Ranelagh Gardens
Encyclopedia
- For the gardens with a similar name in LiverpoolLiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, MerseysideMerseysideMerseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...
, see Ranelagh Gardens, LiverpoolRanelagh Gardens, LiverpoolRanelegh Gardens was the first open space for public recreation to be created in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It was opened in 1722 and was modelled on Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea, which was at that time just outside London. It contained a formal flower garden, and a number of separate areas...
Pleasure gardens
A pleasure garden is usually a garden that is open to the public for recreation. They differ from other public gardens in that they serve as venues for entertainment, variously featuring concert halls or bandstands, rides, zoos, and menageries.-History:...
located in Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
, then just outside London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the 18th century.
History
The Ranelagh Gardens were so called because they occupied the site of Ranelagh House, built in 1688-89 by the first Earl of Ranelagh, Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital (1685–1702), immediately adjoining the Hospital; according to Bowack's Antiquities of Middlesex (1705), it was "Designed and built by himself". It's actual builder and owner was one Solomon Rieti, an Italian Jewish immigrant. Rieti's niece, Rebecca Rieti, was the grandmother of Benjamin Disraeli. Ranelagh House was demolished in 1805 (Colvin 1995, p 561).In 1741, the house and grounds were purchased by a syndicate led by the proprietor of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
and Sir Thomas Robinson
Thomas Robinson
Thomas Robinson may refer to:*Thomas Robinson , English composer and music teacher*Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham , English diplomatist and politician...
MP, and the Gardens opened to the public the following year. Ranelegh was considered more fashionable than its older rival Vauxhall Gardens
Vauxhall Gardens
Vauxhall Gardens was a pleasure garden, one of the leading venues for public entertainment in London, England from the mid 17th century to the mid 19th century. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, the site was believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660 with the first mention being...
; the entrance charge was two shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s and sixpence, compared to a shilling at Vauxhall. Horace Walpole wrote soon after the gardens opened, "It has totally beat Vauxhall... You can't set your foot without treading on a Prince, or Duke of Cumberland." Ranelagh Gardens introduced the masquerade
Masquerade ball
A masquerade ball is an event which the participants attend in costume wearing a mask. - History :...
, formerly a private, aristocratic entertainment, to a wider, middle-class English public, where it was open to commentary by essayists and writers of moral fiction.
The centrepiece of Ranelagh was a rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
rotunda
Rotunda (architecture)
A rotunda is any building with a circular ground plan, sometimes covered by a dome. It can also refer to a round room within a building . The Pantheon in Rome is a famous rotunda. A Band Rotunda is a circular bandstand, usually with a dome...
with a diameter of 120 feet (37 metres), designed by William Jones, a surveyor to the East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. The central support housed a chimney and fireplaces for use in winter. In 1765, the nine year old Mozart performed in this showpiece, which figured prominently in views of Ranelagh Gardens taken from the river. Canaletto
Canaletto
Giovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto , was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...
painted the gardens, and painted the interior of the Rotunda twice, for different patrons. There was also a Chinese pavilion, which was added in 1750, an ornamental lake and several walks. Ranelagh was a popular venue for romantic assignations. Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...
wrote that it was, "the most convenient place for courtships of every kind — the best market we have in England."
From its opening, the Rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens was an important venue for musical concerts. The organ survives at All Saints Church, Evesham
All Saints Church, Evesham
All Saints Church is an active Anglican church in the centre of the town of Evesham, Worcestershire, England. All Saints and its neighbour St Lawrence's Church were built by the Benedictine monks of Evesham Abbey in the 12th century to serve the people of Evesham...
.
The rotunda was closed in 1803 and demolished two years later.
Such was the renown of the Gardens and the vogue for music in the open air that a Ranelagh Gardens was opened in New York, in the former Rutgers house, as a rival to the New York Vauxhall Gardens
New York Vauxhall Gardens
The New York Vauxhall Gardens was a pleasure garden and theater in New York City. It was named for the Vauxhall Gardens of London. Though the venue passed through a long list of owners, and suffered buyouts, closings, relocations, and re-openings, it lasted until the mid-19th century.In the...
; its proprietor John Kenzie posted an advertisement for it during the occupation of the city in the American Revolution, in hopes of attracting the British soldiers, as well as "the Respectable Public". and a Jardin Ranelagh was created in Paris' fashionable 16th arrondissement in 1870.
Ranelagh Gardens were re-designed by John Gibson in the 19th century. Fulham Football Club played on the site from 1886-8, when it was known as the Ranelagh Ground.It is now a green pleasure ground with shaded walks, part of the grounds of Chelsea Hospital and the site of the annual Chelsea Flower Show
Chelsea Flower Show
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, formally known as the Great Spring Show, is a garden show held for five days in May by the Royal Horticultural Society in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in Chelsea, London...
.
See also
- Cremorne GardensCremorne Gardens, LondonCremorne Gardens were popular pleasure gardens by the side of the River Thames in Chelsea, London. They lay between Chelsea Harbour and the end of the King's Road and flourished between 1845 to 1877; today only a vestige survives, on the river at the southern end of Cheyne Walk.-History:Originally...
— a mid 19th century public garden. Also in Chelsea, but at the opposite end of the district. - RanelaghRanelaghRanelagh is a residential area and urban village on the south side of Dublin, Ireland. It is in the postal district of Dublin 6. It is in the local government electoral area of Rathmines and the Dáil Constituency of Dublin South-East.-History:...
— a Dublin suburb from which the Earl of Ranelagh derives his title.