Finding your way around Vauxhall Gardens in Regency London

The Orchestra at Vauxhall from London Pleasure
 Gardens of the 18th Century by W & AE Wroth (1896)

Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens were a fashionable outdoor entertainment during the Georgian era. You can find out what the gardens were like in my earlier blog: Vauxhall Gardens in the Regency. 

When setting a scene in Vauxhall, I have found it helpful to know my way around the pleasure gardens and to know what features would have been present at different times. The rest of this blog post is based on my research.

Vauxhall from T Rowlandson's drawing from London
 Pleasure Gardens of the 18th Century 
 by W & AE Wroth (1896)

The layout of the gardens

The picture below is from an engraving dated 1751, but the layout of the gardens would have been much the same in the Regency period. I have worked out where different features are in the print and where I think future features were, based on the ground plans in Coke and Borg (see bibliography). The numbering is my interpretation and hopefully is a reasonable representation of where things were.

Vauxhall Gardens from an engraving dated 1751
from South London by W Besant (1899)

A visitor entered (2) the gardens through the proprietor’s house (1) which opened onto the Grand Walk (3), with the Rotunda (4) and Pillared Saloon (5) on the left and the Grove (6) with the Orchestra (7) on the right and the Grand South Walk (8) beyond, and the Druid’s or Lover’s Walk (9) beyond that. The Dark Walk (10) is at the edge of the garden furthest from the entrance.

Below is the same annotated print split into three vertically to show more detail and make the numbers more visible.

Vauxhall Gardens from an engraving dated 1751
from South London by W Besant (1899) - left section

Vauxhall Gardens from an engraving dated 1751
from South London by W Besant (1899) - middle section

Vauxhall Gardens from an engraving dated 1751
from South London by W Besant (1899) - right section

Key to the map

1. The Proprietor’s House
2. The original entrance through the Proprietor’s House with the Water Gate outside it. This remained the nearest entrance for visitors who came by boat.
3. The Grand Walk
4. The Rotunda
   
   

   

   The Rotunda at Vauxhall 1752 from London Pleasure
    Gardens of the 18th Century by W & AE Wroth (1896)

5. The Pillared Saloon
6. The Grove
   
   

   

   Vauxhall Gardens from an engraving dated 1751 from South London
    by W Besant (1899) - close up to show the Grove

7. The Orchestra – this is the original in the 1751 print, with the Organ Room behind. The Gothic Orchestra was built in the same place.
   
   

   

   Vauxhall Gardens from The Microcosm of London (1808-10)

8. The Grand South Walk
9. The Druids or Lovers Walk
10. The Dark Walk
11. The Prince’s Pavilion
12. The Gothic Piazza
13. The Handel Piazza
14. The Chinese Temples and Arcade
    
    

    

    The Chinese Pavilion, Vauxhall
    from Old and New London by E Walford (1878)

15. The Cascade - you can read about the Cascade here: The Cascade at Vauxhall Gardens
16. The Turkish Tent
17. Supper-boxes
    
    

    

    The Chinese temples and arcade with supper-boxes, Vauxhall
    from an engraving dated 1751 from South London by W Besant (1899)

18. Triumphal Arches
    
    

    

    Vauxhall Gardens from an engraving dated 1751 from South London
     by W Besant (1899) - close up to show triumphal arches

19. Site of an outdoor painting or transparency, and later of the Firework Tower
20. The Hermitage – the walk parallel to the Grand Walk leading to it became known as Hermits Walk.
21. Site of an outdoor painting or transparency, and later of the Submarine Cave
22. The Ballet Theatre or Rope-Dancing Theatre
23. The Octagon Rooms
24. The Centre Cross Walk
25. The Prince’s Gallery and Ante-Room or Long Room (behind the Handel Piazza)
26. The Grand Chinese Entrance
27. The Coach Gate onto Kennington Lane was to the right of this
28. The Necessary House was to the left of this, at the corner of the gardens
29. The Supper Room or Saloon or Ballroom was attached to the Rotunda - known by 1814 as the Promenade Room or Turkish Saloon

Some of the more important changes between 1751 and 1830 were:

