The old house by the river had often changed hands, but the new possessor, who was reputed to be a Baron, somewhat puzzled the quiet inhabitants of Chelsea. Great oaks and elms surrounded the grounds, but through the fine iron gates, which were left half open, it was not difficult—as on this summer morning of 1830—to catch a glimpse of the owner, engaged, apparently, in the survey and measurement of his estate. He was a man of over sixty, dressed in a faded military uniform of no known pattern, but which seemed to have done service in some company of sharpshooters in the days of Napoleon. In the middle of the lawn was a table, on which a rifle reposed amid a litter of plans and papers. But if the Baron had a gun it was not to shoot you, but one of the targets at the far end of the garden, and his successive bull’s-eyes certainly proclaimed the hand of a master. A little intrusion he did not seem to mind, and as you advanced he only offered you a prospectus: ‘The Stadium, Cremorne House, Chelsea, established for the tuition and practice of skilful and manly exercises generally.’ The estate of Cremorne House (or Farm), which was afterwards to be developed into the notorious Cremorne Gardens, had once belonged to the pious Lady Huntingdon, and George Whitfield had prayed and discoursed within the house. Later on, it passed to the Earl of Cremorne, then to his widow, a descendant of William Penn. The last The Stadium, Chelsea. From a lithograph, published in 1831 The subscription was two or three guineas, and the members, under the Baron’s tuition, could shoot, box and fence, and practise ‘manly exercises generally’ in his beautiful grounds. He also established, so to speak, a ‘Ladies’ Links,’ with its clubroom, ‘which Gentlemen cannot enter,’ unless (such is his quaint proviso) ‘by consent of the Ladies occupying such.’ In 1834 George Cruikshank made a design for a ‘Chelsea Stadium Shield,’ which was quite Homeric in its form, and showed every conceivable kind of sport and exercise, including pole-jumping and golf. ‘Baron’ Nicholson at a ‘Judge and Jury’ Trial. From Life in London Illustrated, circa 1855 The transformation of this failing arena of British sport into the full-blooded pleasure-garden of Cremorne was effected by another Baron, though he was such only by the courtesy of Bow Street and Maiden Lane. Renton Nicholson (for that was his name), like most of the managers of Cremorne, was a man who knew a thing or two. He was born early in the century, and his boyhood was spent in the quiet village of Islington, where his two sisters kept a In 1845 De Berenger died, and this year Littlejohn (the refreshment caterer to the gardens) and Tom Matthews managed the place between them. Charles Green, the balloonist, was called in, and began that long series of Cremorne ascents which a spice of eccentricity and danger always rendered popular. For example, in September, Green went up with a lady and a leopard—the latter a magnificent animal, so perfectly subdued in the presence of his mistress or her ‘livery servant,’ as to lay (according to the bill) at her feet or crouch in her lap at command. In August the balloon party consisted of Green, Lord George Beresford, and Tom Matthews, who preluded the ascent by singing his ‘Hot Codlings.’ The balloon went up at seven, and, after visiting the General Post Office and passing over Stamford Hill in perilous proximity to the New River Reservoir, landed its occupants, after a voyage of two hours, cold and shivering, on a marsh at Tottenham. In 1846 (or more probably a few years later) Cremorne was purchased by Thomas Bartlett Simpson, who guided its destinies till the beginning of the sixties. Plan of Cremorne, circa 1870–1877 Five thousand pounds was spent in preparing for the opening of 1846, and a banqueting-hall and theatre were constructed, as well as some ‘delightful lavender bowers’ for the accommodation of the 1,500 persons who were likely to need a bowery seclusion. The gardens were rapidly getting into shape, and we can now survey them almost as they appeared till their close in 1877. They were about twelve acres, to which must be added, from 1850, the grounds of Ashburnham House on the west, in which flower-shows and other exhibitions were held. Cremorne lay between the river and the King’s Road, Chelsea. The grand entrance was in the King’s Road, where a big star illuminated the pay-box. On a summer evening, if you did not mind the slow progress of the threepenny steamer from the City to Cremorne Pier, you entered by the river gate at the south-east corner of the gardens. The grounds were well lit, but on entering there was not that sudden blaze of light that was the visitor’s great sensation when he came through the dark pay-entrance into the garden of Vauxhall. The most conspicuous feature was the orchestra to the south-west of the gardens—a ‘monster The gardens had a tendency to become congested with side-shows, flaring stalls and shooting-galleries, too much suggesting a fair; but, unlike Earl’s Court and the later Vauxhall, Cremorne remained a garden. There was still the encircling fringe of ancient trees, and an avenue on the west stretching from north to south; on the east side was the broad lawn from which the balloon ascents took place. Cremorne had the usual pleasure-garden equipment of fountains and statuary; refreshment-bars, boxes, and tables were placed at every coign of vantage, though the right place to go was the Cremorne House (or Hotel) dining-room, or the upper and lower tiers of supper-boxes in the south and south-western corner. Here there was a half-crown supper, and, if you aspired no higher, the Cremorne sherry, that fine old wine, ‘free from acidity, and highly recommended to invalids.’ In the centre of the grounds was an American bowling-saloon, which made its appearance, together with American drinks, in ’48 or ’49. On the west side was the circus; the theatre was in the south of the garden. A smaller theatre, north of the lawn, was appropriated to a troupe of marionettes, introduced by Simpson in 1852. They were great favourites of the public and of the proprietor, who liked ‘the little beggars who Simpson’s management (i.e., till 1861) provided some special diversions, of which the most curious, perhaps, was an Aquatic Tournament or Naval FÊte (1851). About eleven at night a fortress (either St. Jean d’Acre or Gibraltar) on the river esplanade was vigorously attacked by a squadron consisting of fourteen steamers of the Citizen Company (whose ‘entire fleet’ was embarked in the enterprise), seconded by the hull of a retired Citizen steamer, which was laden with combustibles. To this attack the land battery—its necessary smoke, fire, and noise supplied by Mortram and Duffell, the Cremorne fireworkers—made a suitable reply, and eventually the old hull was blown to pieces amid the cheers of the spectators. The Italian Salamander, ‘Cristoforo Buono Core,’ was, later on, in 1858, another attraction of a fiery kind. Like Chabert, the more famous Salamander of 1826, In contrast to these popular shows, the manager on Friday, July 9, 1858, gave an ‘Aristocratic FÊte,’ arranged by a committee of gentlemen assisted by lady patronesses, who are said to have been very chary of issuing tickets to other ladies whom the gentlemen proposed to invite. But the invitations mattered little, for the 9th turned out to be one of the wettest days of an English July, and the aristocratic ambitions of Cremorne were damped down for ever. In August, 1852, The Dancing-Platform, Cremorne, 1847. From the Pictorial Times, June, 1847 In September of the same year (1852), Madame Poitevin, ‘in the character of Europa,’ ascended from Cremorne on the back of a heifer which was attached to her balloon. This was nothing new to her or to the sight-seers of Paris, where she and her husband had made hundreds of ascents on the backs of horses, and even ‘a great many ascents with a bull.’ A pony ascent had been made by Green at Vauxhall in 1850, This wretched exhibition was not, of course, repeated, but risky parachute feats were by no means to be abandoned. On June 27, 1854, at about seven o’clock, Henri Latour, a balloonist of the age of fifty, went up lashed to a parachute which was formed like a horse, and suspended from W. H. Adams’s balloon. As the balloon was rising an attempt was made (by means of a trigger-iron) to release the parachute, but it somehow got twisted, and its two guiding The programme of the theatre and the concert-room was less exciting. The Cremorne theatricals never aimed much higher than the farce and the vaudeville, but there were some good ballets, in which (circa 1847–1851) the Deulins took part. Under Simpson some of the old favourite comic singers were engaged—Sam Cowell in 1846, Robert Glindon in 1847 and 1850. Simpson’s varied enterprises resulted in a substantial profit, even if he did not make (as he told the impecunious Baron Nicholson) the sum of £100,000 during his first years at Cremorne. His patrons were people of all ranks, and of varying degrees of virtue. But Cremorne was never able Cremorne Gardens in the Height of the Season. By M’Connell, 1858 In 1857 the Chelsea Vestry had presented the first of many annual petitions against the renewal of the licence, setting forth the inconvenience of the late hours of Cremorne, the immoral character of its female frequenters, and its detrimental influence generally on the morals (and house property) of the neighbourhood. Such petitions, like the annual protests against old Bartholomew Fair, were a long time in taking effect, but, as Cremorne grew older, the rowdy and wanton element certainly increased, and finally, as we shall see, not undeservedly brought about its downfall. In spite of all this, we know of more than one respected paterfamilias who has still somewhere a Cremorne programme or two, the relic of some pleasant and doubtless romantic evening in the sixties or seventies, when he imagined himself to be seeing something—if not too much—of ‘real life’ in London. In the sixties some charming little folding programmes were issued, printed in colour, and presenting on every page a view of Cremorne. Portions of the programme were ingeniously cut out, so that on the front page there was Time has cast a veil over the orgiastic features of Cremorne, and though this is just as well, some of its old frequenters may cherish the feeling that there are no ‘intrepid aeronauts’ now, no fireworks like Duffell’s, no gaily-lighted tiers of supper-boxes, and no waltzing on circular platforms with beauteous, if little known, damsels. Simpson retired in 1861, He effected another transformation by turning Crockford’s gaming-house into the Wellington Restaurant, and opened a second restaurant—but this was a dismal failure—in the vaults of the Royal Exchange. He further made a handsome profit out of a French bonnet-shop which he established at Brighton, under the alluring name of ClÉmentine. He financed Baron Nicholson at the Coal Hole, became proprietor of the Sunday Times, and finally settled down in the metal trade. If Smith had little money of his own, he had a marvellous talent for extracting it from others, for, with some managerial humbug in his doings, he was a good-natured man, with plenty of friends who believed in his speculative flair. One of his early devices was ingenious. He hired from a money-lender at the rate of £1 a day a £1,000 banknote, which he always carried in his pocket—not to spend, but to deposit when he made a purchase, and to inspire confidence generally. He retired from Cremorne in 1869, and managed just to outlive the gardens, for he died in 1877, on November 26. Smith began his enterprise with a