Marylebone Gardens

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Marylebone or Marybone Gardens was a London pleasure garden.

It was officially opened as a venue for concerts and other entertainments in 1738 by Daniel Gough, the proprietor of the Rose of Normandy tavern on the east side of Marylebone High Street, although it had been used as a pleasure garden since 1650. Originally consisting of two bowling greens adjoining the tavern, its size was increased by acquisition of land from Marylebone Manor House, which was converted into a hunting lodge by Henry VIII and was later used as a boarding school, eventually being demolished in 1791. It was situated in the area which is now between Marylebone Road, Marylebone High Street, Weymouth Street, and Harley Street, and was described by Samuel Pepys as "a pretty place" in 1668.

Marylebone Gardens were mentioned by John Gay in "The Beggar's Opera" as a haunt of its 'hero', MacHeath. They were used for, amongst other entertainments, gambling, cock-fighting, bull-baiting and boxing matches (with both male and female contestants). The highwayman Dick Turpin was a visitor in the 1720s.

Halls were built for shelter in 1739, and the entrance fee was increased to sixpence to keep out the riff-raff. Many of the foremost London musicians and composers including George Frideric Handel and James Hook performed works here until the area was eventually built over in 1778. The original principal female singer was a Miss Faulkner and the orchestra was led by William Defesch. From 1763 to 1768 the Gardens were run by Thomas Lowe, who had been a singer at Vauxhall Gardens, with the musical management undertaken by Samuel Arnold who took over the ownership and management with the violinist Thomas Pinto which continued from 1769 to 1774.

In 1768 the Gardens gave the English premiere of Pergolesi's opera La serva padrona (in translation).

Hook was appointed organist and composer to the Gardens in 1769 and held an annual festival there every summer. The gardens were also famous for their regular firework displays, organised from 1772 to 1774 by Signor Torre. The Rose Tavern was later developed as a music hall and renamed "The Marylebone". It is now the site of the studios of BBC London 94.9.

[edit] External links

• London's Tea Gardens, An essay by William B Boulton
• Marylebone High Street, the Howard de Walden Estate
• Views of the Pleasure Gardens of London, by H.A.Rogers, 1896, Victorian London

[edit] References

• Peter Warlock, Songs of the Gardens, London, 1925.
• Biography of Samuel Arnold by Robert Hoskins on Naxos Records website.
• The London Encyclopaedia, ed. Weinreb and Hibbert, London, 1983 (ISBN 0333300246).