The Pinder a Wakefielde (the modern representative of which stands near the old site in Gray’s Inn Road) was a tavern; and some writers have inferred from the above inscription that Bagnigge Wells itself was a place of entertainment as early as 1680. [51] Over one of the chimney-pieces of the room was the garter of the order of St. George, in relief, and over another the bust of a woman in Roman dress, popularly supposed to represent Nell Gwynne. This bust was let into a circular cavity of the wall, bordered with festoons of fruit and flowers moulded in delft earth and coloured after nature. Owing to the number of visitors promenading in the Long Room to the hindrance of the waiters, the room was, before 1797, divided into two, though we are told that the “former elegance” remained. [52] The organ and its organist (under Davis), Charley Griffith, are shown in an engraving “The Bagnigge Organfist” (undated). “Published for the benefit of decayed musicians.” [53] _Picture of London_, 1802. [54] “Bagnigge Wells,” a song in the _London Magazine_, June, 1759. [55] Colman’s prologue to Garrick’s _Bon Ton_, 1775. [56] This is made sufficiently clear in the _Sunday Ramble_ (1774, &c.); in the poem cited in the next note, and in Trusler’s _London Adviser_ (1786). [57] _Bagnigge Wells_, an anonymous poem (1779). [58] _The life of John Rann, otherwise Sixteen Strings Jack_, reprinted London, 1884; C. Whibley in _The New Review_, 1896, p. 222; cp. also the print “The Road to Ruin.” [59] Sale Catalogue, 1813. (Copy in Brit. Mus.) [60] A few years before 1891, these figures were in the possession of Dr. Lonsdale of Carlisle (Wheatley’s _London P. and P._). [61] The temple (behind the Long Room) and the grotto to the north of it, were, as formerly, in the garden east of the Fleet. The western garden, previous to its curtailment, contained the rustic cottage nearly opposite the grotto, and the pond with its swan and Cupid fountain about the middle of the garden. [62] For New Year’s day 1751, new fireworks in the Chinese manner were announced to take place at the Sir John Oldcastle (Pinks, p. 738). This was a special subscription entertainment. The regular open-air amusements appear to have come to an end in 1746. [63] The Well at Battle Bridge (_i.e._ St. Chad’s) is mentioned with four other London Wells in the _Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine_ for January 1773, p. 162. A Mr. Salter was part proprietor of the Well for many years previous to 1798. His mind became deranged and on 17 July, 1798, he was found drowned in a pond in the garden of St. Chad’s (_The Courier_ for 18 July, 1798). [64] Coull’s _St. Pancras_, p. 22. [65] In the minutes of a Vestry Meeting in St. Giles’s parish, held in 1676, it is recorded that a meeting is appointed with the parishioners in St. Andrew’s, Holborn, about the Bowling Green in Gray’s Inn Fields and the houses near thereabouts built (F. Miller’s _St. Pancras_, p. 77).