startling novelty—a ‘female Blondin’ who undertook to cross the Thames. Late on an August afternoon of 1861 thousands of spectators thronged the river banks and the esplanade of Cremorne, or waited in small boats to see this new heroine of The Scottish tournament was a fiasco, and was carried out under the cover of umbrellas and great-coats in the intervals of drenching rain which lasted for three days. The opening day at Cremorne was bright and sunny, and the procession of 300 made its entrance in imposing style: heralds in their gaudy tabards, yeomen in Lincoln green, men-at-arms in glittering armour—a whole Ivanhoe in motion. The tournament King, the Queen of Beauty, and their suite, were escorted to a tapestried tribune, and their gorgeous array contrasted strangely with the tall-hatted and coal-scuttle-bonneted spectators who occupied the seats on every side. The heralds made the proclamation, and the jousting began. First, there were trials of skill between knights of different countries all in armour, and mounted on chargers with emblazoned housings. Some sports, like tilting at the ring and the quintain, followed, and then came Bands of music and facetious clowns, or rather ‘jesters,’ enlivened the proceedings, which were at first exciting and a fine spectacle, though they tended to grow monotonous. Among the minor entertainments of Smith’s management was the exhibition, in 1867, of Natator, the man-frog. This human frog was a young man of twenty, who was to be seen through the plate-glass front of a huge tank filled with 6 feet of water. He imitated the motions of fish, stood on his head, ate a sponge-cake, or smoked a pipe. A more rational exhibition was the appearance of the Beckwith family in 1869. In his last year (1869) Smith exhibited the French ‘captive balloon’ in the Ashburnham grounds. This balloon was made of linen and indiarubber, and held thirty people. It was attached by a strong rope worked by an engine of 200 horse-power, and could be let out, so as to soar ‘in an aerial voyage over London,’ 2,000 feet. The charge for an ascent was ten shillings, but a free admission was granted to a female inmate of the Fulham Workhouse, who chose to celebrate her hundredth birthday by a trip in the balloon, attended by the matron. It was fortunately not on this occasion that the captive balloon, after the manner of its kind, escaped! The Firework Gallery, Cremorne. From an etching by W. Greaves, 1870 The one great, but melancholy, sensation of Baum’s management was the episode of ‘Monsieur de Groof, the flying man.’ Vincent de Groof was a Belgian who had constructed a flying machine on which he made some ascents with doubtful success in his native land. He came to England in 1874, and with some difficulty persuaded Baum to let him go through his dangerous performance at Cremorne. Certainly the flying man made a good advertisement, and on the evening of June 29, 1874, there was a great concourse in the gardens. The machine was suspended by a rope, 30 feet long, from the car of Simmons’s
But we are nearing the last days of Cremorne. At no period could the gardens be described as a place of quiet family resort, and under Smith in the sixties we begin to hear of rows and cases in the police courts. In 1863, for instance, there was a ‘riot’ on the night of the Oaks day, and a number of men, apparently of decent position, stormed and wrecked one of the bars. Six of them were caught, and fined from £20 to £50 apiece. A scene of this kind was partly the fault of the manager, who had advertised his gardens as just the pleasure resort for a gentleman returning from the races. One (undated) story of a Cremorne fracas, told by G. A. Sala, is rather amusing, and worth repeating nearly in his words. ‘A gallant Captain and M.P.,’ who was engaged to a young lady of good position, began to repent of his promise. To get out of it honourably he could devise no better plan than to disgrace himself at Cremorne. One night, accordingly, he repaired to the gardens ‘with a few chosen boon companions,’ who, like himself, imbibed freely of the rare vintages in the supper-rooms. The moment came when he was in a mood ‘to break things,’ and his first onslaught was on the glasses and decanters of a refreshment counter. Then he charged the dancing platform, frightened the dancers, and scattered the musicians ‘like These things were relatively trifles, and it was really not till the seventies—under Baum—that Cremorne became an impossible place. The Westminster Police Court was now hardly ever without its drunk or disorderly case from the gardens. Even the normal evenings at Cremorne were fairly fertile in incident, but a big crop followed the abnormal evenings—the night of some great event, the Derby, the Oaks, the return of the Prince from India, or—a new institution—the Bank Holiday. At such times extra late hours were always granted, and they were those occasions when champagne is said to ‘flow like water.’ It was half-past ten, half-past eleven, twelve, and still the theatres and music-halls were sending down fresh visitors, and the cabs came rattling down the King’s high road. The bars and boxes were so many hives of drinking mortals—men who had lost and men who had won, and the drinking quickly led to an almost indiscriminate pugnacity. The wretched waiters, even, were assaulted, though the pugilist thought he amply atoned by a money payment ‘on the spot.’ 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 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:
Mr. Baum is said to have been ‘stung by these cutting remarks’—‘remarks’ which, whether they stung or cut, 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.’ 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 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. [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.] |