Part 3

The efforts of the half-hearted Chelsea Vestry of 1857 were renewed with more vigour (and with more justification) from 1870 onwards, and they had a valuable ally in Canon Cromwell, the principal of St. Mark’s Training College, which stood almost opposite the entrance of Cremorne. One of the many unedifying illustrated papers of the seventies, the _Day’s Doings_, portrays the Canon in cap and gown ejecting two flashily dressed females from the gardens, and he and his docile students for the next six years are said to have given Mr. Baum a very rough time. This opposition was not popular, and on one 5th of November the worthy Canon was paraded on a coster’s barrow in front of Cremorne as a guy. The comic papers sneered at the petitions ‘signed by all the babies and children under ten,’ and issued a revised set of Cremorne Regulations. All ladies were henceforward to have certificates of respectability from the Board of Guardians, though members of the London School Board were to be admitted free. No fireworks, dancing, smoking, laughing, or flirting were allowed, but by an order from the Vestry you could obtain a coffee cobler or a cocoa cocktail. Ridicule is sometimes a legitimate weapon against the Puritan, but in this case Canon Cromwell and the Vestry were hardly in the wrong.

The end came rather suddenly and in a curious way. Towards the close of 1876 there was distributed in Chelsea a pamphlet in verse, entitled _The Trial of John Fox_, _or Fox John_, _or the Horrors of Cremorne_. It was signed ‘A. B. Chelsea,’ but the author was soon discovered to be a Mr. Alfred Brandon, a worthy and evidently courageous man, who had long been known as minister of the Chelsea Baptist Chapel. By trade Mr. Brandon was a tailor, and no doubt his coats were better than his poetry, which is, indeed, sad doggerel. This pamphlet was an indictment of Cremorne as the ‘nursery of every kind of vice,’ and of its callous money-grubbing manager John Fox. The jury decide _against_ John Fox:

‘Our verdict this: the Fox has had his day. Destroy his covert—let him run away.’

Mr. Baum is said to have been ‘stung by these cutting remarks’—‘remarks’ which, whether they stung or cut, constituted, from the legal point of view, a highly defamatory libel. He doubtless went unwillingly into court, but in May, 1877, the libel action of Baum _v._ Brandon was heard in the Queen’s Bench before Sir Henry Hawkins. Brandon pleaded, in the familiar way, first, that he had intended no allusion to Baum, and, secondly, that he _had_ alluded to Baum, but that what he said was true, and, moreover, not malicious. In court it was averred by Baum that Cremorne was most respectably conducted, and that the houses in the neighbourhood were most respectable. Brandon, to justify the libel, called various witnesses, among whom were a Cremorne waiter and a woman from a reformatory, who both traced their downfall to the gardens. The jury found for Baum, but awarded him a farthing damages, and each side had to pay its own costs.

At this time Baum was greatly in debt, and for the next few months was too ill to superintend his gardens personally. None the less preparations were made for the licensing day in October. Petitions were prepared, and counsel on both sides were engaged. October 5, 1877, arrived, and the Cremorne case was called on. To the astonishment of London, Baum’s counsel quietly announced that the lessee had withdrawn his application, and the licence of Cremorne Gardens lapsed for ever.

John Baum here vanishes from the scene, though we seem to catch a glimpse of him at the end of the eighties as a waiter at a North London tavern, discoursing freely to sympathetic customers on the great days when he owned Cremorne.

The owner of the land, Mrs. Simpson, lost no time in letting it in building plots, and most of the present rows of small houses made their appearance in the next year or two. As early as 1880 Cremorne Gardens is described as ‘already the lawful prey of the Walfords and Cunninghams,’ and brought within ‘the range of practical antiquaries.’ {22} But the gardens had first to be cleared, and the Cremorne sale took place on April 8, 1878, and the following days. The buyers and sightseers who attended the auction found the place already in a neglected state—the grass uncut, and the canvas coverings and panoramic views rent and blown about by the winds of the last six months. The sale began with the hotel and the effects of the sitting-rooms on the first floor known as the Gem, the Pearl, the Rose, and the Star. Then the public supper-room on the ground-floor was taken in hand. There was a great stock of wine and spirits—600 dozens—and a unique opportunity for buying claret cheap. The grand ballroom with theatre combined, the theatre royal, and the marionette theatre, were next disposed of, and the circular dancing platform, about 360 feet in circumference, was sold in thirty-two sections, including the pagoda orchestra.

