13. View in Gardens showing stage, &c. Water-colour drawing, signed I. F., June 2, 1832. Fillinham Coll. p. 48. 14. A view in the Gardens of White Conduit House with the rope-dancing and fireworks. Sepia drawing, 1848. Crace, _Cat._ No. 207; cp. Ashton’s _The Fleet_. 15. White Conduit House, Hotel and Tavern. North-west view of front. A water-colour drawing by Matthews, 1849. Crace, _Cat._ No. 208. 16. Bird’s-eye view of the gardens of White Conduit House, taken from the balcony. A coloured drawing by Mr. Crace, 1849. Crace, _Cat._ No. 209. DOBNEY’S BOWLING GREEN, OR PROSPECT HOUSE Dobney’s Bowling Green, or, as it was originally called, Prospect House, stood on a portion of the site of Winchester Place (now part of Pentonville Road) near to the south-east corner of Penton Street, and opposite the New River Reservoir. It was in existence as early as the seventeenth century, a Mr. Ireland being rated in 1669[149] for “the Prospect.” Prospect House, standing on Islington Hill, derived its name from the fine views that it commanded, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a vantage-ground from which artists often sketched St. Paul’s and the Metropolis. It possessed good bowling greens probably as early as 1633, and in the spring of 1718 these were advertised as open for the accommodation of all gentlemen bowlers. Later on, the place was called Dobney’s (or D’Aubigney’s) Bowling Green House, from the name of its proprietor, whose widow, Mrs. Ann Dobney, also kept the place for many years.[150] She was succeeded by a Mr. Johnson, who called the place Johnson’s Prospect and Bowling Green House. He converted the bowling green, which was near the corner of Penton Street, into an _al fresco_ amphitheatre, and in 1767 engaged the equestrian Price[151] who drew large audiences by his performances, which lasted during the spring and summer season, beginning at six o’clock. Price is said to have made, by his exhibitions at Dobney’s and elsewhere, a fortune of £14,000. [Illustration: “A REPRESENTATION OF THE SURPRISING PERFORMANCES OF MR. PRICE” AT DOBNEY’S. _Circ._ 1767.] In 1769 Philip Jonas performed there feats of manual dexterity, and the exhibition of the skeleton of a whale, three score feet long, was reckoned an attraction. In 1770, the house was occupied as a boarding-school by the Rev. John Davis, but the place was soon again re-opened as the Jubilee Gardens, in allusion to the Stratford Jubilee of Shakespeare. In 1772, Daniel Wildman, an expert in bee-keeping, gave on summer evenings a curious performance called “Bees on horse-back,” described as follows:--