The Fleet. Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages 12

The Fleet. Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages 12

The house attached to the Spa is said to have been the residence of

Nell Gwyn, but tradition has assigned her so many houses; at Chelsea,

Bagnigge Wells, Highgate, Walworth, and Filberts, near Windsor--nay,

one enterprising tradesman in the Strand has christened a milk shop

"Nell Gwyn's Dairy," and has gone to some expense, in pictorial tiles,

to impress on passers-by the genuineness of his assertion.

 

Still, local tradition is strong, and, in a book called "The

Recreations[35] of Mr. Zigzag the elder" (a pseudonym for Mr. John

Wykeham Archer, artist and antiquary), which is in the Library of the

City of London, and which is profusely "Grangerised" by the author, is

a small water colour of Bagnigge House, the reputed dwelling of Nell

Gwyn, which I have reproduced in outline, and on this drawing is a

note, "Moreover several small tenements at the north end of the

Garden were formerly entitled Nell Gwynne's Buildings, which seems to

verify the tradition."[36]

 

[Illustration: BAGNIGGE HOUSE. (Said to have been Nell Gwyn's.)]

 

But the evidence is all of a _quasi_ kind. In the long room, supposed

to have been the banqueting room, was, over the mantel, a bust, an

_alto relievo_, of a female, supposed to be Nell Gwyn, and said to be

modelled by Sir Peter Lely, enclosed in a circular border of fruit,

which, of course, was at once set down as a delicate allusion to the

actress's former calling of orange wench in the theatres. The bust and

border were painted to imitate nature, and on either side were coats

of arms--one the Royal arms, and, on the other side, the Royal arms

quartered with others, which were supposed to be those assumed by the

actress. When the old house was pulled down, the bust disappeared, and

no one knows whither it went.

 

I give a quotation from the _Sunday Times_, July 5, 1840, not as adding

authority, or weight, to the idea that Bagnigge House was Nell's

residence, but to show how deeply rooted was the tradition. It is a

portion of the "_Maximms and Speciments of William Muggins, Natural

Philosopher, and Citizen of the World_"--

 

"Oh! how werry different London are now to wot it war at the

time as I took my view on it from the post; none of them

beautiful squares and streets, as lies heast and west, and

north of the hospital, war built then; it war hall hopen fields

right hup to Ampstead an Ighgate and Hislington. Bagnigge Well

stood by itself at the foot of the hill, jist where it does

now; and then it looked the werry pictur of countryfiedness and

hinnocence. There war the beautiful white washed walls, with the

shell grotto in the hoctagon summer house, where Nell Gwynne

used to sit and watch for King Charles the Second. By the by,

a pictur done by a famous hartist of them days, Sir Somebody

Neller I thinks war his name, represents the hidentical ouse

(it war a fine palace then) with the hidentical hoctagon summer

house, with the beautiful Nelly leaning hout of the winder, with

her lilly white hand and arm a-beckoning, while the King is

seed in the distance galloping like vinking across the fields a

waving his hat and feathers; while a little page, with little

tobacker-pipe legs, in white stockings, stands ready to hopen a

little door in the garden wall, and let hin the royal wisitor,

while two little black and tan spanels is frisking about and

playing hup hold gooseberry among the flower beds.

 

That ere pictur used to hang hup in the bar parlor; its wanished

now--so are the bust as were in the long room; but there's

another portrait pictur of her, all alone by herself, done by

Sir Peter Lely, still to be seen. (This here last coorosity war

discovered honly a year or two ago, rolled hup among sum rubbige

in the loft hunder the roof.)"

 

The old house, however, was evidently of some importance, for, over

a low doorway which led into the garden, was a stone, on which was

sculptured a head in relief, and the following inscription--

 

X

THIS IS BAGNIGGE

HOUSE NEARE

THE PINDAR A

WAKEFIELDE

1680.

 

thus showing that the Pindar of Wakefield was the older house, and

famous in that locality. This doorway and stone were in existence

within the last forty years, for, in a footnote to page 572 of

the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of June, 1847, it says, "The gate and

inscription still remain, and will be found, where we saw them a few

weeks since, in the road called Coppice Row, on the left going from

Clerkenwell towards the New Road."

