CHAPTER VII - The Garden of the Royal Horticultural
Society
FROM Prince ConsortRoad a curved carriageway
rises to the south-east side of the Royal
Albert Hall, and is partly mirrored by a
slanting road that descends from the south-west
side of the hall towards the junction of Prince
Consort Road and Queen's Gate. The south side
of these curved roads taken together marks the
circumference of crescent arcades that for a
quarter of a century bounded the northern end of
an elaborate, heavily architectured Italian garden,
which fell away in terraces to a southern boundary
about where the Science Museum now stands.
This garden, of some twenty acres, was maintained
by the Royal Horticultural Society from
1861 to c. 1886, and thus survived just into
'living memory'. But with its great conservatory,
its arcades of brick, tile and terra-cotta, its spiral
shrubs and its statuary standing among stone-edged
canals and box-embroideries of coloured
gravel it is one of the more unimaginable pieces of
a fairly recent past. (For this chapter see plan a
between pages 54 and 55, and Plates 2b, 26, 27, 28, 29,
31, 32c, 35c, 50b, 55b, c, 56a, 57c, d, 72b.)
In the events that brought the Society to
South Kensington and shaped its garden there the
dominant figure was Prince Albert. His death less
than a year after the garden was opened deprived
the Society of strong guidance and no doubt contributed
to the subsequent decline of its fortunes
and to its ultimate inauspicious departure from
South Kensington. But the connexion of the
Society with the estate of the 1851 Exhibition
Commissioners seems in retrospect to have been
fundamentally an aberration not well serving the
Prince's ideals for the area, and far less the real
needs of the Society itself. At the significant time,
however, in 1858, it appeared to offer a neat
solution to some problems facing those two bodies,
and as the Prince was then President of both the
conjunction was effected with a perhaps unfortunate
facility.
The Society had been founded in 1804. From
1818 to 1823 it had had a small 'experimental'
garden in Kensington, on the site of St. Mary
Abbot's Place, but in the early 1850's it maintained
headquarters in Regent Street and experimental
and exhibition gardens at Chiswick.
Despite the good scientific and social standing of
the Society it had great difficulty adjusting its
out-goings to its income, and after half a century
was threatened with dissolution. (ref. 1) In 1855 it
considered applying to the 1851 Exhibition
Commissioners for a more central garden-site on
the eastern, outlying part of their newly acquired
estate at South Kensington: the Commissioners'
secretary, Bowring, thought that this would make
the area 'highly popular with the upper classes',
but the land was used instead for the South
Kensington Museum. (Bowring himself raised
the question whether Palmerston's Government,
which at that time had a share in the administration
of the estate with the Commissioners, would
object to the admission of 'an Aristocratic Society'
to ground bought directly or indirectly with
the people's money. (ref. 2) )
By 1858 the need for a change of fortune was
even more pressing. Early in that year, however,
Prince Albert had succeeded to the Presidency of
the Society, and as President also of the 1851
Exhibition Commissioners could give it an entree
to their unappropriated main quadrangle. The
development of this was hanging fire, and the
Commissioners were about to free themselves of
their partnership with the Government in its
management. The idea of a central show-garden
surrounded by a 'corridor' or arcade which might
serve to unite institutional buildings to be erected
round its margin gave an attractive prospect of
enhancing the charms of the estate; it would be
beneficial to the tone and land-values of the residential
parts of the property, and would be a helpful
adjunct to the international exhibition intended
for 1861. The potential architectural and
(especially) sculptural embellishment of the garden
particularly interested the Prince.
Already in the latter part of 1857 the triumvirate
of officers of the Science and Art Department—the secretary, Henry Cole, the inspector
for art, Richard Redgrave, and the engineer and
architect, Francis Fowke—who were among
the Prince's advisers, had, at Cole's prompting,
adumbrated a specific plan for an 'inner garden'
on the main quadrangle. Evidently Cole himself
thought that a talk between him and his old
associate of 1851, C. W. Dilke, in March 1858,
was decisive in appropriating that garden to the
Horticultural Society. (ref. 3) Dilke, an influential
member of the Society (and also, like Cole, of the
Society of Arts and of the circle of workers in
touch with the Prince), became an important
link between the Society and 'South Kensington',
but it seems unlikely that the idea formulated by
him and Cole was not already very much in the
Prince's mind when he accepted the Presidency
of the Society. During an important meeting at
Osborne in July 1858, at which were present the
Prince, Bowring, Dilke, Redgrave and Cole,
the Society's use of the centre of the quadrangle
was informally agreed to. The arcade on each
side of the garden (a suggestion of the Prince's (ref. 4) )
was, Redgrave says, to be so prepared that busts,
inscriptions, statues, and silicated paintings might
be placed in it. The Science and Art Department
triumvirate was constituted an executive committee
to prepare plans for the Commissioners.
