They were about twelve acres, to which must be added, from 1850, the grounds of Ashburnham House on the west, in which flower-shows and other exhibitions were held. Cremorne lay between the river and the King’s Road, Chelsea. The grand entrance was in the King’s Road, where a big star illuminated the pay-box. On a summer evening, if you did not mind the slow progress of the threepenny steamer from the City to Cremorne Pier, you entered by the river gate at the south-east corner of the gardens. The grounds were well lit, but on entering there was not that sudden blaze of light that was the visitor’s great sensation when he came through the dark pay-entrance into the garden of Vauxhall. The most conspicuous feature was the orchestra to the south-west of the gardens—a ‘monster pagoda,’ brilliantly lighted with hundreds of coloured lamps, and surrounded by a circular platform, prepared, it is said, to accommodate 4,000 dancers. Here the dancing took place from 8.30 till 11 or later. There was always a dignified master of the ceremonies (in 1846 Flexmore the pantomimist), but little introduction was required in that easygoing place. There was a good band of fifty, for some years under Laurent, of the Adelaide Gallery Casino in the Strand. {7} In the early part of the evening—at any rate, in the seventies—the dancing was left to the shop-girls and their friends: the gilded youth and the ‘smart’ female set of Cremorne began their waltzing later on, after the fireworks. The gardens had a tendency to become congested with side-shows, flaring stalls and shooting-galleries, too much suggesting a fair; but, unlike Earl’s Court and the later Vauxhall, Cremorne remained a garden. There was still the encircling fringe of ancient trees, and an avenue on the west stretching from north to south; on the east side was the broad lawn from which the balloon ascents took place. Cremorne had the usual pleasure-garden equipment of fountains and statuary; refreshment-bars, boxes, and tables were placed at every coign of vantage, though the right place to go was the Cremorne House (or Hotel) dining-room, or the upper and lower tiers of supper-boxes in the south and south-western corner. Here there was a half-crown supper, and, if you aspired no higher, the Cremorne sherry, that fine old wine, ‘free from acidity, and highly recommended to invalids.’ In the centre of the grounds was an American bowling-saloon, which made its appearance, together with American drinks, in ’48 or ’49.