There is evidence[294] that in the first few years of its existence (1788–1791) the place was visited by some people of good position, but it afterwards became the haunt of dissolute characters and of young apprentices.[295] The author of _A Modern Sabbath_ describes (_circ._ 1796) the boxes in the gardens as “neatly painted” like most of the company who were to be seen there about ten in the evening. The admission appears to have been now reduced to sixpence. In 1796 the proprietor, a man named Grist, was indicted for keeping the place as a disorderly house, and was ordered (May 30) to be confined for six months in the King’s Bench Prison,[296] and in all probability the Temple of Flora was then finally closed. Mme. Lamotte, the heroine of the famous Diamond Necklace affair, ended her strange career (23 August, 1791) in her house near the Temple of Flora, a place of amusement that, it is likely enough, she frequented.[297] [_A Modern Sabbath_ (1797), chap. viii.; _Public Advertiser_, 2 July, 1789 (fêtes of June and July); Brayley and Mantell, _Surrey_, iii. 399; Allen’s _Lambeth_, 321.] APOLLO GARDENS (OR TEMPLE OF APOLLO) These gardens were on the left hand side of the Westminster Bridge Road going from Westminster to the Obelisk, and were situated nearly where the engineering factory of Messrs. Maudslay, Sons and Field now stands and opposite the present Christ Church Congregational Chapel.[298] Walter Claggett, the proprietor (at one time a lessee of the Pantheon[299] in Oxford Street) opened the place in October 1788 with an entertainment given in the concert room, which is described as a fine building with “a kind of orrery in the dome, displaying a pallid moon between two brilliant transparencies.” In this building was an orchestra containing a fine-toned organ, and in the opening concert, given before nearly one thousand three hundred people, a band of about seventy instrumental and vocal performers took part, the organist being Jonathan Battishill. Previous to the opening for the season in April 1790, the gardens were much altered and a room was arranged for large dinner parties. In the gardens were a number of “elegant pavilions or alcoves” ornamented with the adventures of Don Quixote and other paintings. In 1792 (May-July) there was music every evening and fantoccini were exhibited. In this year the concerts took place in a covered promenade described as the Grand Apollonian Promenade. Mr. Flack, junior, was the leader of the band; Mr. Costelow the organist, and the vocalists were Mr. Binley, Miss Wingfield, Mrs. Leaver, and Mrs. Iliff, the last-named one of the Vauxhall singers in 1787. New overtures, &c., “composed by Messrs. Haydn and Pleyel since their arrival in this Kingdom” were advertised for performance.