They were also authorized to obtain the services,
as consultant architect, of Sydney Smirke. (ref. 5) It is
not clear whether the co-option of an experienced
practitioner of an 'adjustable' classicism reflected
the Prince's personal choice, for the realization
of his own ideas. At the time Fowke told Cole 'I
think it quite right that the thing should be done
by an Architect and Smirke's work at the British
Museum speaks well for him'. (ref. 6) In the event,
Smirke and Fowke divided the architecture
between them. Fowke, Cole and Redgrave were
together paid £2,500 per annum by the Commissioners.
At first they agreed to take this in
ratios of 5, 4 and 3, but the Commissioners seem
subsequently to have decided that they would have
to find out of it Smirke's fee of £300 per annum as
consultant from April 1859. (ref. 7) (Fowke's clerk of
works was H. Saxon Snell. (ref. 8) )
In January 1859 the Society formally asked the
Commissioners if they would receive an application
for a lease of the site. (ref. 9) Exactly how the garden
could best be introduced into an as-yet unrealized
ensemble where its ancillary buildings might
ultimately serve a wider purpose remained obscure:
Cole noted in his diary in April 'all at sea'
and 'not much daylight'. (ref. 10) For a time the financing
of the layout by a 'company' independent of
the Commissioners, or by a 'capitalist', was in
contemplation. (ref. 11) The inclusion of shops to yield a
rental was for a time considered. (ref. 12) At a special
meeting on 7 July, however, the Society authorized
its Council to negotiate with the Commissioners
for a lease on the terms then set before it,
and which in essentials took effect. The Society
was to hold twenty acres for thirty-one years
(from 1 June 1861), with a qualified right of
renewal. The Commissioners were to spend
£50,000 (raised by a mortgage) on the basic
'earthworks' and surrounding arcades and the
Society the same sum on the garden layout and a
conservatory. The rental terms were favourable.
No rent was payable until the Society's yearly
expenses, including those of the experimental
garden at Chiswick, were discharged, when
£2,400 per annum became due as the equivalent
of the Commissioners' interest-payment on their
mortgage. Thereafter profits were to be divided
between the Society and the Commissioners.
There was to be no accumulating liability for any
unpaid back-rent, and the Commissioners were
to have a right of repossession only if rent was
unpaid for five consecutive years. (ref. 13)
At that meeting it was announced that the
Queen and Prince would make substantial
donations to the Society, the royal children would
become life-members and the Prince a debenture-holder.
This royal lead brought in many members
from the fashionable and would-be fashionable
world, and the £50,000 was raised, mainly in
debentures, by the autumn. (ref. 14) The Society was
empowered to call itself Royal in December
1860. (ref. 15)
Already at the time of that meeting much work
had been done under the Prince's aegis towards
the design of the garden. It appears that from the
beginning it was destined to be formal or 'geometric',
although at first this was modified to
allow the retention of one or two large trees in its
upper part, (ref. 16) and recollections of the elaborate
layouts submitted to the Prince by Donaldson,
Pennethorne and Cockerell in 1853 seem to be
discernible (see page 84). Cole suggested that
photographs of the 'most successful' English
gardens, including Osborne and Windsor, should
be commissioned, (ref. 17) and during his visit to Italy in
the winter of 1858–9 obtained photographs, at
the Prince's prompting and expense, of Italian
arcaded architecture. Specimens were displayed
at the Society's meeting, to recommend the proposals
to it (ref. 18) and probably included the photographs
preserved in the Victoria and Albert
Museum of the cloisters of St. John Lateran and
of crescent arcades in the gardens of the Villa
Albani that were to give stylistic suggestions for
the southern and northern (crescent) arcades. (ref. 19)
A preliminary general plan by the triumvirate
and Smirke was submitted to the Prince in May
1859. (ref. 20) A drawing by Smirke for the central
arcades is dated in the following month (ref. 21) and a
perspective view of the proposed layout was published
in The Builder in July just after the Society's
decisive meeting. (ref. 22) It was to be considerably
altered but shows the main features of the garden
as built, bounded by covered arcades that at the
northern end formed a crescent embracing a
large glass conservatory and at the southern end
broke back to give greater width to the garden.
