Note 81b — MONTPELIER TEA GARDENS, WALWORTH

The Montpelier Club afterwards (from 1840, or earlier) had their ground at the Beehive, Walworth. In 1844 the Beehive ground was required for building purposes, and the club obtained a lease (March, 1845) of the Oval, and in a year or two was merged in the Surrey County Club. The Beehive public-house, now 62, Carter Street (on the east of the site of the Surrey Gardens), represents an old tavern (1779 or earlier), which had about five acres of ground attached to it, with a tea-garden. In these gardens the balloon of the ill-fated Harris (see supra, p. 58) was exhibited in 1824 (cf. H. H. Montgomery’s Kennington, p. 169 f.). The old Beehive tavern was a long, low building with a veranda. In the garden was a maze and the original proprietor’s cottage, connected with the adjoining fields by a bridge over a stream. Mr. Wemmick’s Walworth residence in Great Expectations—a toy-house with a bridge—may be reminiscent of this (cf. H. H. Montgomery’s Old Cricket and Cricketers, London [1890], p. 44 f.).