Among its frequenters White Conduit House could number Oliver Goldsmith, who was wont (_circ._ 1768) to call there at tea-time on his “shoemaker’s holidays.”[138] (cp. Highbury Barn, _infra_). On one occasion, meeting in the gardens the wife and daughters of a tradesman to whom he was under some obligation, he treated the ladies handsomely to refreshments; only to find when the reckoning came, that his purse was empty.[139] Abraham Newland, the famous cashier of the Bank of England, was also a visitor at White Conduit, and, at a later time George Cruikshank[140] made many of his character sketches there. The visitors came to dread his sketchbook, and children who made faces were set on their good behaviour by the threat that Mr. Cruikshank would put them in his book. In 1794, or earlier, the owner of White Conduit was Mr. Christopher Bartholomew,[141] a man of considerable means, who did much to improve the grounds. At one time he owned the freeholds of both the Angel Inn, Islington, and White Conduit House, and was said to be worth £50,000. Having won a lottery prize, he gave a public breakfast in the Conduit gardens “to commemorate the smiles of fortune,” as the invitation tickets expressed it. Unfortunately his taste for gambling in the Lottery increased, and soon his entire fortune was squandered, and he ultimately died in poverty at a mean lodging in March, 1809, at the age of sixty-eight. The surroundings of White Conduit House were still agreeable, and in 1803 we find references to the fine prospect, and the mild refreshing breezes from the abundant hay crops for which the district was noted. By about 1833, however, brickfields and rows of houses had destroyed its rural aspect. Until about the beginning of the present century, White Conduit House appears to have had no entertainments apart from its tea-gardens, and from the organ performances[142] in the house. But under the proprietorship of Sharpe and Warren (from about 1811, or earlier, till 1828) several changes took place. The pond was filled in and planted over, and a new tea and dancing saloon, dignified by the name of the Apollo Room, and subsequently converted into a billiard-room, was erected in the north-west angle of the gardens. The tea-boxes were enlarged, and the old paintings removed or defaced. A pretty miniature steeple, set up in the last century, and a maze were still to be seen in the garden. From about 1825 White Conduit House possessed a band-stand, and a small stage erected at the north-east end of the grounds, which were further embellished with fountains and statuary.