Behind the arcades vacant ground some 150 or
200 feet wide was left along the Queen's Gate
and Exhibition Road frontages.
By July it had been determined that the same
team should be responsible also for the Society's
part of the work. (ref. 23) An important addition to the
team was to be Godfrey Sykes (1825–66). In
April 1859 Cole had consulted with the headmaster
of the Sheffield School of Art and in
October Sykes, formerly the second master there,
began work for the Department on the arcades. (ref. 24)
The fairly conventional stylistic range of the
team was augmented by something richer and
more original in detailing and thereby a characteristic
South Kensington style was developed.
In May Smirke had produced a design for the
conservatory, (ref. 25) but the work was given to Fowke,
and in July he was viewing E. M. Barry's newly
built or building Floral Hall in Covent Garden
with Cole. (ref. 26) The large gas-lit conservatory,
which The Building News was to call 'noble' and
The Builder 'one of the best things of the kind
that we know of', (ref. 27) was supervised for Fowke by
his assistant, the engineer J. W. Grover (Plates
28a, 28b, 29, 50b, 72b). (ref. 28) The general contractor,
as for the other garden buildings, was John Kelk,
but the cast iron of the framework and wrought
iron of the roof were supplied, by canal, from
the Britannia Works at Derby. (ref. 29) (fn. a) The tile
pavement was by Minton, Hollins and Company. (ref. 32)
The conservatory measured 265 by 96
feet (maximum) and was 75 feet high, (ref. 33) and the
rapidity with which the framework was raised,
in three weeks in April 1861, was applauded. (ref. 34)
It was painted a very pale green, and there were
big brown-and-red-striped awnings. (ref. 35) Fowke's
contrasting introduction of a massive internal
flight of stairs in brick, tile and terra-cotta detailed
by Sykes, to connect with the terrace-walk on
the arcades which ran through the back of the
conservatory, was praised as 'most agreeable and
altogether novel'. (ref. 36) The Builder said the total cost
was £16,000. (ref. 37) (Kelk's tender had been accepted
at £14,519. (ref. 38) (fn. b)
Fowke also designed the two 'band houses' of
iron and zinc-covered wood which The Builder
thought 'light and tasteful' (Plate 28c). (ref. 40) The
ironwork was by J. Potter and Company. (ref. 41) One
bandstand survives on Clapham Common where
it was re-erected in 1890. (ref. 42) <Hazel Conway has since disputed the Clapham Common location, suggesting instead that one of the Royal Horticultural Society 'band houses' went to Southwark Park, the other to Peckham Rye (see Garden History, winter 2001, p.214). A view of the Peckham Rye bandstand in 1905 is reproduced in Looking Back. Photographs of Camberwell and Peckham 1860-1918, p.25.>
The northern (crescent) arcades and the central
ranges of arcades, called respectively the 'Albani'
and the 'Milanese', were the work of Smirke
(Plates 26d, 27d, 29d, 55b). His designs were
exhibited widely—at the Royal Academy, the
1862 Exhibition and at the Architectural Exhibition
in Conduit Street—as well as being reproduced
in the press. They included fanciful refreshment
pavilions above the arcades, that were
published but not built. (ref. 43)
In the southern and wider part of the garden
the 'Lateran' arcades on either side were designed
by Fowke, to harmonize with the south side,
which was formed by the northernmost range of
the building that he was designing for the 1861
(1862) Exhibition. They were designed for glazing. (ref. 44)
Fowke had been thinking about the style
of the arcades in April 1859, although at that
time 'wanting', as Cole says, '"Venetian" or
Romanesque'. (ref. 45) The central features on the
east and west sides were gracefully designed as
entrances for visitors passing to or from Exhibition
Road and Queen's Gate (Plates 27b, 28c, 31b,
50b).
On the east side the entrance was through an
apartment that also served as a Council Room for
the Society (Plate 27c). It had a flat ceiling glazed
with ground glass and a black and red Mintontiled
floor, and the architectural features were
coloured pearl white against surfaces of 'dead
deep pink or palish purple'. The quite suave
treatment of this room by Fowke, 'very simple in
colour and pure in design', was approved by some
critics. (ref. 46)
Late in 1860 Cole was planning to finance the
erection of a fine entrance feature on the outward
face of this side by letting the frontages on the
approach from Exhibition Road for shops. The
Commissioners' surveyor Henry Hunt quashed
the idea, partly because he thought that until the
garden was well established the Commissioners
would not get a sufficient rent. (ref. 47) Instead, a 'temporary'
wooden structure to form the approach
from Exhibition Road to the Council Room-cum-entrance
was erected by Fowke in 1861 on
the economical pattern used by him for a Volunteers'
drill-shed built in 1859–60 on the east side
of the South Kensington Museum's grounds and
for the 1862 Exhibition's machinery annexe.