• The original Orchestra and Organ Building were demolished in 1757-8 and replaced by the Gothic Orchestra.
• A new entrance was added onto Kennington Lane around 1762 and this was rebuilt with waiting rooms and cloakrooms in 1786. This is sometimes called the Coach Gate (to the right of 27).
• 1769 The Covered Walks were created by erecting a canopy over the parts of the Grand Walk (3) and Grand South Walk (8) within the Grove (6) with an awning between them (in front of the supper-boxes behind 16) which covered the new dancing area.
• 1785 The ice house was built (behind the Pillared Saloon (5)).
• 1786 The Supper Room was built (29).
• 1791 The Prince’s Gallery and Ante Room (25) were built behind the Handel Piazza and these lasted until about 1820.
• 1810 The Covered Walks were rebuilt with a new vaulted colonnade and the Octagon Rooms added (23).
• 1813 The Firework Tower was added at the end of the Grand South Walk. This was replaced by the Moorish Tower in 1823 (19).
• 1813 The Hermitage was built (20).
• 1822 The Submarine Cavern was added (21).
• 1823 The Ballet Theatre/Rope-Dancing Theatre was built (22).
• 1823 The Grand Chinese Entrance onto Kennington Lane opened (26).
• 1823 The Temple of Arts or Grand Musical Temple opened (near the Coach Gate end of the Lover’s Walk (to the right of 27).

Here is another map of Vauxhall Gardens, based on a survey of 1826. The main difference between this and my annotated map above is that there appears to be a second Octagon Room on the opposite corner of the Grove.

Map of Vauxhall Gardens in 1826 from London Pleasure
 Gardens of the 18th Century by W & AE Wroth (1896)

Rachel Knowles writes clean/Christian historical romance set in the time of Jane Austen. She has been sharing her research on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

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Sources used include:

Ackermann, Rudolph and Combe, William, The Microcosm of London or London in miniature Volume 3 (Rudolph Ackermann 1808-1810, reprinted 1904)

Besant, Walter, South London (1899)

Coke, David and Borg, Alan, Vauxhall Gardens, a history (2011)

Feltham, John, The Picture of London for 1810 (1810)

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction (1830)

Walford, Edward, Old and New London: A narrative of its history, its people, and its places (Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1878, London) Vol 6

Wroth, Warwick and Wroth, Arthur Edgar, The London Pleasure Gardens of the eighteenth century (1896)

A Regency History guide to Beddington Park

The west front, Beddington Park from Select Illustrations
of the County of Surrey by GF Prosser (1828)

I grew up in Carshalton, Surrey (well, technically it is in the London Borough of Sutton, but I still like to think of it as Surrey), and recently revisited one of the local green spaces – Beddington Park. As ever, when I go places these days, I am looking for the Georgian connection. I knew that there was a big gated house in Beddington Park that was now a school and I discovered that it dates from the early 18th century.

Carew Manor through the gates (2019)

The house is named Carew Manor after its long-term owners. Prosser’s Select Illustrations of the County of Surrey (1828) says:

Beddington has been the family residence of the Carews from as early a period as the reign of Edward the Third, when Nicholas de Carru was keeper of the Privy Seal, and was one of king Edward’s executors.1

Sir Nicholas Carew (c1496-1539)

One of the original Nicholas's descendants, Sir Nicholas Carew, was a gentleman of the privy chamber of Henry VIII. It appears that the king visited Beddington Park on several occasions whilst Sir Nicholas was in favour, allegedly to secretly visit Anne Boleyn and later Jane Seymour. In 1539, Sir Nicholas, already out of royal favour, was charged with a conspiracy against the king and executed, and his lands were confiscated. 

Sir Nicholas Carew from Portraits of Illustrious
Personages of Great Britain by E Lodge (1835)

Sir Francis Carew (c1530-1611)

Sir Nicholas’s son Francis managed to win Queen Mary’s favour and had most of his father’s lands restored to him. Beddington Park was an exception; he had to buy it back from the then owner, Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy of Chiche. 

