Rural Life up to the Eighteenth Century
The area now occupied by the National Theatre was once known as Lambeth Marsh, a flood plain drained by a small stream, the Neckinger, which flowed into the Thames at the point at which Waterloo Bridge now stands. The shoreline of Lambeth Marsh has moved little since neolithic times. Belvedere Road and Upper Ground (previously called Narrow Wall) mark the course of an artificial river wall constructed to enable crossings of the flooded low-lands and to hold back the Thames.
The reclaimed land at the river front, onto which the National Theatre now overlooks, was known as ‘waste’, although the first recorded river industry used these fertile banks for osier (willow) beds. By the late seventeenth century timber yards had become a common feature of this section of the shoreline, and on the site now occupied by the Royal Festival Hall was situated a wind-powered saw-mill. The map below, dated 1680/90, shows the land between Narrow Wall and the Thames as a continuous line of wood yards from Stangate (Westminster Bridge site) downstream to Cuper’s Bridge (Waterloo Bridge site). These wood yards imported timber from around the coast, cut them into planks and seasoned them in large stacks.
© London Metropolitan Archives, 2002
© London Metropolitan Archives, 2002
Until the nineteenth century Lambeth Marsh was a green oasis close to London’s centre, containing the last surviving ploughed fields and meadows of central London. The rural setting of the south bank of the Thames was well placed for establishing pleasure gardens, being an area where rents were low, and out of reach of the taxes and laws of the cities of London and Westminster. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries promenading in the fashionable parks and gardens of London was a popular social activity. The famous Vauxhall Gardens were situated a mile up river from Lambeth Marsh, and on the site now occupied by the Waterloo Bridge approach road, the lesser-known Cuper’s Gardens was established.
© London Metropolitan Archives, 2002
Opened in the 1680s by Abraham Boydell Cuper, the gardener of the Earl of Arundel, Cuper’s Gardens were popularly known as Cupid’s Gardens. The gardens were long and narrow, extending almost as far south as the site of St John’s Church, Waterloo Road. They featured serpentine paths among trees, bushes, and statues and busts brought across the river from Arundel House in the Strand. In 1708 the gardens were described as ‘pleasant gardens and walks with bowling greens… whither many of the westerly part of the town resort for diversion in the summer season’.
© London Metropolitan Archives, 2002
It was not until 1738 when Ephraim Evans took charge that the gardens developed into a full-scale entertainment centre. He built a concert hall where a band played from six until ten o’clock, provided elaborate fireworks, and attracted a fashionable clientele including the Prince and Princess of Wales and ‘many noblemen and their ladies’. He announced that care would be taken to keep bad company out and that no servant in livery would be admitted. Watchmen were appointed to protect customers from footpads who approached the gardens by St George’s Fields. In 1753, under a new ‘Act for Preventing Thefts and Robberies and for Regulating Places of Public Entertainment ‘, a renewal of the licence was refused. Cuper’s Gardens remained open as a tea garden, but finally closed in 1760, and lay derelict until a wine and vinegar distillery was eventually built on the site.
