Rosherville Gardens
Encyclopedia
The Gardens
The gardens were laid out in 1837 by George Jones (a businessman from IslingtonIslington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
in north London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) in one of the disused chalk pits in Northfleet
Northfleet
Northfleet is a town in the Borough of Gravesham in Kent, England. Its name is derived from North creek , and the settlement on the shore of the River Thames adjacent to Gravesend was known as Norfluet in the Domesday Book, and Northflet in 1201...
, covering an area of 17 acres (69,000 m²). Their full title was the 'Kent Zoological and Botanical Gardens Institution’.
They became a favourite destination for thousands of Londoners during good weather, many travelling by paddle steamer down the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
to disembark at the pier built to service the gardens.
One of the steamboats from Rosherville Gardens was involved in a horrific accident in 1878. The passenger steamer, after leaving Rosherville pier, was in a collision with the collier Bywell Castle, from Woolwich
Woolwich
Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...
. 640 people died from the collision, 240 being children. An inquest was held at Woolwich, but no conclusive reason was ever established as to the cause of the disaster at the Devils Elbow on the Thames.
At one time the gardens were managed by Barnet Nathan, brother of the musician and 'friend of Byron' Isaac Nathan
Isaac Nathan
Isaac Nathan was an Anglo-Australian composer, musicologist, journalist and self-publicist, who ended an eventful career by becoming the "father of Australian music".-Early success:...
. Barnet, who was known professionally as 'Baron Nathan' (in mockery of Nathan Rothschild
Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild
Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild was a British banker and politician from the international Rothschild financial dynasty.-Life and family:...
), was renowned for his act of dancing a hornpipe, blind-folded, across a stage laid out with eggs. On his death he merited an obituary in Punch.
In 1886 a nearby railway station
Rosherville Halt railway station
Rosherville Halt was a railway station on the Gravesend West Line which was built to serve the popular Rosherville Gardens, a pleasure garden in Gravesend, Kent which closed in 1910...
opened on the Gravesend West branch railway
Gravesend West Line
The Gravesend West Line was a short railway line in Kent that branched off the Swanley to Chatham line at Fawkham Junction and continued for a distance of 5 miles to Gravesend where the railway company constructed a pier to connect trains with steamers...
. However, the advent of the railways led to the Gardens' demise, as Londoners were then able to reach coastal resorts such as Margate
Margate
-Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity....
and Southend.
Robert Hiscock, in his A History of Gravesend (Phillimore, 1976) describes the gardens thus:
They were a place of surpassing beauty and a favourite resort of Londoners. Adorned with small Greek templeGreek templeGreek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in Greek paganism. The temples themselves did usually not directly serve a cult purpose, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them...
s and statuary set in the cliffs, there were terraces, and archery lawn, Bijou theatre, and Baronial Hall for refreshments, and at one time a lake. At night the gardens were illuminated with thousands of coloured lights and there were fireworks displays and dancing. Famous bands such as the American SousaJohn Philip SousaJohn Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
were engaged during the season. Blondin, the trapeze artist, performed … In 1857 as many as 20,000 visitors passed through the turnstiles in one week. By 1880 the gardens had reached the peak of their popularity … in 1901 they were closed.
During a brief revival 1903-1911, they were used in the making of early films.
In literature
Rosherville is mentioned in The NewcomesThe Newcomes
The Newcomes is an novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1855.-Publication:The Newcomes was published serially over about two years, as Thackeray himself says in one of the novel's final chapters...
(vol. 2 chapter 6) by William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
, where its Gothic Hall is singled out for its gaudiness.
It is referred to in Francis Burnand
Francis Burnand
Sir Francis Cowley Burnand , often credited as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and dramatist....
and Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
's 1866 comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
Cox and Box
Cox and Box
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two...
"Visions of Brighton and back, and of ROSHERVILLE,
Cheap fare excursions already the squash I feel"
It is referred to in Gilbert & Sullivan's 1877 comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
"The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
" Act 2. Mr Wells sings "Hate me! I spend the day at ROSHERVILLE!"
It is referred to in P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
's first Jeeves
Jeeves
Reginald Jeeves is a fictional character in the short stories and novels of P. G. Wodehouse, being the valet of Bertie Wooster . Created in 1915, Jeeves would continue to appear in Wodehouse's works until his final, completed, novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, making him Wodehouse's most famous...
story, Jeeves Takes Charge
Jeeves Takes Charge
"Jeeves Takes Charge" is a short story written by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United States in The Saturday Evening Post on November 18, 1916, and in the United Kingdom in the April 1923 edition of Strand Magazine. Its first book publication was in Carry on, Jeeves in 1925...
: "There is a story about Sir Stanley Gervase-Gervase at Rosherville Gardens which is ghastly in its perfection of detail. It seems that Sir Stanley – but I can't tell you!"
It is also mentioned as a "place to spend a happy day" in chapter 13 of E. Nesbit
E. Nesbit
Edith Nesbit was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television...
's The Story of the Amulet
The Story of the Amulet
The Story of the Amulet is a novel for children, written in 1906 by English author Edith Nesbit.It is the final part of a trilogy of novels that also includes Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet . In it the children re-encounter the Psammead—the "it" in Five Children and It...
.
It is further mentioned as "the place whereat to spend a happy day" in Chapter XV of R.S.S. Baden-Powell's 1915 "Memories of India".