According to Prosser, Sir Francis

... rebuilt the mansion in a magnificent manner, laid out the gardens, and planted them with choice fruit trees, in the cultivation of which he took great delight, and spared no expense in procuring them from foreign countries. The first orange trees in England are said to have been planted by him. Aubrey says he brought them from Italy, but the Editors of the Biographia Britannica, under the article of Raleigh, say, from a tradition preserved in the family, that Sir Francis raised them from seeds of the first oranges, which were imported into England by Sir Walter Raleigh, who had married his niece, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Be this as it may, the trees were planted in the open ground, and were preserved in the winter by a moveable shed. In 1690 most of the trees were 13 feet high, and it is said at least 10,000 oranges were gathered from them that year. They flourished about a century and a half, but were destroyed by the hard frost in 1739. In the garden was a pleasure house, on the top of which was painted the Spanish Armada.2

Sir Francis was visited by Queen Elizabeth I several times:

In August 1599 Queen Elizabeth paid a visit of three days to Sir Francis, and again in the same month in the ensuing year. The queen’s oak and her favourite walk are still pointed out.3

Sir Francis died childless in 1611, bequeathing Beddington to Nicholas Throckmorton, the youngest son of his sister Anne, who assumed the surname Carew.

Sir Nicholas Carew, 1st Baronet (1687-1727)

Several generations later, in 1689, Beddington Park was inherited by another Nicholas when he was little more than a baby. This Nicholas became Member of Parliament for Haslemere in the first parliament of George I and was made a baronet in 1715.4

It was during his ownership of Beddington Park that the house was largely rebuilt. The Tudor Great Hall, which dates to around 1510, with its Gothic wooden hammer-beam roof, was retained and is now Grade I listed.

Carew Manor (2019)

A lack of heirs and financial ruin

Sir Nicholas was succeeded by his son, Sir Nicholas Hackett Carew, who died without male heirs in 1762 and the baronetcy became extinct.

The estate was then inherited by a distant relative, Richard Gee, who took the name and arms of Carew by Act of Parliament in 1780. However, Richard died unmarried in December 1816 and left his entire estate to Anne Gee, his widowed sister-in-law.

When she died without issue in 1828, Beddington was inherited by her cousin Admiral Sir Benjamin Hallowell, who added the name and arms of Carew to his own. He was an officer at the Battle of the Nile under Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson and was the owner of Beddington Park when Prosser was writing in 1828.

The house was lost to the family in the 1850s due to financial difficulties and became home to the Royal Female Orphanage from 1866 to 1968. It now houses a school, Carew Academy.

A description of Beddington Park in 1828

Beddington Park from Select Illustrations
of the County of Surrey by GF Prosser (1828)

Prosser describes the house and gardens:

The west front of the present mansion is represented in the annexed view, consisting of three sides of a square. It was built about 1709. The centre is a noble hall 61 feet 5 inches in length, by 32 feet in width. The height from the floor to the apex of the beautiful gothic roof of wood, is 46 feet 2 inches. The roof is evidently of greater antiquity than the other portion of the building, and is said originally to have been intended by king Henry to adorn a palace for his favourite Wolsey, but was afterwards given to Sir Nicholas Carew. The oak panelling is embellished by a display of arms, flowers, &c. The great entrance door has a curious ancient lock, very richly wrought; a shield, with the arms of England, moves in a grove, and conceals the key-hole; tradition says this lock to have been presented by queen Elizabeth. Many well-painted family portraits adorn the walls, the most remarkable of which is that of Sir Nicholas Carew who was beheaded; it is a copy painted on board, and bears date 1578. The furniture has been judiciously chosen by the present possessor, in strict accordance with the ancient style of the building, and the coup d’œil on entering this apartment is very imposing.

The north wing was originally designed for the state apartments, but was destroyed by fire shortly after it was built, and now remains a mere shell, never having been restored. In 1817 the south wing was repaired, and several of the principal apartments modernized. A small room adjoining the great hall (now a butler’s pantry) retains the ancient panels with mantled carving. In the dining-room are portraits of several naval officers.

The grounds retain many of the characteristics of the old school of gardening. A waterfall forms a prominent object on the east side; supplied by the river Wandle, which rises at Croydon and intersects this park in its course to the Thames.

