“The Farewel to Vaux Hall” 325 (From Bickham’s _Musical Entertainer_, 1733 &c. W.) THE LONDON PLEASURE GARDENS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY THE LONDON PLEASURE GARDENS INTRODUCTION An entry in the diary of Samuel Pepys records how on the 7th of June, 1665, “the hottest day (he says) that ever I felt in my life,” he took water to the Spring Garden at Foxhall and there stayed, pleasantly walking, and spending but sixpence, till nine at night. The garden that he visited was that which formed the nucleus of those Vauxhall Gardens which, seventy or eighty years later, became the most favoured summer resort of pleasure-seeking Londoners. Vauxhall with its great concourse of high and low, its elaborate concerts, its lamps and brightly painted supper-boxes, is far removed from the simple garden in which Mr. Pepys delighted to ramble, but not only Vauxhall, but several other pleasure gardens of the eighteenth century may be traced to comparatively humble beginnings in the period between the Restoration and the reign of Anne.[2] In the early days of these gardens no charge was made for admission, but a visitor would naturally spend a trifle in cheese-cakes and syllabubs for the ladies, and would order for himself some bottle-ale and such substantial viands as were afforded by the tavern or the master’s dwelling-house attached to the garden. The musical entertainments that afterwards became a feature of the principal gardens were originally of little account. The Wells of Lambeth (1697) and Hampstead (1701) provided a concert of some pretensions, but Mr. Pepys at the Spring Garden was content with the harmony of a harp, a fiddle, and a Jew’s trump. In some places, however, a Long (or Great) Room was at an early period built for the dancing that generally took place there in the morning or the afternoon; and booths and raffling-shops were set up for the benefit of card-players and gamblers. The quiet charm of a garden was, moreover, sometimes rudely broken by the incursion of gallants like “young Newport” and Harry Killigrew--“very rogues (says Pepys) as any in the town.” At last, about 1730–40, the managers of the principal public gardens found it desirable to make a regular charge for admission: they requested gentlemen “not to smoak on the walks,” sternly prohibited the entrance of servants in livery, and, generally, did their best to exclude improper characters.