Richard Redgrave decorated the interior—'rather prettily', according to The Building News—chiefly in light green, buff and chocolate, with
a few stronger accents in the roof. On the
Exhibition Road front Fowke's entrance feature
was 'as ugly as any combination of forms could
possibly make it' but a similar colour scheme
formed the background to painted decorations
by Godfrey Sykes which The Building News
admired. (ref. 48) Foreseeably, this temporary front remained
for many years, as one of the more remarkable
pieces of 'South Kensington' design
(Plate 27a, 55c).
Of greater significance for the development of a
'South Kensington' style was, however, Sykes's
decorative detailing of the arcade elevations
(Plate 27d). He provided terra-cotta columns for
the southern arcades and terra-cotta embellishments
for the others, where sympathizers with
the triumvirate had condemned the 'artistically
worthless' stone-carving of Smirke's capitals. (ref. 49)
Sykes's work, like Fowke's, was soon admired by
the Prince, (ref. 50) and together they established a
distinctive Departmental style, especially in the
use of terra-cotta. The studios set up in the South
Kensington Museum for the design-work of
Sykes and his assistants were to contribute largely
to other buildings under the Department's aegis.
One or two unexecuted drawings for arcades
apparently by Sykes's mentor, Alfred Stevens,
seem to relate to the garden. (ref. 51)
In the autumn of 1859 there was a move,
possibly begun by Bowring, to dispense with
Smirke's services in favour of Fowke's overall
superintendence, but it was condemned by Fowke
himself and others as a breach of etiquette, and
Smirke remained to supervise the erection of his
own arcades. (ref. 52) The Prince had sometimes to
defend him against interference by Cole. (ref. 53) The
Society, also, could not be ignored, and their
inclinations went rather counter to Fowke's:
they were, in fact, decidedly suspicious of the
triumvirate's influence with the Prince. (ref. 54) Cole
was in turn contemptuous of the Society's method
of proceeding through many sub-committees, and
prophesied correctly that they would be less
successful than the Commissioners in holding the
cost of their work to £50,000. (ref. 55)
Although Fowke was initially responsible for
determining the levels and the basic earthworks
for the Commissioners, the Society's laying out of
the garden itself required yet another designer.
In October 1859 Cole and the Prince's secretary
Charles Grey were discussing the choice. A
party within the Society wished Paxton to
be consulted. (ref. 56) Cole, however, rejected him
because 'he repudiates Geometric laying out
and knows nothing about it'. Also, he would
want to be in sole command. Paxton had to
some extent become suspect to the Prince and his
'South Kensington' circle by associating himself
with the more 'commercial' enterprise at Sydenham,
and the Prince agreed that his influence
would be mischievous. (Paxton was, nevertheless,
something of an admirer of Fowke's architecture,
preferring, Cole says, his arcades to Smirke's. (ref. 57) )
The Prince and Cole both thought the formalist
landscape gardener W. A. Nesfield suitable, and
the Society engaged him. (ref. 58) The division of
responsibility between the Society and the Commissioners
gave rise, however, to intermittent
friction between him and the triumvirate. (ref. 59)
The inclusion of the proposed memorial to the
1851 Exhibition in the garden at the beginning of
1860 required a revision of the preliminary layout
and the new and more elaborate scheme by
Nesfield was published in May 1860. (ref. 60) It seems
that the introduction of the 'canals', and probably
of the 'water works' more generally, was at
Fowke's suggestion. Smirke approved of them,
but Nesfield himself would have preferred flowerbeds. (ref. 61)
Fowke was perhaps stimulated by the
engineering aspects of the work. The water was
supplied from an artesian well sunk some 400 feet
vertically by Easton and Amos and Sons of South-wark,
who 'fitted up some beautiful pumping
machinery'. (ref. 62) The large ornamental water was
evidently installed by January 1861. (fn. c)
Nesfield had to deal with criticisms by the
Prince that apparently emanated originally from
Cole, (ref. 64) and when he later was directed by the
Prince to submit the architectural parts of his
design to Fowke and Smirke he seems to have
found the latter's 'masterly idea of the case' the
more acceptable. (ref. 65) It appears that by early in 1861
the Society in fact succeeded in substituting
Smirke's influence for Fowke's in the handling of
the terraces, bridges and other architectural
features in the garden itself. (ref. 66) Dilke was to tell
Cole in May 1861 that Fowke 'was as clever as
possible—but no architect or man of business', (ref. 67)
and may therefore have been behind the preference
for Smirke.
