CHAPTER 33 - VAUXHALL GARDENS AND KENNINGTON LANE
[See plates 124, 125, 126, and 127.]
During the 200 years of their existence, Vauxhall Gardens were so
important a feature of the social life of London, there are so many allusions
to the gardens in contemporary literature, and so much has since been written
about them, that it would take a monograph to do justice to the subject.
Only the merest outline can be attempted here, with a short account of the
previous history of the site and of its subsequent development.
The ground on which Vauxhall Gardens were laid out was copyhold
of the Manor of Kennington. It was held at the beginning of the 17th
century by John Vaux and Jane, his wife. (ref. 17) In 1615 Jane Vaux, widow, was
the tenant, and after her death it passed to Joan Barlow (widow of William,
Bishop of Lincoln). The gardens were probably started by an undertenant
of one of the copyholders, sometime before the Restoration, for on 2nd July,
1661, John Evelyn wrote of his visit to “a pretty contrived plantation”
called the New Spring Garden at Lambeth, (ref. 281) and two years later Balthasar
de Monconys described them as being laid out in squares enclosed with
hedges of gooseberries, within which were roses, beans and asparagus, etc., (ref. 282)
thenceforward references were frequent. The gardens soon lost the rural
simplicity described by Pepys. In 1712 Addison attributed to Sir Roger de
Coverley the remark that he should have been a better customer to the
gardens “if there were more Nightingales and fewer Strumpets.” (ref. 283)
In 1728 Elizabeth Masters leased Spring Garden to Jonathan Tyers
for 30 years at a rent of £250. The lease mentions the Dark Room, the
Ham Room, Milk house and Pantry-room, and that the arbours were
covered and paved with tiles and bore names such as Checker, King's Head,
Dragon, Royal, etc. (ref. 17)
Tyers opened the gardens at night during the summer months and
spent much money on decoration, on which he employed, among others,
the artists Hayman, Hogarth and Roubiliac. Music and illuminations and
good food completed the attractions of the gardens. In the 1750's Tyers
bought the ground from George Doddington the copyholder. He died in
1767, leaving his property between his four children; (ref. 17) his son, Jonathan
Tyers, managed the gardens until his death in 1792. In the 1785 survey
the premises are described as “all that substantial Brick Dwelling Houses
called Spring Garden House, the Tap House and 36 other Dwelling Houses,
Coach Houses, Stables, Out houses, Workshops, Sheds, Icehouse, Great
Room, Orchestra, Covered Walks, open Walks, Ways, Passages, Pavillions,
Boxes and spring Gardens Yards, Pond and an Aquiduct to supply the said
Pond from Vauxhall Creek.” The copyholders were then Tyers, Rogers and
Barrett. (ref. 35)
Bryant Barrett, Tyers' son-in-law, a wax chandler, managed the
gardens from 1792 until his death in 1809. (ref. 284) George, his elder son, succeeded him in the management, and his younger son, Jonathan Tyers
Barrett, became the first incumbent of St. John's Church, Waterloo Road.
In 1821 the property was sold for about £30,000 to T. Bish, F. Gye
and R. Hughes, who traded as the London Wine Company. (ref. 64)
The last entertainment at the gardens was given on 25th July, 1859,
the fireworks displayed the device Farewell for Ever, and Vauxhall was
closed. (ref. 64) In August the property was sold by auction and within the next
five years the whole site was built over, the boundaries being Goding Street,
Vauxhall Walk, Leopold Walk, St. Oswald's Place and Kennington Lane.
No. 308 Kennington Lane
This house, now the vicarage of the church of St. Peter, formerly
stood within Vauxhall Gardens, and was the manager's residence. It has a
Victorian gabled attic built above the original parapets.
The Church of St. Peter, Kennington Lane
St. Peter's Church, at the corner of St. Oswald's Place and Kennington
Lane, was designed by John Loughborough Pearson, and was one of the
earliest of his many churches. It was consecrated in 1864. (ref. 64)
The chief interest of St. Peter's is its interior; it is designed in Early
English style and built in yellow stock brick with stone dressings. There
are delicately-ribbed vaults to the nave, aisles, chancel and chapel, and the
chancel has an apsidal end with a triforium and lancet-windowed clerestory
above—all details characteristic of Pearson's work. The nave and chancel
are graceful and lofty, and the nave, clerestory and roof rest on arcades with
column caps of Byzantine design.
The exterior is built in stock brick, but is of less distinction though
boldly buttressed at the gabled street front.
List of Vicars. G. W. Herbert (perpetual curate 1864, vicar 1870);
1896, A. B. Sharpe; 1899, E. Denny; 1910, A.W. Tudball; 1926, Percy
W. Seymour.