Cupid’s Garden

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 22

Cupid’s Garden

Ihe Pciiple ,s

(Specially written for "The Preet" bv DKRRICK HOONtY) 'Twat down in Cupid's garden, for pleasure I did go. To see the fairest flowers that in that garden grow; The first it was the jessamine, the Ulv, pink ana rose, And surety they’re the finest flowers, that in that garden grow.

This fruity—or should one say flowery? example of doggerel is poor stuff as poetry, but it has found its way into collections of old English ballads—and thereby hangs a tale, for this is one of those ballads more interesting for their associations than their implications. “Cupid’s Garden," as it is called, is a by-product of an intriguing early example of free enterprise. The rose, the lily and the pink, those übiquitous weeds of folk-lore, provide the clue to the conclusion that “Cupid’s Garden” has no more than an incidental relevance to the little fellow with the arrow. “Cupid” is, so to speak, a corruption; the place’s real name was “Cuper's Gardens,” and two centuries and a half ago it wks one of the show-places of Surrey. It fell into disrepute later; hence, presumably, the change of name. The founder was one Boydell Cuper, an enterprising gardener for the family of the Earl of Arundel who, when the Earl’s house in the Strand was taken down in the 16705, had the presence of mind to realise that self-employment was a consummation devoutly to be wished, saved many of the marbles from the house, and removed them to the garden he was forming near Bankside, on the Surrey side of the Thames. “Cuper’s Gardens" opened in 1678, and Aubrey, in his "Account of Surrey,” described it as “a very pleasant garden, in which are fine walks .... They are the estate of Jesus College, in Oxford, and erpcted by one who keeps a public house; which, with the conveniency of its arbours, walks, and several remains of Greek and Roman antiquities, have made this place much frequented.” After Cuper’s death the gardens passed, in 1736, to the hands of a Mrs Evans, widow of the landlord of the Her-

cules Pillars Tavern, in Fleet Street. She brought in an orchestra and organ, and launched into competition with the Vauxhall Gardens. One of the major features of Cuper’s was fireworks; and an eighteenth-century antiquarian by the name of Warburton wrote to a friend that “I said fireworks was a very odd refreshment for this sultry weather; that, indeed, Cuper’s Gardens had been once famous, for this summer entertainment; but then his fireworks were so well understood, and conducted with so superior an understanding, that they never made their appearance to the company till they had been well cooled by being drawn through a long canal of water, with the same kind of refinement that the Eastern people smoke their tobacco through the same medium.” This remarkable feat notwithstanding, Cuper’s gradually lost the battle with Vauxball, and closed in 1753, but not before a versifier by the name of Welsted had written in appreciation of its dissolute patrons:

For Cuper's Bowers, she hires the willing scull; A cockswain's now, and now a

sharper's trull! A different face by turns, or dress does borrow, Today a Quaker, and in weeds tomorrow.