 

The following illustration gives Bagnigge Wells as it appeared at the

end of last century.

 

[Illustration: BAGNIGGE WELLS, NEAR BATTLE BRIDGE, ISLINGTON.]

 

We have read how these gardens were first started in 1757, but they

soon became well known and, indeed, notorious, as we read in a very

scurrilous poem called "Bagnigge Wells," by W. Woty, in 1760--

 

"Wells, and the place I sing, at early dawn

Frequented oft, where male and female meet,

And strive to drink a long adieu to pain.

In that refreshing Vale with fragrance fill'd,

Renown'd of old for Nymph of public fame

And amorous Encounter, where the sons

Of lawless lust conven'd--where each by turns

His venal Doxy woo'd, and stil'd the place

_Black Mary's Hole_--there stands a Dome superb,

Hight Bagnigge; where from our Forefathers hid,

Long have two Springs in dull stagnation slept;

But, taught at length by subtle art to flow,

They rise, forth from Oblivion's bed they rise,

And manifest their Virtues to Mankind."

 

The major portion of this poem (?) is rather too _risque_ for modern

publication, but the following extract shows the sort of people who

went there with the view of benefiting their health--

 

"Here ambulates th' Attorney looking grave,

And Rake from Bacchanalian rout uprose,

And mad festivity. Here, too, the Cit,

With belly, turtle-stuff'd, and man of Gout,

With leg of size enormous. Hobbling on,

The Pump-room he salutes, and in the chair

He squats himself unwieldy. Much he drinks,

And much he laughs to see the females quaff

The friendly beverage. He, nor jest obscene,

Of meretricious wench, nor quibble quaint,

Of prentic'd punster heeds, himself a wit

And dealer in conundrums, but retorts

The repartee jocosely. Soft! how pale

Yon antiquated virgin looks! Alas!

In vain she drinks, in vain she glides around

The Garden's labyrinth. 'Tis not for thee,

Mistaken nymph! these waters pour their streams," &c.

 

And in the prologue to "Bon Ton: or _High_ Life above Stairs," by David

Garrick, acted at Drury Lane for the first time, for the benefit of Mr.

King, in 1775, not much is said as to the character of its frequenters.

 

"Ah! I loves life and all the joy it yields,

Says Madam Fupock, warm from Spittlefields.

Bon Ton's the space 'twixt Saturday and Monday,

And riding in a one-horse chaise on Sunday,

'Tis drinking tea on summer's afternoons

At Bagnigge Wells, with china and gilt spoons."

 

[Footnote 34: Otherwise the Fleet.]

 

[Footnote 35: These papers appeared in the _Illustrated Family

Journal_.]

 

[Footnote 36: In Cromwell's "History of Clerkenwell," p. 322,

we read, "In memory of its supposed proprietor, the owner of

some small tenements near the north end of the gardens styled

them 'Nell Gwynn's Buildings;' but the inscription was erased

before 1803."]

 

 

 

 

[Illustration]

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII.

 

 

The gardens were pretty, after the manner of the times; we should not,

perhaps, particularly admire the formally cut lines and hedges, nor the

fountain in which a Cupid is hugging a swan, nor the rustic statuary

of the haymakers. Still it was a little walk out of London, where

fresh air could be breathed, and a good view obtained of the northern

hills of Hampstead and Highgate, with the interlying pastoral country,

sparsely dotted with farmhouses and cottages. The Fleet, here, had not

been polluted into a sewer as it was further on, and there were all the

elements of spending a pleasant, happy day, in good air, amid rural

scenes.

 

[Illustration: A VIEW TAKEN FROM THE CENTER BRIDGE IN THE GARDENS OF

BAGNIGGE WELLS.]

 

[Illustration: WAITER FROM THE BREAD AND BUTTER MANUFACTORY; OR, THE

HUMOURS OF BAGNIGGE WELLS.]

 

[Illustration: THE BREAD AND BUTTER MANUFACTORY; OR, THE HUMOURS OF BAGNIGGE WELLS.]