The season began in April or May, and the visitor on entering at five o’clock or later, paid a shilling or sixpence (1792) receiving in exchange a metal check entitling him to refreshments. No charge was made for the concert. At about nine o’clock many persons who had “come on” from other public places visited the Apollo for hot suppers, and the gardens and promenade were illuminated, sometimes with two thousand lamps. The proprietor prided himself on “the superior excellence of the Music and Wines.” He boasted, moreover, of the patronage of the nobility and gentry, and vaunted the “chastity and dignity” of the place, though it was probably owing to the presence of some of these late arriving visitors that the Apollo Gardens speedily acquired an unenviable reputation. In 1792 the place was known to be a resort of cheats and pickpockets. We hear of one Elizabeth Smith, a smartly dressed young woman, about eighteen, being charged in 1792 at the Guildhall with “trepanning a Miss Ridley,” a beautiful girl ten years of age, whom she had taken with her to the Apollo and the Dog and Duck, and left crying on Blackfriars Bridge, after stealing her fine sash. The Apollo was suppressed by the magistrates, probably about 1793.[300] The proprietor himself became bankrupt; the orchestra was removed to Sydney Gardens, Bath;[301] and the Temple of Apollo fell into a ruinous state and its site was eventually built upon. [A collection of newspaper cuttings relating to London, &c. (section, Apollo Gardens) in Guildhall Library, London (_Catal._ ii. 546); “Public Gardens” collection (newspaper cuttings, &c.) in Guildhall Library (_Catal._ ii. 761); Brayley and Mantell, _Surrey_, iii. 399; Allen’s _Lambeth_, 319; Walford, vi. 343, 389; _A Modern Sabbath_, chap. viii.] VIEWS. There appear to be no extant views. The site may be ascertained from Horwood’s _Plan_, 1799; and from Willis’s _Plan_, 1808. In the Crace Coll. (_Cat._ p. 122, No. 69) are “Two drawn plans of a plot of land called the Apollo Gardens, lying next the Westminster Bridge Road to the Obelisk,” by T. Chawner. DOG AND DUCK, ST. GEORGE’S FIELDS (ST. GEORGE’S SPA)