Note 17 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY
Reading edition
Finch’s Grotto Garden stood on the site now occupied by the headquarters of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. It was opened—six years before John Thomas Smith was born—on the strength of a spring in the grounds which a Dr. Townshend was willing to declare medicinal. Concerts and fireworks were given with fair success, and here “Tommy” Lowe accepted engagements after his failure in the management of Marylebone Gardens. The tavern was burnt down in May 1795, and was replaced by another called the “Goldsmith’s Arms,” afterwards styled the “Old Grotto New Reviv’d.” This tavern bore the inscription—
“Here Herbs did grow And flowers sweet, But now ’tis call’d Saint George’s Street.”
All that is known about Finch’s Grotto is told by Mr. Warwick Wroth in his admirable London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century.