[Picture: The Dancing-Platform, Cremorne. From an etching by W. Greaves, 1871]

The elms and poplars and all the growing timber were then offered, besides numerous portable bay-trees in boxes and about 20,000 greenhouse plants. The statuary, over and above the Cupids and Venuses and the ‘females supporting gas-burners,’ included some classic masterpieces like the Laocöon and the Dying Gladiator. With the disposal of the large reflecting stars, ‘the stalactite rustic, enclosure of the Gypsey’s Cave,’ and a couple of balloons, Cremorne was completely stripped.

A walk round Cremorne at the present day is a little depressing, though less so than a visit to the squalid sites of Vauxhall and the Surrey Zoo. The western boundary of the gardens is, approximately, the present Ashburnham Road (or Uverdale Road, if we include the Ashburnham annexe of Cremorne). The eastern boundary was Cremorne Lane, now mainly represented by Dartrey Street. The southern limit is the present Lots Road, and a public-house, the Cremorne Arms, is close to the former Cremorne Pier and the river entrance. The Thames front is now covered with wharves and tall buildings. The north boundary is still the King’s Road, the entrance being where the southern continuation of Edith Grove begins. Stadium Street, Ashburnham Road, Cremorne Road, and the Cremorne Arms, recall the varying fortunes of the place.

In spite of the builders, a small portion of the gardens has always remained. Forming a pleasant fringe to the King’s Road is the nursery-ground of Messrs. Wimsett and Son, which stretches from Ashburnham Road to the part of Edith Grove which represents the old entrance of Cremorne, and a grotto or bower surmounted by some of the plaster goddesses of Cremorne is still to be seen there. {24}

[A collection relating to Cremorne formed by the present writer; a collection in the British Museum (1880. c. 9). Various details have been derived from two excellent articles, signed ‘T. E.,’ contributed to the _West London Press_ for September 18 and October 2, 1896, and based on material in the Chelsea Public Library; also from an article by G. A. Sala in the _Daily Telegraph_ for August 7, 1894; Blanchard in _Era Almanack_, 1871, etc.

Views: Of Cremorne House, various views in Chelsea Public Library (_cf._ Beaver’s _Chelsea_, pp. 155, 157). Of the Stadium grounds, two fairly common lithographs published by Day and Haghe in 1831. A Stadium bill (British Museum) has a lithographic view of the house and part of the grounds as a heading. The _Particulars_ . . . _of the Stadium_ (London, 1834), contains views by G. Cruikshank. Of Cremorne Gardens, many views in the illustrated papers; also a water-colour by T. H. Shepherd, 1852, showing orchestra, etc. (Chelsea Public Library), and another by Shepherd, 1852 (same collection); etchings by W. Greaves of Chelsea, etc.]

MANOR-HOUSE BATHS AND GARDENS, CHELSEA

TOWARDS the end of the thirties there stood in the King’s Road, Chelsea, between the present Radnor Street and Shawfield Street, a deserted mansion known as the Manor-House. It was spacious, if not lofty, and had apparently nothing to do with the two historical manor-houses of Chelsea. {25a} For some years it had been unoccupied; its windows were broken, its railings rusty, and weeds luxuriated in its front-garden.

[Picture: Manor-House Garden, Chelsea, circa 1809]

Behind the house there had once been a fine garden and orchard, and groves of fruit-trees still bore mulberries, apples, and pears, which were the natural prey of the Chelsea youth. {25b} The mansion had some reputation as a haunted house, and at nightfall unearthly sounds were heard by passers-by, which possibly proceeded from the depredators of the orchard. But one day in the autumn of 1837 some workmen were observed on the premises, and it became difficult to get access to the orchard.

The old Manor-House was, in truth, in process of transformation. A certain Mr. Richard Smith, described as ‘a pleasant, portly gentleman,’ and said to have made money by an official connexion with Crockford’s Club, had taken the place in hand. The suburbs—or, at least, the suburb of Chelsea—were destitute of public baths, and Mr. Smith proposed to supply the want by erecting on the site of the house, or near it, a capacious building. His baths were opened in 1838, and the popular orchard was utilized as a garden promenade, which he provided with an orchestra and a room for concerts and dancing. In imitation of the panoramas of the Surrey Zoological Gardens, the ‘Taking of Fort Bhurtpore’ was reproduced in the grounds, and the fireworks and crackers of Professor Tumour rendered the capture of the fortress by the English a lifelike spectacle.