This limitation on Fowke's work in the garden
seems to have caused some resentment in the
triumvirate. Fowke told Cole that Smirke's
arcade was 'the only ungentlemanly thing in the
Gardens', and the 'streaky bacon' walls of
Smirke's terraces were also condemned (Plate
26d). (ref. 68) The Prince himself evidently regretted
them, and in order to subdue the tone of the
bands of yellow brick suggested the use of the
black cement mortar that appears so unfavourably
in illustrations of the garden. (ref. 69) In the end it was
Fowke who seems to have received the more
publicity at the opening.
Smirke's stripes were a rare instance of apparent
loss of control by the Prince, whose close
supervision is evident throughout. The Queen
was annoyed by his sometimes depressed pre-occupation
with what she called the 'tiresome'
garden, (ref. 70) and even Cole seems occasionally to
have been wearied by his pertinacity in details. (ref. 71)
Some larger characteristics were also, however,
determined by him—that there should be 'no
Greek architecture' in the garden, (ref. 72) and that
colour should be given the great importance that
The Builder noted as a feature of Smirke's arcade
designs. (ref. 73) The Prince insisted, for example, on
the lightest possible red in the moulded bricks, (ref. 74)
personally examined them for their colour
values, (ref. 75) and put Cole to some trouble to try to
get special bricks from Messrs. Norman of Burgess
Hill. (ref. 76)
Many of his criticisms were specific—that the
southern arcade designs should show keystones,
for example. (When they were provided he
thought them too big, so they were left out after
all. (ref. 77) ) For the shell-headed niches in the arcades
hints should, he suggested, be taken from Heidelberg
Castle; (ref. 78) and Cole testified after his death
to his attempts with 'the modelling tool or the
paint-brush' to demonstrate his intentions when
visiting Sykes's studio. (ref. 79) He suggested to Nesfield
the replacement of the intended wall between
the main terrace and the sunken garden by a
stepped declivity, and sent Nesfield sketches to
explain very detailed queries about the effect of
his plantings on sight-lines across the garden. (ref. 80)
The Prince tried, with some success, to have
everything submitted to his approval, and was
particularly insistent that the Commissioners
should do nothing about the elaborate entrance
from Exhibition Road (as Cole was then envisaging
it) without his personal authorization. (ref. 81)
The Prince supported the Department's use of
models and large- or full-scale 'mock-ups' as
preliminaries to building. (ref. 82) Full-scale frescoes and
prototypes of the arcades were set up on the
northern boundary wall of the South Kensington
Museum (where the frescoes are still just discernible),
and the water-works were also carefully
tried out in models (Plate 26c). (ref. 83) The bill
for models paid by the Society (that is, excluding
any payment for models of the arcades, which
would have been met by the Commissioners) was
at least £583. (ref. 84)
The laying out of the area had been begun late
in 1859. (ref. 85) The Prince was worrying about the
slow progress in September 1860, (ref. 86) but the
Society moved its offices to Kensington early in
1861, (ref. 87) a thousand men were reported to be at
work in May, (ref. 88) and the garden was inaugurated,
although unfinished, on 5 June 1861. The Prince
then pronounced it 'a valuable attempt at least to
reunite the science and art of gardening to the
sister arts of architecture, sculpture and painting',
and foresaw a future for it as 'the inner court of a
vast quadrangle of public buildings,. . . where
science and art may find space for development,
with that air and light which are elsewhere well
nigh banished from this overgrown metropolis.' (ref. 89)
The opening was a brilliant occasion. 'Such a
gathering of the higher classes has been rarely
seen in London, and the expressions of surprise
and delight in the gardens were universal', reported
The Athenaeum. (ref. 90)
There was to be provision for the admission of
non-members on payment and the press reflected
the interest of a wider public in the garden. One
