'How ev'nly!' said Miss J'mima Ivins, and Miss J'mima Ivins's
friend, both at once, when they had passed the gate and were fairly inside the gardens. There were the walks, beautifully gravelled
and planted - and the refreshment-boxes, painted and ornamented like so many snuff-boxes - and the variegated lamps shedding their
rich light upon the company's heads - and the place for dancing ready chalked for the company's feet - and a Moorish band playing
at one end of the gardens - and an opposition military band playing away at the other. Then, the waiters were rushing to and fro with
glasses of negus, and glasses of brandy-and-water, and bottles of ale, and bottles of stout; and ginger-beer was going off in one
place, and practical jokes were going on in another; and people were crowding to the door of the Rotunda; and in short the whole
scene was, as Miss J'mima Ivins, inspired by the novelty, or the shrub, or both, observed - 'one of dazzling excitement.' As to the
concert-room, never was anything half so splendid. There was an orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-glass; and
such an organ! Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man whispered it had cost 'four hundred pound,' which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was
'not dear neither;' an opinion in which the ladies perfectly coincided. The audience were seated on elevated benches round the
room, and crowded into every part of it; and everybody was eating and drinking as comfortably as possible. Just before the concert
commenced, Mr. Samuel Wilkins ordered two glasses of rum-and-water 'warm with - ' and two slices of lemon, for himself and the other
young man, together with 'a pint o' sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet carraway-seed biscuits;' and they would have been quite
comfortable and happy, only a strange gentleman with large whiskers WOULD stare at Miss J'mima Ivins, and another gentleman in a plaid
waistcoat WOULD wink at Miss J'mima Ivins's friend; on which Miss Jemima Ivins's friend's young man exhibited symptoms of boiling
over, and began to mutter about 'people's imperence,' and 'swells out o' luck;' and to intimate, in oblique terms, a vague intention
of knocking somebody's head off; which he was only prevented from announcing more emphatically, by both Miss J'mima Ivins and her
friend threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another word.
The concert commenced - overture on the organ. 'How solemn!'
exclaimed Miss J'mima Ivins ...
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1836
Few travellers of any note, who have made the grand tour from Paddington to
the Bank, are allowed to pass without notice a large, and by no means
undistinguished edifice, somewhat resembling a town-hall, or chamber of
commerce, hard by the sweet waters of the Regent's canal, and within view of the
ground made classic by the parcel-warehouses of Pickford - that man of mighty
fame ; in one of whose north-country waggons we had the honour to make our first
appearance in this vast metropolis. This classic structure - we do not allude to
the waggon, - is graced with mighty columns supporting a pediment, the pediment
supporting the identical “HEAGLE" which gives name to the temple of
Bacchus, Clio, and Terpsichore, for to all these deities is this structure
dedicated, being at one and the same time a tavern, an opera-house, and a
ball-room. Not being conversant with architecture, and having little opportunity
to draw comparisons between the interior decorations of great houses, we cannot
give the curious reader a detailed description of this delightful place : our
own private opinion is, that Devonshire House and Chatsworth are fools to it.
Plate-glass folding-doors, Spanish mahogany bar-fittings,
noble coffee-room, for gents. only ; ball-room, with mirrors extending from
floor to ceiling ; imposing-looking waiters running to and fro ; 'pon my word
and honour, reader, it is the grandest place I ever was in in my life.
Out of doors it is all the finer, merrier, and more
exhilarating. It is a Saturday afternoon in summer ; all the way from St. Mary
Axe, Houndsditch, and Petticoat Lane, troop the pretty Jewesses,
Jewesses sunny bright,
With shining gold, and jewels sparkling clere,
as old Ned Spenser has it, who no doubt was many a time and oft at the Eagle in
his day. There they come, with their family-likeness noses, their deep flashing
oriental eye, their lustrous black hair, their huge ear-drops, necklaces. and
brooches, their screwed-up waists, their long dresses sweeping the ground ; all
silks, satins, and lutestrings ; none of your printed cottons, or
eleven-and-sixpenny mousselines de laine; every stitch the silk-worms have
sweated for. With these come the young Moseses, Solomons, Levis, all in the
genteelest of black, with waistcoats of velvet, and cataracts of black satin,
not to speak of gold chains, rings, and trinketry, in which these young
gentlemen greatly delight. These are going to their ball ; but, as they are very
exclusive, we prefer to follow the Christian population now swarming into the
garden.
We stop at the pay-office, where with great propriety the
door- keeper insists on every churlish cockney, who, neglecting his ''young
woman," comes to see the fun in cheerless celibacy, paying double; while
the free-hearted young fellow, who trips along with his sweetheart, - doubling
his enjoyment by dividing it - is admitted with strict poetical justice, at
half-price.
You enter with your young woman - for I don't take the
trouble of writing this description for fellows who go by themselves, - and the
full glories of the Heagle burst upon your and your young woman's admiring
visual orb. It is a gala night - the little firmament of many-coloured lamps is
disposed in twinkling constellations ; the little fountains sputter out of the
mouths of little Cupids their halfpint of water per hour ; the little gold
fishes swim at top of the ten gallon ponds, o' purpose that your young woman may
see them, and flirt their little tails, as much as to say, "we knows what
you two are arter." The little shells glitter like bits of silver among the
little ferns and water-lilies, that look like little topazes and emeralds ; the
little trees put the best side of their little leaves foremost, and the little
sparrows, not to be outdone by the orchestra, chirrup, chirrup among the little
trees.