[Picture: Admission Tickets, New Ranelagh, Pimlico, circa 1812]

The place was a good deal advertised in 1838 and 1839, and well puffed in papers like _The Town_; but it was not a success. A frank critic, who was well acquainted with the ‘New Vauxhall,’ as the proprietor named it, says that the company ‘consisted chiefly of local sweethearts,’ who preferred to treat each other to apples and pears snatched from the branches rather than expend superfluous cash in shilling goblets of hot negus. The concerts took place on three evenings in the week, and some ‘grand galas’ and ‘night fêtes’ were announced. On certain days the boys from the Military School close by promenaded the grounds with their band; but neither the concerts nor the baths were acceptable, and in 1840 Smith discontinued the concerts, and built a small theatre on part of the orchard. ‘The Royal Manor-House Theatre’ could hold an audience of 500 paying 2s. and 1s. The Green Room was the emptied tank of the swimming-bath. The first lessee was Charles Poole, previously manager of the Chichester Theatre, and the plays light one-act pieces. Poole soon got into money difficulties, and Smith made a curious application to Edward Leman Blanchard, the well-known dramatic critic, for his assistance. Blanchard was then hardly twenty, but he managed to keep the theatre open for nearly a year. The company had not been quite disbanded, and contained good material. Thus, Mr. A. Sidney (afterwards the well-known actor Alfred Wigan) was ready to sing sentimental songs between the acts. Signor Plimmeri, a clever posturer and man-monkey, and Richard Flexmore (later the famous clown) were also available, and the younger members of the Smith family formed a troupe of four supernumeraries. Blanchard produced a farce of his own—_Angels and Lucifers_—which ran for thirty-one representations, and himself appeared at one entrance as the hero and at another as the comic countryman. The theatre apparently closed in 1841, {28a} and Smith proceeded in a businesslike way to build Radnor Street on the grounds, with a public-house (the Commercial Tavern, 119, King’s Road) at the corner, which is still standing. {28b}

[Picture: Admission Ticket, New Ranelagh, Pimlico, 1809]

[‘Some Managerial Memories,’ by E. L. Blanchard in the _Theatre Annual_ for 1886, reprinted in Blanchard’s _Life_, i., p. 20 _f._; _Era Almanack_, 1870, p. 18; newspaper advertisements, etc.; _Bell’s Life_, May 3, 1840.]

BATTY’S HIPPODROME AND SOYER’S SYMPOSIUM, KENSINGTON

THE Great Exhibition of 1851 was indirectly responsible for the existence in Kensington of two short-lived institutions—a circus and a restaurant. They are rather outside our subject, but, as having something of an open-air character, may be briefly described.

In the autumn of 1850 William Batty, a famous circus proprietor, acquired some land within five minutes’ walk of the new world-wonder, the ‘Crystal Palace,’ and erected thereon an elliptical-roofed pavilion which accommodated many thousands of spectators, and had a large arena open to the sky.

The Royal Hippodrome was opened in May, 1851, with a French troupe brought over from the Hippodrome at Paris. The performances generally took place in the evening, and the lowest price of admission was sixpence. Two brass bands of a rather blatant character enlivened the proceedings. Favourite features of the entertainment were a Roman chariot race and a ‘triumphal race of the Roman Consuls,’ who were represented by the three brothers Debach, each guiding six horses. Why Roman Consuls should race is not explained, and probably did not matter. Another excitement of the evening was the Barbary Race of twelve unmounted horses, who dashed headlong to the goal with distended nostrils and eyes of fire. Other attractions were balloon ascents {30} and F. Debach’s journey on the Arienne Ball up and down a narrow inclined plank.

The Hippodrome closed with the Exhibition, and only lived for one other season, in 1852. Subsequently, and in the sixties, it was used as a riding-school. The site lay nearly opposite the broad walk of Kensington Gardens, between part of Victoria Road and Victoria Walk and the present Palace Gate. De Vere Gardens mainly occupy the site.

[Newspapers: _John Bull_, September, 1850, p. 582; _Theatrical Journal_, 1851; views of the Hippodrome in _Illustrated London News_ for 1851.]