feature attracted particular attention—the 'box-embroidery'
of coloured gravels and other materials
in which, it was said, the Queen and Prince
had taken a deep interest. These 'charming
horticultural pictures' (ref. 91) (alternatively compared to
'the mosaic pavements of the finest Italian
churches' (ref. 92) ) were thought effective in conjunction
with the 'ribbon style' of the flower-beds. (ref. 93) The
Builder found 'care and taste' in their design. (ref. 94)
They were expected to make the garden attractive
in the winter, and, whether for this reason or
not, it is true that the garden pleased contemporaries
at that season. (ref. 95) Soon, however, Beres-ford-Hope
was making a lively attack on the
whole style of the garden: 'little ramps were
raised, and little slopes sliced off, with a fiddling
nicety of touch which would have delighted the
imperial gardener of the Summer Palace; and the
tiny declivities thus manufactured were tortured
into curvilinear patterns, where sea-sand, chopped
coal, and pounded bricks, atoned for the absence
of flower or shrub'. (ref. 96) (fn. d)
Beresford-Hope had praised more highly the
surrounding architecture, although as a gothicist
he could not be enthusiastic. Compared with the
detested 1862 Exhibition building, Smirke's and
Fowke's arcades were 'both of them graceful,
and even refreshing architectural experiments'. (ref. 96)
Most periodicals had been more whole-hearted,
and particularly liked the colour and 'crisp
sharpness' of Sykes's terra-cotta, and the workmanship
generally. (ref. 98) The terra-cotta was chiefly
supplied by Messrs. Blanchard but some probably
also by Messrs. Blashfield. (ref. 99) The Department had
taken trouble with it, testing its weight-bearing
qualities in its own press (Plate 26b), (ref. 100) carefully
warning the manufacturer against 'touching
up' (ref. 101) and evolving an economical system of
alternating patterns whereby 'great diversity, the
very essence of romantic art, is readily obtained'. (ref. 102)
The Building News was particularly impressed
by the architecture, where it detected 'the artfeeling that rules in the Museum'. If anything of
Old Heidelberg had by then been introduced into
the detailing, The Building News ignored it.
'The style . . . is pure Italian—the very Italian
of Italy itself. . . The Horticultural Society's
arcades might have stood as consistently near the
Tiber as near the Thames, and they would have
endured without any peril to their own reputation
a comparison with the worthiest of their neighbours
on that classic soil.' (ref. 103)
The Athenaeum found the garden Italian but
also something more, and evidently detected a
fresher and more appealing element than in great
formal gardens of the type already created by
Barry and Nesfield. 'It was felt that in these
magnificent arcades we have something new to
our country and our century—something exquisitely
Italian, and shady and cool; that in
these successions of terraces, in these artificial
canals, in these highly ornamental flower-walks
we have something of the taste and splendour of
Louis Quatorze. It was of such a garden as this
that Bacon must have dreamt.' (ref. 90)
Statuary and other artefacts, particularly under
the Prince's inspiration, had an important place in
the garden. Terra-cotta statues were intended to
be placed in the arcade niches. Cole had to repress
the Prince's inconsistent wish for 'Greek statues'
here, (ref. 104) and himself seems to have asked Alfred
Stevens for a design. (ref. 105) In March 1861 the
Society formed a Fine Arts committee under the
Prince's chairmanship, (ref. 106) the Society's secretary
later recalling 'the eloquent language in which His
Royal Highness explained his views to the Committee'. (ref. 107)
It arranged with a committee of
sculptors for annual exhibitions. (ref. 108) The Prince
presented statuary for the garden, (ref. 109) but his influence
also effected some departure from the
assurance given to the Society by the former
secretary, that the statuary would not be a charge
on the Society. (ref. 110) (fn. e) The embellishment of the
pedestal of the memorial to the 1851 Exhibition
also put it to some expense.
