A farthing token of the seventeenth century, issued ‘at the Maremaid Taverne in Hackeny,’ [46a] is a humble relic of the early days of this place, which stood on the west side of the High Street.
The assembly-room, connected with the tavern by a covered way, and the extensive grounds, were much frequented during the last century till the forties. The grounds consisted of an upper and lower bowling-green—one of them sometimes used for archery—and an umbrageous ‘dark walk’ encompassing the kitchen-garden, which was on the west side of the brook which divided the grounds.
Ballooning was for many years a feature of the place, especially in the thirties. [46b] In September, 1837, Mrs. Graham tried an experiment with two parachutes: one, a model of Garnerin’s, was found to oscillate greatly when released from the balloon; the other, Cocking’s parachute, descended slowly and steadily. A month earlier (August 9, 1837) Mrs. Graham had delighted the frequenters of the Mermaid Tea-Gardens by an ascent in the ‘Royal Victoria,’ accompanied by Mrs. W. H. Adams and Miss Dean. A lithograph of the time shows these ladies, ‘the only three female aeronauts that ever ascended alone,’ in their best dresses, cheerfully waving flags to the people below.
An ascent made by Sadler in his ‘G. P. W.’ (George, Prince of Wales) balloon on August 12, 1811, caused great local excitement. Crowds poured in from Greenwich, Deptford, and Woolwich, and the road became so blocked that even ‘families of distinction could not approach within a mile of the tavern.’ Some fortunate parishioners ascended the tower of the church, and a jolly tar got astride of the Mermaid sign. In front of the house an abnormal assemblage of fat men and still fatter women jostled and pushed and tumbled one over another in a way that delighted the coarse caricaturists of the period. Sadler’s companion was a naval officer, Lieutenant (or Captain) Paget, who paid a hundred guineas for his seat in the car. As the balloon rose, Mr. Paget was ‘for some minutes deprived of the power of expression and incapable of communicating his sensations’ to his fellow-traveller, but he did all that was necessary by keeping quiet and waving a flag to the spectators. An hour and a quarter passed, and a descent was then made near Tilbury Fort, and the travellers, who had started at a quarter to three, returned to Hackney at a few minutes after nine. [47]
The old tavern was pulled down at the end of the thirties, and several houses were built on its site. The assembly-room and gardens continued in existence for many years later, but are now also built over.
[Picture of London, 1802–1846; newspapers; Robinson’s Hackney (1842), i., p. 149 f.
There are several contemporary prints of Sadler’s ascent of August 12, 1811, one a coloured caricature published by Thomas Tegg, ‘Prime Bang-up at Hackney; or, A Peep at the Balloon.’ Rowlandson’s ‘Hackney Assembly, 1812 (1802)’ caricatures the dancing.]