* * * * *

The founder of the restaurant, of which, it was hoped, the Great Exhibition would make the fortune, was Alexis Soyer, the former chef of the Reform Club, one of the best-known cooks—though by no means the greatest—of the classic ages of dining. Soyer was a man of inventive genius and resource, but one who (as the author of the _Art of Dining_ dryly remarked) ‘was more likely to earn immortality by his soup-kitchen than by his soup.’ {31}

In the early part of 1851 he took Gore House, the famous home of Lady Blessington at Kensington, and fantastic skill and showy decoration soon made the old-fashioned stucco-fronted building the wonder of a London as yet unfamiliar with palatial restaurants. The newspapers and a prospectus printed on satin paper with green-tinted edges announced the advent of ‘Soyer’s Universal Symposium,’ a single ticket for which was to cost a guinea, and a family ticket—your family might consist of five—three guineas. Every room in the house was provided with a seductive name: the Blessington Temple of the Muses; the Salle des Noces de Danae; the glittering Roscaille of Eternal Snow; the Bower of Ariadne; and the Celestial Hall of Golden Lilies.

The Grand Staircase had its walls painted with a ‘Macédoine of all Nations,’ a monstrous medley of animals, politicians, and artists, the _chef d’œuvre_ of George Augustus Sala, who for a time acted as Soyer’s assistant.

The Cabinet de Toilette à la Pompadour (Lady Blessington’s boudoir) led to the Danae saloon, which was embossed in gold and silver with showers of ‘tears’ or ‘gems.’ The Bower of Ariadne was painted with vines and Italian landscapes, and the Celestial Hall was in the Chinese taste.

The garden—a delightful adjunct to a London restaurant—contained some fine trees, walnut and mulberry trees among them, which had been the pride of the good William Wilberforce when he lived in Gore House, before the coming of the gorgeous Countess. The meadow or ‘park’ of the domain—really a grazing-meadow hired from a Kensington cow-keeper—was adroitly styled the Pré d’Orsay, and here was erected the Encampment of All Nations, which was the public dining-hall, 400 feet long, ‘with a monster tablecloth, 307 feet long, of British manufacture.’

The garden, reached by flights of steps from the back of the house, had natural beauties of its own—Lady Blessington’s great rose-tree and Wilberforce’s thick-foliaged trees, Soyer added fountains and statuary, a grotto of Ondine, a little pavilion of many-hued stalactites with a crystal roof, and a statue of Hebe dispensing ambrosial liquors through the shafts of the temple. Here also stood the Baronial Hall, a building (not unsuggestive of Rosherville) 100 feet long, with a stained-glass roof. It was hung with pictures by Soyer’s wife (Emma Jones), and with the more interesting crayon portraits by Count d’Orsay. The American Bar and the Ethiopian Serenaders were perhaps more suited to Cremorne.

The Symposium opened on May 1, 1851, and the Metropolitan Sanitary Association and other festively inclined societies began to banquet in its halls. The average attendance was 1,000 a day, and the takings amounted to £21,000; but none the less the great chef was £7,000 out of pocket, and the Symposium closed suddenly and for ever on October 14, 1851. There had, in fact, been many complaints of bad dinners and imperfect management. It is not easy—or was not in those days—to provide simultaneously sightseers’ luncheons and dinners for epicures. Even at this remote period, and without aspiring to the Bower of Ariadne, one is appalled at the idea of dining in an Encampment of All Nations at a table 307 feet long. The roasting of a bullock whole, which took place in the Pré d’Orsay on May 31, no doubt brought many shillings to the treasury, but was reminiscent of Battersea Fields or of a Frost Fair on the Thames.

In February, 1852, the place was dismantled, and the Hall and the Encampment were sold by auction. The Gore estate was purchased the same year by the Commissioners of the Exhibition, and the grounds in later years formed part of those of the Royal Horticultural Society. {33}

[Volant and Warren, _Memoirs of Alexis Soyer_; Davis’s _Knightsbridge_, p. 142; Walford, _Old and New London_, v., p. 118 _f._; _Illustrated London News_, May 10 and 17, 1851 (views of the garden and the Baronial Hall); ‘Gore House,’ a water-colour by T. H. Shepherd, _circa_ 1850, in Kensington Public Library; Timbs’s _Clubs_, quoting Sala’s account from _Temple Bar Magazine_.]

