Spring Gardens were opened again during the Civil War, with the old customs of drinking; it was, however, provided that the Gardens should be closed on public fast days. In 1654 they were closed altogether; Evelyn (May 10) has an entry:— “My Lady Gerrard treated us at Mulberry Garden, now the only place of refreshment about the towne for persons of the best quality to be exceedingly cheated at, Cromwell and his partisans having shut up and seized on Spring Gardens, which, till now, had been the usual rendezvous for the ladies and gallants at this season.” In 1658 it was open again, for Evelyn “collation’d” there on his way to see a coach race in Hyde Park. The best account of the Garden is one quoted by Larwood from _A Character of England_[11]:— “The inclosure is not disagreeable, for the solemness of the grove, the warbling of the birds, and as it opens into the spacious walks of St. James’s. But the company walk in it at such a rate as you would think all the ladies were so many Atalantas contending with their wooers; and there was no appearance that I should prove the Hippomenes who would with very much ado keep pace with them. But, as fast as they run, they stay there so long as if they wanted not time to finish the race; for it is usual here to find some of the young company till midnight; and the thickets of the garden seem to be contrived to all advantages of gallantry, after they have been refreshed with the collation, which is here seldom omitted, at a certain _cabaret_ in the middle of this paradise, where the forbidden fruits are certain trifling tarts, neats-tongues, salacious meats, and bad Rhenish (wine); for which the gallants pay sauce, as indeed they do at all such houses throughout England; for they think it a piece of frugality beneath them to bargain or account for what they eat in any place, however unreasonably imposed upon. But thus those mean fellows are enriched—beggar and insult over the gentlemen. I am assured that this particular host has purchased within few years 5000 livres of annual rent, and well he may, at the rate these prodigals pay” (J. Larwood, _The Story of the London Parks_). A more detailed description shows us a garden laid out in square beds, each twenty or thirty paces in length and breadth, and surrounded with hedges of red currants, roses, and shrubs; in the beds were growing strawberries and vegetables, the borders were lined with flowers, and fruit-trees were growing up the walls. Pepys took his wife, his two servants, and his boy there on the King’s birthday, 1662. Visitors could help themselves, apparently, for the servants gathered pinks from the borders. The building of houses about Charing Cross destroyed the rural charm of these gardens; part of them were built upon; a small part still remains at the back of the street now called Spring Gardens.