From _circ._ 1752–1756 the proprietor was Naphthali Hart,[314] teacher of music and dancing, who held assemblies at Marble Hall in the season, devoting his energies in the winter to Hart’s Academy, Essex House, Essex Street, Strand, where (as his advertisements state) “grown gentlemen are taught to dance a minuet and country dances in the modern taste, and in a short time.” “Likewise gentlemen are taught to play on any instrument, the use of the small Sword and Spedroon.” “At the same place is taught musick, fencing, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, High German, Low Dutch, Navigation, or any other part of the Mathematicks.” “A sprightly youth is wanted as an apprentice.” In the spring of 1756 Marble Hall was opened as a coffee house and tavern, but little appears to be known of it after this date, though it was in existence till about August 1813, when the abutment of Vauxhall Bridge on the Surrey side was begun. [Advertisements in “Public Gardens” collection in Guildhall Library, London; Manning and Bray, _Surrey_, iii. 484, and map, p. 526; Allen’s _Lambeth_, 368; Walford, vi. 339.] THE CUMBERLAND TEA-GARDENS AND TAVERN, VAUXHALL (ORIGINALLY SMITH’S TEA-GARDENS) These small gardens, about one acre and a half in extent, were pleasantly situated on the south bank of the Thames, immediately to the south of Vauxhall Bridge (built 1811–1816). Under the name of Smith’s Tea-Gardens they were probably in existence some years previous to 1779. “A Fête Champêtre, or Grand Rural Masked Ball,” with illuminations in the garden and the rooms, was advertised to take place on 22 May, 1779, at 10 P.M., the subscription tickets being one guinea. About May 1784 the gardens were taken by Luke Reilly, landlord of the Freemasons’ Tavern in Great Queen Street, who changed the name to the Cumberland (or Royal Cumberland) Gardens.[315] At this time they were open in the afternoon and evening, and visitors to Vauxhall Gardens sometimes had refreshments there in the arbours and tea-room while waiting for Vauxhall to open; or adjourned thither for supper when tired of the larger garden. In August 1796 a silver cup given by the proprietor was competed for on the river by sailing boats. In 1797 a ten years’ lease of the gardens and tavern was advertised to be sold for £1,000. From 1800 to 1825 the gardens were much frequented by dwellers in the south of London. Between three and four o’clock in the morning of May 25, 1825, the tavern was discovered to be on fire. The engines of Vauxhall Gardens and of the various Insurance Offices came on the scene, but the fire raged for more than an hour, and the tavern and the ball-room adjoining were completely destroyed and the plantation and garden greatly injured. In October of the same year the property on the premises was sold by the lessors under an execution and at that time the gardens were, it would seem, finally closed.[316]