The London pleasure gardens of the eighteenth centuryWroth, Warwick William
History
The London pleasure gardens of the eighteenth century
Wroth, Warwick William
London (England) -- History -- 18th century; Parks -- England -- London -- History
[248] O’Keefe’s _Recollections_, vol. i. p. 88: “1762. At Cromwell
House, Brompton, once the seat of Oliver, was also a tea-garden
concert.”
[249] The price appears on the (undated) pewter and brass admission
tickets to Cromwell’s Gardens. The British Museum has four specimens in
pewter, with Cromwell’s head; and one of the brass tickets.
[250] The Sunday Rambler visits the gardens between 7.30 and 9 p.m.
[251] I follow the _Modern Sabbath_, ed. 1797, in stating that
Cromwell’s Gardens were identical with the Florida Gardens. In the
second edition of the _Sunday Ramble_ (1776) Cromwell’s Gardens
at Brompton are described under that name, and in the 1797 ed. (_A
Modern Sabbath_) almost the same description is repeated, and it
is expressly stated that the name of the place had been changed from
Cromwell’s to Florida Gardens. On the other hand, Faulkner describes
the Florida Gardens as having been originally a nursery garden kept by
“Hyam” (he is called Hiem in the advertisements) and converted by him
(for the first time, it is implied) into a place of public amusement.
Faulkner after describing Hale House, mentions Cromwell’s Gardens as
a separate place of amusement earlier than the Florida Gardens. The
contemporary authority of the _Modern Sabbath_ seems, however,
preferable; especially as Faulkner does not appear to be able to state
the precise site of Cromwell’s Gardens. A further complication may
perhaps be thought to be introduced by the passage in O’Keefe (cited
in Note 1) where Cromwell’s Gardens are described as “at Cromwell
House” (_i.e._ Hale House). But the inhabitants of Cromwell House
from 1754 to 1794, or later, are well known to have been people of
substance, and the gardens proper of Hale House could hardly have been
employed as a tea-garden. The Florida Gardens (afterwards occupied by
Canning’s Gloucester Lodge) were (as stated above) adjacent to Hale
House, and may possibly at one time have belonged to its owners, and
have been let out partly as a tea-garden and partly as a nursery. The
writer of the _Modern Sabbath_ in fact remarks that Cromwell’s
Gardens is supposed to have taken its name from the ground being
formerly the patrimonial estate of the Protector who once had a
palace here upon the site of which is a handsome seat (_i.e._
Hale House). The change of name from Cromwell to Florida took place
(as appears from the various editions of a _Sunday Ramble_) at
some time between 1776 and 1797. I suggest that the change took place
about 1780, because Lysons (who, however, does not mention Cromwell’s
Gardens) says that the place was “much puffed in the daily papers
between the years 1780 and 1790 by the name of Florida Gardens.” In any
case they certainly were advertised by Hiem as the Florida Gardens as
early as 1781.
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