The formidable pressure of the Society's
President was in a measure contrary to its own
inclinations. The secretary, Andrew Murray, in
his courtier-like account of the garden published
in 1863 asserted that the interests of the Commissioners
'as it were dovetailed into' those of the
Society (ref. 112) but he also acknowledged that the
Prince had a 'deeper object' than the promotion of
horticulture (in which he was 'in no way more
specially interested . . . than in any other liberal
pursuit'). The Prince was 'using, unobtrusively
and silently, the Society as an influence for the
good and advancement of the people', to whom it
would afford 'occasional access' to the influences
of horticulture and art. (ref. 113) By his 'well-digested
scheme' it was to the garden as the centre of the
intended quadrangle of cultural buildings that
'the student and the amateur might retire to refresh
themselves, when fatigued with their
labours'. (ref. 114)
The Prince's ideas here, as elsewhere, worked
against the exclusiveness of private societies. In
the last months of his life his secretary was telling
Murray that (at least during the period of the 1862
Exhibition) the aim should be to make the garden
attractive to the public: posters should be put up at
railway stations, a reading-room with magazines
provided and, in the ante-garden, an aviary for
children. (There was already a maze, although
the pheasantry first planned by Nesfield was
omitted. (ref. 115) Murray himself was sympathetic to
the provision of 'attractions', even perhaps a small
zoo, thinking that the overspill from the Exhibition
would be 'of that English public who the
moment they come in rush off to see something'. (ref. 116)
But at the opening The Building News had supposed
that the Society would not attempt to rival
the popular appeal of the Crystal Palace at
Sydenham, or to attract 'the masses'. (ref. 117) Measures
to aid the popularity of the South Kensington
complex were only too likely to jar on some of the
members of a Society whose fetes at Chiswick had
been notable for their aristocratic brilliance (ref. 118)
and whose inaugural ceremony at Kensington
had been fixed for a date 'between the meeting at
Epsom and Ascot'. (ref. 119)
The Exhibition of 1862 caused apprehension
in the Society. Over the arcades on the south side
of the garden refreshment rooms were built
(Plates 28c, 31b, 35c, 35d); but some feared that
ladies and Fellows walking in the garden would be
subjected to 'disagreeable comment and annoyance'
from the windows of the dining-room,
where 'good behaviour and discretion after dinner'
was at best doubtful. (ref. 120) Cole told the Society
to regard profit more than dignity, attract the
public as much as possible and so 'promote
Science, pay its debts, and keep its public obligations'. (ref. 121)
It was perhaps at his promptings that
the garden's furniture and fittings were treated as
exhibits in the manner of the South Kensington
Museum, with the maker's name attached. (ref. 122) The
expenses connected with the 1862 Exhibition
were great but yielded the Society a profit. (ref. 123)
The Commissioners were, however, critical of its
financial management (ref. 124) and, with the artificial
aid of the exhibition-visitors removed, it seemed
necessary to appoint Cole manager for 1864,
possessed (as Lord Derby commented) of 'dictatorial
powers'. (ref. 125) The Prince would probably
have approved. (ref. 126) Cole avowed that the garden
could not be used for 'direct promotion of Scientific
Horticulture', and among the measures taken
'to re-animate the thing immediately' were band
competitions, croquet, 'lawn billiards' and bowls.
Characteristic of his belief in free trade was the
ruling that no work for the Kensington garden
should be done at Chiswick if it could be done as
well or cheaper by a commercial firm. (ref. 127) Cole had
an appreciable success, particularly as his advent
was associated with an expenditure of £13,000 by
the Commissioners on improving the arcades. (ref. 128)
This decorative work continued into 1866. (ref. 129)
Late in 1864 the Society was brought into an
even closer relation to its landlords when Henry
Scott, seconded from the Royal Engineers to the
Commissioners' employment, became Cole's
assistant and in 1866 the Society's honorary
secretary. (ref. 130) In the later 1860's the improved
state of the garden pleased many associated with
'South Kensington', and Bowring was hoping
that, with a lead from the Prince and Princess of
Wales, the garden might supplant the Zoological
Gardens as a fashionable venue on Sunday. (ref. 131)
The prospect of the 'Albert Hall' (for the Society's
flower shows) at its northern end and the Natural
History Museum, perhaps immediately adjacent,
at its southern, was also promising. Chiefly, however,
the Commissioners saw the garden's future
in connexion with the permanent buildings which
in 1868 were being designed by Scott to house a
series of annual international exhibitions planned
by Cole. (ref. 132) Built in 1869–71, they extended
along the northern two thirds of each side of the
garden behind the arcades. A terrace was constructed
on top of the arcades, and additional
decoration given them by students and artists of
Cole's Department under F. W. Moody, (ref. 133) that
included the frieze-inscription in Sykes's pictorial
alphabet (Plates 55b, 56a). (ref. 134) The augmentation
of the arcades by new galleries probably, as Cole
said, represented the sort of arrangement that had
originally been visualized. (ref. 135)
The financial position of the Society was not,
however, good, and by its inability to pay rent to
the Commissioners in 1866–70 it became legally
liable to the forfeiture of the garden. (ref. 136) The
annual exhibitions, moreover, required considerable
concessions by the Society to permit access
across their ground. The Society's experience of
completely free admission on the anniversaries of
Prince Albert's birthday was not always happy—in 1868, according to Scott, 'scenes were witnessed
by some of our Fellows, if they speak the
truth, of a very strong complexion indeed' (ref. 137) —and the resistance of an influential part of the
Society, the residents in South Kensington, to the
conditions for public access to the garden exacted
by the Commissioners came to a head in 1873.
