Page 38 - A Time and A Place Catalogue, Jorge Welsh

FIG. 22
The diary of Samuel Pepys (…) mentions
several walks he took with his wife and friends
to and in the New Spring Gardens at ‘Fox
Hall’. (…) On 11th May 1668, Pepys ‘took
Mercer by water to Spring Garden;
and there with great pleasure walked,
and eat, and drank, and sang (…)’
→ Vauxhall Gardens, located on the outskirts
of London, on the south bank of the River Thames, and there a harp, and here a Jew’s trump,
was known as New Spring Gardens prior to 1728.
It was first mentioned in 1661 by John Evelyn
(1620-1706), an English writer, who ‘went to
see the new Spring-Garden, at Lambeth, a pretty
contriv’d plantation’.2 The diary of Samuel Pepys and sang, making people come about us, to hear us,
(1633-1703), an English naval administrator and
090
Member of Parliament, mentions several walks Fig. 22
he took with his wife and friends to and in the
New Spring Gardens at ‘Fox Hall’. On the 28th Johann Sebastian Müller
of May 1667, Pepys walked ‘in Spring Garden. (1715-1792) after Samuel
A Great deal of company, and the weather and Wale (1721-1786), Vauxhall
garden pleasant: that it is very pleasant and cheap Gardens showing the Grand
going thither, for a man may go to spend what Walk at the Entrance of the
he will, or nothing, all is one. But to hear the Garden and the Orchestra
nightingale and other birds, and here fiddles, with Musick Playing
Etching and engraving
and here laughing, and there fine people walking, 1751
is mighty divertising’.3 On 11th May 1668, Pepys
‘took Mercer by water to Spring Garden; and there Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
with great pleasure walked, and eat, and drank, © National Gallery of Art,
Washington
and two little children of one of our neighbours that
happened to be there, did come into our arbour,
and we made them dance prettily’.4 →