At a short distance westward of the house is a spacious canal, supplied from the same river; on each side are rows of venerable elms; parallel with these, and opposite the west end of the church, as seen in the view, is a fine avenue of chestnut trees, of luxuriant growth; near the house, to the north-west, are some remarkably fine walnut-trees. The park is flat, but is much enlivened by numerous herds of fine deer, browsing under the shade of the stately trees which adorn its surface.

The church, dedicated to St Mary, consists of a nave, two aisles, and a chancel. The west end has a square tower with buttresses.5

St Mary's Church, Beddington (2019)

The dovecote

There is little of the Georgian park remaining as it was largely redeveloped by Alfred Smee in the Victorian period. You can read detailed descriptions of his work in My Garden (1872)6.

The dovecote, Beddington Park (2019)

However, there is still one Georgian gem to be seen – a magnificent early Georgian dovecote. It was most likely built around 1709 whilst Sir Nicholas Carew, 1st Baronet, was carrying out his rebuilding programme. It is unusually large, with nesting boxes for 1,360 birds built into the walls. This probably provided more birds than the manor needed and so some may have been sold. The birds could fly out through the turret and there were four ventilators to release what must have been an overwhelming odour.

Inside the dovecote, Beddington Park (from signboard)

The keeper was able to reach the nesting boxes by using a rotating ladder. He would clip the wings of the baby birds so that they couldn’t fly away. When they were nice and fat, they were taken away to the kitchens to be eaten! Smee refers to it as ‘the old pigeon-house’.7

Inside the dovecote, Beddington Park (from signboard)

Later, an internal floor was put in and the number of nesting boxes was reduced to about 800.

It was restored in the 1980s and is now a Grade II* listed building and a scheduled ancient monument.
 

The old pigeon-house in Beddington Park
from My garden by A Smee (1872)

Notes

1. Prosser, George Frederick, Select Illustrations of the County of Surrey (1828).

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. This date from Burke. Prosser says 1814.

5. Prosser op cit.

6. Smee, Alfred, My garden, its plan and culture together with a general description of its geology, botany and natural history (1872).
7. Ibid.

Sources used include:

Burke, John and Burke, John Bernard, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland (1844)

Lodge, Edmund, Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain Volume I (1835)

Prosser, George Frederick, Select Illustrations of the County of Surrey (1828)

Smee, Alfred, My garden, its plan and culture together with a general description of its geology, botany and natural history (1872)

Beddington Park signboards

Open House London

Wandle Valley Park website
Monuments in Beddington Church

Photos ©regencyhistory.net

Killing Napoleon by Jonathan North - a review

On Christmas Eve 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte narrowly escaped being blown to pieces while travelling to the Paris theatre. A cart carrying a barrel of gunpowder was deliberately detonated in a busy street, with the aim of killing the new ruler of France. Several Parisians were less fortunate, becoming innocent victims of the assassination attempt.

In Killing Napoleon, historian Jonathan North gives a thorough account of events before, during and after that dramatic moment in Paris. He explains how the plot emerged from the swirling mess of Revolutionary and counter-Revolutionary currents, which saw Bonapartists, Jacobins (pro-Revolutionaries) and Royalists jostling for control of their nation’s destiny. With what appears to be a thorough examination of the contemporary records, North details the moments surrounding the explosion and the dramatic aftermath, which included the forced exile of perceived enemies of Bonaparte who had no connection with the plot to kill him.

A compelling read and rich in detail

I found Killing Napoleon to be a compelling read - largely because I was unfamiliar with the story and was keen to discover the fate of those involved. It was obvious that Bonaparte survived - the explosion took place almost fifteen years before Waterloo. But what became of the perpetrators, and who, if anyone, was behind them?

On top of that I was curious about the impact on Paris of what became known as the Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise. Today we would call it an act of terrorism. While the motive was to kill one man, the bombers (as we would call them today) were willing to sacrifice the lives of civilians going about their daily business.

For those less familiar with the ebb and flow of French political life between 1789 and 1800, North provides a useful summary. He describes Bonaparte’s rise, alongside the continued resistance to the Revolution by Chouans in western France. The action really begins when the future Emperor seized power and became First Consul in late 1799.