THE HIPPODROME, NOTTING HILL

THIS was a race-course of some two and a half miles in circuit. In 1837 a Mr. John Whyte had turned his attention to the slopes of Notting Hill, and to the Portobello meadows west of Westbourne Grove, and prepared a course, not for golf, but for horse-racing and steeple-chasing, with the accompaniments of a training-ground and stables for about eighty horses.

The Hippodrome was opened on June 3, 1837. The public were admitted for a shilling, and those who could not enter the carriage enclosure mounted a convenient hill from which a splendid view of the racing—also of much adjacent country—could be obtained. No gambling-booths or drinking-booths were permitted, but iced champagne, or humbler beverages were to be obtained on this eminence. Lord Chesterfield and Count d’Orsay were the first stewards, and the Grand Duke of Russia, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Brunswick, and many noble personages, condescended to visit this London Epsom, to which gay marquees and ‘splendid equipages’ lent éclat on a race-day.

These races were held for four years, and were duly recorded in _Bell’s Life_, with the usual details of horse, owner, and jockey. Cups of fifty and a hundred guineas were offered. The proceedings generally began at two, and on one occasion lasted till nine.

One drawback to the selectness of the Hippodrome (and the proprietor’s profits) was a path across the enclosure through which the public had a right-of-way. The footpath people seem, as a rule, to have been orderly enough, but gipsies, ‘prigs,’ and hawkers did not neglect the opportunity of mingling with the nobility and gentry. In March, 1838, an attempt was made in Parliament to block this footpath by a measure entitled the Notting Hill Enclosure Bill; but this harmless title was speedily perceived to conceal an attempt to legalize horse-racing in London. ‘Strong public feeling’ (particularly strong in Bayswater and Notting Hill) was excited, and many reasons, wise and foolish, were urged against the measure. One objection was that the young ladies in the boarding-schools of Kensington would be unable to take their usual walks abroad. On the other hand—so different are points of view—a writer in the _Sporting Magazine_ declared that the Hippodrome was ‘a necessary of London life, of the absolute need of which we were not aware until the possession of it taught us its permanent value.’ A reading of the Bill passed the Commons early in 1838 by a majority of 26, but by September the Notting Hill Enclosure Bill had been quietly dropped. Next year the proprietor enclosed his course so as to exclude the obnoxious path, but at a considerable sacrifice of space. The last race was run in June, 1841. The proprietor had lost heavily, not so much, perhaps, through mismanagement as on account of a fatal defect in the course, which had a strong clay soil, and was so damp that it could only be used for training horses during part of the year.

[Picture: The Hippodrome, Bayswater (Notting Hill), circa 1838]

In 1845 a Mr. J. Connop, described as ‘the lessee of the Hippodrome,’ made his appearance in the Insolvent Debtors’ Court. He owed a trifle of £67,000, though, of course, there were the usual assets of £10,000, if only the property ‘be properly worked.’ The potent name of Ladbroke appears in these proceedings as the ground-landlord.

A good idea of the course can be gained from the accompanying plan, published in 1841. It will be found that Ladbroke Terrace and Norland Square roughly define its lower limits. Ladbroke Grove, Lansdown Road, and Clarendon Road now cut through it northwards. The ‘hill for pedestrians’ is crowned by St. John’s Church (built 1845) in Lansdown Crescent and Ladbroke Grove.

Part of the course was preserved as late as 1852 with some rough turf and a few hedges, at which adventurous lady-riders practised their horses.

[Newspaper notices; _Bell’s Life_, _John Bull_, etc.; plan and view of the Hippodrome (W.); Walford, _Old and New London_, v., p. 182; Loftie’s _Kensington_, p. 267 _f._]

[Picture: Plan of the Hippodrome, Notting Hill, 1841]

THE ROYAL OAK, BAYSWATER

IN the twenties this was still a rural inn, with sloping, red-tiled roof and dormer windows, standing quite alone. {37a} A visitor coming from Paddington Green passed to it by a quiet field-path—the Bishop’s Walk, now Bishop’s Road—through a region of pleasant pastures and hedgerow elms. A weeping ash and the sign of the Boscobel Oak stood on a green in front of the house, and there were benches for the wayfarer and a tea-garden.

In 1837, with the advent of the Great Western Railway, all these country surroundings began to disappear, and the fields were soon cut up for roads. The house was now brought forward so as to stand nearer the road, and the tea-gardens were sold for building. {37b} The present Royal Oak public-house, standing more forward than its predecessor, is 89, Bishop’s Road and No. 1, Porchester Road.