady and a leopard—the latter a magnificent animal, so perfectly subdued in the presence of his mistress or her ‘livery servant,’ as to lay (according to the bill) at her feet or crouch in her lap at command. In August the balloon party consisted of Green, Lord George Beresford, and Tom Matthews, who preluded the ascent by singing his ‘Hot Codlings.’ The balloon went up at seven, and, after visiting the General Post Office and passing over Stamford Hill in perilous proximity to the New River Reservoir, landed its occupants, after a voyage of two hours, cold and shivering, on a marsh at Tottenham. In 1846 (or more probably a few years later) Cremorne was purchased by Thomas Bartlett Simpson, who guided its destinies till the beginning of the sixties. {5} Simpson had been head-waiter at the Albion, a well-known theatrical tavern that stood opposite Drury Lane Theatre in Russell Street, and was afterwards its lessee. He was a shrewd man of business, and, according to George Augustus Sala, ‘a kindly and generous gentleman.’ Sala, who knew the gardens well from about 1850, tells us that, unlike the Vauxhall of the time, Cremorne was a real pleasaunce surrounded by magnificent trees, with well-kept lawns and lovely flowers, and melodious singing-birds. Nothing was pleasanter in the summer-time than to saunter in at midday or in the early afternoon (for the gardens were not properly open till three or five), and find Mr. Simpson’s daughters there with their work-baskets—to say nothing of the pretty barmaids employed by the kindly and generous gentleman, who were busy, in their cotton frocks, arranging the bars, and paying, it is implied, no ordinary attention to Mr. G. A. Sala. [Picture: Plan of Cremorne, circa 1870–1877] Five thousand pounds was spent in preparing for the opening of 1846, and a banqueting-hall and theatre were constructed, as well as some ‘delightful lavender bowers’ for the accommodation of the 1,500 persons who were likely to need a bowery seclusion. The gardens were rapidly getting into shape, and we can now survey them almost as they appeared till their close in 1877.