I particularly enjoyed three aspects of North’s book - the story of the plot, and his illumination of both Parisian life and the world of espionage in 1800. The details were absorbing, and it was worth keeping a finger in the back of the book to read the footnotes. I had no idea that early forensic testing of pistol balls for poison involved persuading a dog to swallow them and then monitoring its health. From the notes I learned of the 1800 Law of the Trousers, requiring women to hold a licence in order to wear them. It was only abolished in 2013!

For all that I was entertained and informed by North’s telling of this story, his is first and foremost a history book. Which makes it an excellent resource for those wanting details about the events surrounding the outrage on Christmas Eve 1800.

Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul from Life of 
Napoleon Bonaparte by WM Sloane (1906)

Not an easy read

As a story, it’s less accessible. The book is rich in facts, particularly names, but arguably there are too many to make it easy to follow. On top of that, the text is what I describe as ‘academic prose’. That is, complex sentences, assumptions about the reader’s knowledge, and surprising words. I now know that ‘quotidian’ means ‘everyday’. While I admire rich vocabulary, I think there’s a place for using language that the majority understand.

All of this stood between me and the story. Which is a pity, because it is an extraordinary tale when you consider how close the conspirators came to killing the man who would go on to shape Europe. It’s also surprising how inept they were - taking few precautions to cover their tracks, with the inevitable results once the authorities commenced their hunt.

The plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise

The plotters were Chouans, that is, Royalists from western France who had resisted the Revolution, often with violence. The police, whose activities are described by North in some detail, knew they were in Paris and knew of the threat to Bonaparte. Indeed, other schemes, organised by disillusioned Revolutionaries, had already been uncovered in 1800. One of these involved a bomb; the other was perhaps more a figment of the imagination of police informers. Such was the atmosphere in Paris that justice was swift and probably not entirely fair.

At the heart of the plot were Saint-Réjant, Limoëlan and Carbon, who were backed by Chouan leaders outside of Paris. They in turn were financed by the British Government. They identified the best location to place the bomb on Napoleon’s route to the theatre, and constructed it by filling a barrel with gunpowder and pieces of metal. Saint-Réjant experimented with fuses in the fireplace of his lodgings, in full view of a young girl of the household. This was just one of a list of indiscretions recounted at his trial.

Despite their apparent lack of concern for being observed, somehow the three men constructed the bomb and drove it on a cart through the Paris streets. Positioned so as to impede the First Consul’s coach, the cart was left with Saint-Réjant, who lit the fuse as he saw the target approach.

His timing was off, and Bonaparte’s coach had already passed the barrel when it exploded. The First Consul was woken by the blast and insisted on being driven to the theatre where he was acclaimed by the audience when they heard of the atrocity.

Many in the busy rue Saint-Nicaise were less fortunate. Almost a dozen died and scores were injured. North provides a detailed record of the many whose lives were ended, or changed forever, by the blast.

While violence and death were not uncommon in Paris of 1800, there was outrage at the manner in which these innocents of rue Saint-Nicaise had died. No one wanted to be associated with such a crime and the public wanted swift justice. Bonaparte seized the opportunity to send into exile over 100 Jacobins he wanted to be rid of, despite their having no part in the plot.

Of the bombers, Saint-Réjant and Carbon were tracked down, tried and guillotined. Limoëlan escaped and travelled to America where he became a Catholic priest.

Napoleon at Arcole from Life of Napoleon 
Bonaparte by WM Sloane (1896)

A thorough examination of attempted assassination

North provides a satisfying amount of detail in the postscript, footnotes and coda of his book. But for me, he left one question unanswered - what became of rue Saint-Nicaise? When I next travel to Paris, how close can I get to the scene of the crime and what markers, if any, remain?

The answer, it appears from other sources, is that there is nothing to see. The once-bustling thoroughfare has long been demolished.

I recommend North’s book to anyone keen to gain a better understanding of life in Paris in 1800, particularly with regard to policing and intelligence-gathering. It could provide a rich source of plot ideas for historical novels.

Killing Napoleon was published by Amberley in 2019 and has been reviewed at the request of the publisher.