The trade of the place greatly increased under the management of Mr. Willoughby, who, dying in December 1785, was succeeded by his son. The younger Willoughby (landlord 1785–1818?)[175] laid out the gardens, bowling green and trap-ball ground.[176] A large barn belonging to the neighbouring Highbury Farm (or Grange) was incorporated with the premises and fitted up suitably for a Great Room. Here a monthly assembly subscribed to in the neighbourhood was held in the spring and winter and monster dinner-parties of clubs and societies were accommodated. In 1800 a company of eight hundred persons sat down to dinner, and seventy geese were to be seen roasting on the fire. Three thousand people were accommodated at the Licensed Victuallers’ Dinner in 1841. About 1793 the garden commanded an extensive prospect, and as late as 1842 Highbury could be described as “a beautifully situated hamlet.” [Illustration: HIGHBURY BARN IN 1792.] In 1818 the property was purchased by the former proprietor of the Grove House, Camberwell, and Highbury Barn was much resorted to as a Sunday tea-garden (_circ._ 1823–1830). The place then passed (before 1835) into the hands of John Hinton (previously landlord of the Eyre Arms, St. John’s Wood) who with his son Archibald Hinton, ultimately the sole proprietor, gave new life to the place and made Highbury Barn a kind of North London Cremorne. By about 1854 the number of monster dinner-parties and bean-feasts had much fallen off, and on Whit-Monday of that year Hinton opened his establishment for musical entertainments with a performance by the band of the Grenadier Guards. A license for dancing was granted in October 1856, and in July 1858 a Leviathan dancing platform, with an orchestra at one end, was erected in the grounds. It was open to the sky with the exception of one side, which consisted of a roofed structure of ornamental ironwork. The whole platform occupied four thousand feet. A standard of gas lamps in the centre of the platform and lamps placed round its railing lit up the place in the evening, when the gardens were frequented by large masses of people. In a more secluded part of the gardens was an avenue of trees, flanked by female statues, each holding a globular gas lamp. About 1858 the admission was sixpence, and at this time Highbury Barn was much frequented on Sunday evenings, when little parties might be seen on the lawn before the Barn or in the bowers and alcoves by its side. The gardens occupied five acres.