Note 33 — Chapter IV

Pepys, the diarist, on March 27, 1664, writes as follows: ‘Walked through the Ducking Pond Fields; but they are so altered since my father used to carry us to Islington, to the old man of the King’s Head, to eat cakes and ale (his name was Pitts), that I did not know which was the Ducking Pond, or where I was.’ What would he have said now? There were several ducking-ponds in this neighbourhood; the name of Ball’s Pond, near Newington Green, still survives. Howes in his ‘Chronicle’ says that the reservoir at the New River head ‘was in former times an open idell pool, commonly called the Ducking Pond.’ Spa Fields, Clerkenwell, were also called ‘Ducking Pond Fields.’ There was a public-house a little west of the London Spa, with a ducking-pond attached. It was taken down in 1770, and the Pantheon, in imitation of the Oxford Street Pantheon, built on its site. This soon became disreputable, and was eventually turned into Spa Fields Chapel, demolished 1879. There was a ducking-pond in Mayfair (Hertford Street is on the site), and another near Mile End.