The statues, or, as your young woman chooses to call them,
" statures," shine all bright and lively in the open air, and though
but plaster of Paris, are as much admired as if they were real Canova ; your
young woman, peeping with the curiosity of her sex into a little hole in the
wall, cries “Crikey," and calls out, “Joe, look here ; how beau-tiful
!" Joe has a peep, beholding his phiz much broader than long, his mouth
drawn o' one side, and his eyes leering opposite ways ; your young woman peeping
over your shoulder, laughs, crying, " Well, I never! - What a
Guy!"
You by no means omit a peep at the “Dissolving Views "
in a dark corner; nor a scrutiny of the “statures” upon which a wag
has chalked such names as happen to suit his fancy ; by this time the musicians
make their appearance in the orchestra - a sort of Chinese edifice - and
entertain you with the overture, merrily scraped, to Fra Diabolo.
Now a gent, dressed like a high-sheriff, with a tremendous
cocked Hat - they wear cocked hats at Vauxhall, and why not at the Heagle ? -
comes to the front, and favours you with a sentimental ditty ; then you have a
glee for two cocked hats and a chip-bonnet, then a duet for two gipsy hats; and,
to conclude this part of the entertainment, a grand chorus by "the strength
of the company."
Long ere this, if you have been as attentive as you
ought to the comforts of your young woman, you will have edged away to the door
of the theatre, now closely blockaded by an eager crowd of applicants for front
seats. The door opens ; you tumble in; get a comfortable seat, with a bench
before, and a high back behind ; exchange your refreshment-ticket for whatever
your young woman fancies - rum shrub, probably ; the waiter, eagerly
anticipating your eleemosynary penny, places the sweetly, spirituously,
acidulously intermingling beverage before you. You light your cigar ; and having
taken into custody your young woman's bonnet and pocket-handkerchief, patiently
await the opening of LA SOMNAMBULA.
My blessings on the man that invented this pretty
little story of woman's trusting love, suspected, flung away like a faded
flower, lamented with the agony of a broken heart, and recovered, restored,
triumphant, by the same mysterious means that led to suspicion, jealousy, and
despair. Although Frazer is not exactly Rubini, and Miss Forde would not,
perhaps, compare herself to Grisi, yet, let me tell you, they play and sing in a
style that would not discredit any provincial theatre ; the orchestra is very
fair, and the little opera well got up, always considering the moderate price
you pay for it.
The opera and rum shrub being finished, a glass of “something
short " is necessary to cheer up your young woman's heart, a comic song
concerning that favourite housewife's assistant, ''hearth-stone," to a
popular air in Fra Diavolo contributing thereto. Then you have a pas-de-deuxs,
or perhaps a ballet ; after which you return to the garden, where fireworks, and
'' God save the Queen," by all the cocked and gipsy-hats, terminate the
gala at the Heagle.
John Fisher Murray, The Physiology of London Life , in Bentley's Miscellany, 1844
Victorian London - Publications - History - Views of the Pleasure Gardens of London, by H.A.Rogers, 1896
[back to menu for this book ...]
Eagle Tavern Pleasure Grounds
(1838)
"Up and down the City Road
In and out the Eagle
That's the way the money goes;
Pop goes the Weasel."
- OLD SONG
ROYAL EAGLE CORONATION PLEASURE
GROUNDS AND GRECIAN SALOON
CITY ROAD
PROPRIETOR, Mr. T. ROUSE.- Unrivalled Galas,
with brilliant fireworks, and splendid
illuminations, and a series of superior
amusements, every Monday and Wednesday.
To attempt a description of the numerous
and varied sources of entertainment at
this unrivalled establishment would be
vain. Concert in the open air, dancing
and vaudeville in the Saloon, set paintings, cosmoramas, fountains, grottos, elegant
buildings, arcade, colonnade, grounds,
statuary, singing, music, &c.; render it a
fairy scene, of which a due estimate can
only be formed by inspection. Open every
evening. On Thursday a Benefit, for the
Laudable Pension Society, Bethnal Green.
See bills.
The whole under the direction of Mr. Raymond.
Brilliant Discharge of Fireworks,
By the inimitable British Artist
Thomas Brock.
A Band will be stationed in the Temples,
To play during the Evening.
Admission 2s.
The Doors will open at Five o'clock.
- Advertisement, 1838.
EAGLE TAVERN, CITY ROAD. A place of public entertainment, frequented by the lower orders, and licensed for theatrical purposes pursuant to Act 25 Geo. II. It stands on the site of "The Shepherd and Shepherdess," a tea-house and garden, noted some sixty years since. Taverns of this description has seriously injured the minor theatres, as at houses like the Eagle, with both a music and a spirit licence, people can see, hear, and drink; at theatres they can only see and hear.
Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850
see also J. Ewing Ritchie in The Night Side of London - click here
Grecian
Theatre,
City-road. —Formerly the “Eagle Tavern”, and still connected with the
garden of that house. A local theatre, to which, however, visitors from the
West-end have of late years been attracted in considerable numbers by the
extraordinary performance of the late proprietor, Mr. George Conquest, who as an
acrobatic actor is probably unequalled. His Christmas pantomimes, written b
himself, and by no means without merit, have always contained some striking
parts, dwarf, giant, monkey, or such like, in which his peculiar talents could
be shown to advantage ; one scene in particular being always given up to a
breathless series of leaps, dives, &c., from which it seemed impossible that
he could emerge with life. NEAREST Omnibus
Routes, City-road and New North road.
Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879
GRECIAN THEATRE, City-rd. - This old establishment and popular East End Theatre, known long ago as the "Eagle Tavern and Grecian Saloon," has for some time closed its doors as a place of public amusement. The lease of the property was acquired years ago by "General" Booth, of the Salvation Army, and is used as one of their centres of work.
Charles Dickens Jr. et al, Dickens Dictionary of London,
c.1908 edition
(no date; based on internal evidence)