Esoteric London

Holbein Mews, London, SW1. Photo © Roger Dean 2013

Sketches of London Life and Character – Albert Smith et. al., [1859]:

Vauxhall – Albert Smith

Amongst the unrevealed mysteries of London, is the hybernal existence of Vauxhall. What becomes of it in the depth of winter? People see the blackened tops of the skeleton trees rising above the palings of Kennington Lane and the chimneys of Lambeth, and therefore suppose it still to be in the same place; but no one appears ever to have gained its interior. An imaginative mind, tinged with superstition, can fancy fearful scenes going on there in dark January. It can picture the cold bright frosty moon shedding a ghastly light upon the almost rained-out Constantinople or Venice, as the case may be; and glistening on the icicles depending from the nostrils of Neptune’s horses, or the hair of the Eve at the fountain. The cutting wind whistles through the airy abode of Joel il Diavolo. The snow is deep upon the ground, capping the orchestra also, and drifting into the supper boxes; whilst a few spectral leaves, on which the light of many a summer orgy whilome rested, chase one another with pattering noise along the covered promenades, or whiffle about amongst the decaying benches of the firework gallery. It is impossible to conceive anything more dreary – a wet November Sunday, in a grave family at Clapham, is nothing to it.