Discontent was increased by the Commissioners'
new policy of disposing of parts of their main
quadrangle for private building. (ref. 138) In the spring
the resignation of Scott and of most of the Council
was forced by the dissidents. (ref. 139) A new Council
hostile to the Commissioners was elected, and by
the terms that it required for allowing access was
responsible, Cole thought, for the failure in 1873
and 1874 of the Commissioners' annual exhibitions,
which then terminated. (ref. 140) The problem of
financing the garden remained. A proposal by the
Council to build a skating rink was quashed late in
1874 by the Commissioners, as neither serving
science and art nor, on the other hand, helping
the estate's potentialities for residential development.
(Scott who by then was the Commissioners'
secretary, suspected that the Society had had the
Prince of Wales's backing for the idea: Scott himself
was not unsympathetic—'it will be a pretty
sight'. (ref. 141) ) The Society's financial situation and
bargaining power continued to deteriorate, with
serious dissension between the South Kensington
residents and the 'horticulturalists'.
Journalists' descriptions of the garden as 'a very
charming addition ... to the fashionable lounges
of the West-end' (1862) (ref. 142) or 'the largest and, as
regards flowers, handsomest of London squares'
(1874) (ref. 143) explain the alienation of serious gardeners,
who thought Chiswick a better object of
the Society's resources than Kensington's 'fine
art' embellishments. And by the 1870's the smoke
of Victorian London was becoming a menace to
cultivation at the garden. (ref. 144)
In the winter of 1875–6 the Queen's secretary
and the chairman of the Commissioners' board of
management were among those who anticipated a
'smash'. (ref. 145) By the summer of 1876 a scheme was
outlined for the Society to surrender its lease, so
enabling the Commissioners to pursue their
ambition of building a Science Museum across the
site of the garden. (ref. 146) The ground would have been
conveyed to the Government with provision for
retaining the greater part of the garden as a public
park. Governmental examinations were conducted
in adjacent buildings and this would therefore
'prove an inestimable boon, in their intervals of
rest, to a large number of young persons annually
subjected to the severe strain upon mind and body
entailed by a lengthened examination'. (ref. 147) The
plan was obstructed by the refusal of the Society's
debenture-holders to agree, (ref. 148) and in 1879 the
Commissioners gave notice of their intention to
reoccupy the land. The Society felt obliged to its
debenture-holders to await eviction and it was
only in 1882 that the Court of Appeal, reversing a
judgment in a lower court, gave the Commissioners
power to take possession and at the same
time relieved the Society of any obligation to its
debenture-holders. (ref. 149) Cole, in the last year of his
life, was indignant that their interests were
jettisoned, as it seemed to him a betrayal of
those who had acted in aid of the Prince's
ideals. (ref. 150)
In 1880 Cole had noted how the state of the
garden showed 'the poverty and decline of the
Society'. (ref. 151) It continued in fact to occupy the
garden, by arrangement with the managers of
exhibitions held in 1883–6. (ref. 152) (For the first of
these, International Fisheries, Scott utilized the
truss-design of Fowke's entrance-approach from
Exhibition Road for extensive temporary buildings by Peto Brothers,
of which the main east-west hall measured
850 feet long and 50 feet wide. These 'light and
elegant, though simple' structures were admired
(Plate 72a). (ref. 153) ) Photographs taken in the
mid 1880's show the garden's appearance,
reminiscent of a municipal park (Plate 72b). (ref. 154) In
1888 the Society finally moved from South
Kensington, and set up new offices in Victoria
Street. (ref. 155) Imperial Institute Road and Prince
Consort Road were laid out in c. 1888–92 across
the site of the garden, which was obliterated by
new building (plans b, c between pages 54 and
55). The arcades were used for very various purposes
as galleries, store-rooms and class-rooms by
the South Kensington Museum (latterly the
Science Museum), the Royal College of Science,
the Imperial Institute and other institutions
(Plates 57c, d). Some arcades survived, looking
out upon the miscellany of 'infill' visible on Plate
118a, until the extension of the Science Museum
and Imperial College in the 1950's.