Note 251 — V CHELSEA GROUP

I follow the Modern Sabbath, ed. 1797, in stating that Cromwell’s Gardens were identical with the Florida Gardens. In the second edition of the Sunday Ramble (1776) Cromwell’s Gardens at Brompton are described under that name, and in the 1797 ed. (A Modern Sabbath) almost the same description is repeated, and it is expressly stated that the name of the place had been changed from Cromwell’s to Florida Gardens. On the other hand, Faulkner describes the Florida Gardens as having been originally a nursery garden kept by “Hyam” (he is called Hiem in the advertisements) and converted by him (for the first time, it is implied) into a place of public amusement. Faulkner after describing Hale House, mentions Cromwell’s Gardens as a separate place of amusement earlier than the Florida Gardens. The contemporary authority of the Modern Sabbath seems, however, preferable; especially as Faulkner does not appear to be able to state the precise site of Cromwell’s Gardens. A further complication may perhaps be thought to be introduced by the passage in O’Keefe (cited in Note 1) where Cromwell’s Gardens are described as “at Cromwell House” (i.e. Hale House). But the inhabitants of Cromwell House from 1754 to 1794, or later, are well known to have been people of substance, and the gardens proper of Hale House could hardly have been employed as a tea-garden. The Florida Gardens (afterwards occupied by Canning’s Gloucester Lodge) were (as stated above) adjacent to Hale House, and may possibly at one time have belonged to its owners, and have been let out partly as a tea-garden and partly as a nursery. The writer of the Modern Sabbath in fact remarks that Cromwell’s Gardens is supposed to have taken its name from the ground being formerly the patrimonial estate of the Protector who once had a palace here upon the site of which is a handsome seat (i.e. Hale House). The change of name from Cromwell to Florida took place (as appears from the various editions of a Sunday Ramble) at some time between 1776 and 1797. I suggest that the change took place about 1780, because Lysons (who, however, does not mention Cromwell’s Gardens) says that the place was “much puffed in the daily papers between the years 1780 and 1790 by the name of Florida Gardens.” In any case they certainly were advertised by Hiem as the Florida Gardens as early as 1781.