The great attraction was the Rotunda, supposed to be like the Pantheon at Rome. The outside diameter was 185 feet. An arcade ran all round, and above it a gallery, with steps up to it through four Doric porticos. Over the gallery were sixty windows, and the whole was surmounted by a slate roof. In the middle, supporting the roof, was a huge fireplace, on the space at first occupied by the orchestra. “Round the Rotunda,” inside, were “47 boxes ... with a table and cloth spread in each; in these the company” were “regaled, without any further expense, with tea and coffee.” The whole was adorned with looking-glasses and paintings, imitation marble, stucco, and gilding. Dr. Arne wrote music for the special performances; breakfasts were at one time the rage, and at another masquerades were the order of the day; while fireworks and illuminations amused the company at intervals, all through the years in which Ranelagh was prosperous. “There thousands of gay lamps aspir’d To the tops of the trees and beyond; And, what was most hugely admired, They looked upside-down in a pond. The blaze scarce an eagle could bear And an owl had most surely been slain; We returned to the circle, and then-- And then we went round it again.” One of the last entertainments at Ranelagh was the Installation Ball of the Knights of the Bath in 1803; and a few years afterwards all trace of Ranelagh House, the Rotunda, and even the Garden was gone. The ground reverted to Chelsea Hospital, and not a vestige of the former glories is left. The pleasant shady walks and undulating lawns on the site, bear no resemblance to the lines of the former gardens, and only some of the older trees can have been there when Lord Chesterfield and Walpole were paying it daily visits.