“Let us go to Cremorne,” he proposed. “There are illuminations, trees, crowds and music – an excellent place in which to have a serious conversation.
Cremorne, I must tell you, is a pleasure resort with a lake and beautiful gardens, and is immensely popular. This establishment is situated exactly opposite its rival, Vauxhall, on the other side of the river. The company there is very mixed: students and shop girls, soldiers and civilians, dissipated young bloods, paterfamilias with their better halves, schoolboys and children’s nurses; Cremorne welcomes them all. It is not an edifying place, but, as I have said before, Londoners leave their prudery at home.
Cremorne, like Vauxhall and other such places, offers a variety of attractions. One moves on methodically from the one to the other at the sound of a large bell which a man rings as he leads the way, the crowd trotting along behind him. We trotted with the herd and Lionel continued to evade me.
“Let us listen to the music,” he suggested. As soon as the quavering melody had dissolved: “Quick, to the theatre, or we won’t get a seat!” he cried. And we had to gallop after the bell-man, be jostled by the crowd, and sit though a farce acted by pierrots, harlequins, policemen, and field-marshals. There were waterfalls, snow-capped mountains and polar bears in white cotton trousers. The actors oozed sentiment, the actresses danced, the chorus bellowed. As a conclusion the devil appeared in pink tights with gilded horns – he went through various transformations and ended up as an attorney. It was all an incomprehensible jumble. As we left the theatre I perseveringly attempted to engage Lionel’s attention, but the cursed bell-ringer drowned my voice and we were carried along by the human stream. We found ourselves in a large room, the centre of which had been roped off. In this enclosure was a small man, alert and thin, rolling niggerish black eyes and waving a pair of hairy hands, each one clasping a small wooden hammer. In front of this repulsive creature was a table covered with bricks of varying sizes placed on a wire frame. The hubbub ceased suddenly and we were given a real Anglo-Saxon treat. The man hit a brick with one of the hammers and it gave out the sound that you expect from a breaking tile. After this prelude, his little hammers seemed to go mad, flying from brick to brick with incredible rapidity, and from a certain rhythm in his movements one realised that he meant to convey a musical impression. One must really be born and bred in the British Isles to listen patiently to such harmonious strains! A few moments later the bricks were discarded for wooden cylinders and the arid melody began afresh, still drier but more complicated. This concerto of demented nuts dancing in a bag roused the wildest enthusiasm from the audience. Liszt would have had a poor reception had he been billed to play after this prince of British melody.
“Now,” said Lionel. “Let us have some ginger-beer.”
In a Chinese bandstand an orchestra struck up a schottische. A minute later the carefully levelled open space was filled with couples and the surrounding tables with onlookers. We took our seats and the waiter uncorked a couple of oval-shaped bottles and poured us out a frothy sparkling liquid which might have been lemonade had it not tasted of pepper and pimentos. This fashionable refreshment sets the roof of your mouth on fire, and while I still gasped for breath, Lionel seized the hand of a young person of doubtful morality and flung himself into a Bacchanalian rendering of the polka. People dance here with their hips and their shoulders, seeming to have little control over their legs. They have no ear for time. Frivolous young things improvise all sorts of indecorous antics. This, however, does not seem in any way to interfere with the staid enjoyment of the numerous middle-aged couples who placidly saunter around, occasionally colliding with one or another of the boisterous merry-makers. Nobody here takes the slightest notice of his neighbour’s doings.
A final clanging of the bell sent us scurrying off to see the fireworks. As the last rocket vanished, the clock struck twelve; midnight – the hour of crimes and confidences.
Francis Wey, A Frenchman Sees the English in the Fifties, 1935
I’ve been asked to speak on the subject of Cremorne Pleasure Gardens at the Museum of London next week – the background setting to my fourth book The Last Pleasure Garden (pub. 2006). Part of the revamped Victorian section of the museum (opening in May) will feature a recreation of a pleasure garden – hence the renewed interest.
Pleasure gardens were – for the most part – built on the borders of London in the 17th/18th century (Marylebone and Islington were popular areas) to provide a range of outdoor amusements. The astonishingly long-lived Vauxhall Gardens (1661-1859) is the most famous – but it had a rival in Cremorne Gardens (1836-77) across the river in Chelsea.
Cremorne had something of a split personality. By day, it was a respectable park / theme-park, with fun-fair shows and amusements (American-style bowling alleys, a maze, a fortune-telling ‘hermit’ … I’ll spare you the full list). By night, however, it was (so moralists claimed) a notorious den of vice. A typical Cremorne bill of fare can be seen on the right of this blog. If you would like to know more, then come to my talk, where we will discuss, in passing, the Beckwith Frogs; the Italian Salamander; De Groot, the Flying Man (& his terrible demise) and the unfortunate end of Cremorne itself. The Rosamond Muses
And the Continuation of a Theme
http://rougeknights.blogspot.com
(Images: Cremhorne Gardens. Fair Rosamund by Rossetti. Rosemary
Rosamond. Rosenmund coat of arms. The Artist Rosamond posing as
Rosemary in her painting ‘Rosemary Circa 1950. Note the exposed
nipple making Rosemary a Bawdy Madonnas. Consider Janet Jackson)
http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/dgr/paintings/healey12.html
Last night as I lie in my bed unable to fall asleep due to a bad
cough (tha wont go away) I began to compose my blog for the next
day, titled `A New Couch, or a Flocked Christmas Tree’. I was
looking at the real poverty we Prescos suffered that created our
most memorable and even spiritual bonds. This poverty made us very
humble human beings when we were not on the rampage, on the prowl
like a pride of lions, looking for more narcissistic material,
Rosemary leading the hunt so she could feed her cubs. But was she
our real leader?
I then looked at Mary Magdalene Rosamond who was a Leo, and what she
must have gone through in order to house and feed her four
daughters and her sister Eutrophia’s two sons who came to live
with Mary after Eutrophia’s husband went crazy and shot her dead
with a shotgun.
It then came to me in a rush as I lay there looking at the Psychic
Language we spoke, that some of us spoke, and began to identify who
knew how to communicate with members of their family without moving
your lips.
“Oh my God, my sister and mother are dead, my Muses.”
So, when I arose this morning, grateful I had managed to fall asleep
my Angel told me; “Write about Cornforth. It’s time to put her on
the Rosy stage.”
Fanny Cornforth was Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Lover and Muse, and the
Muse of other Pre-Raphaelite Artists. It is alleged she was a
prostitute and near the end of her life Rossetti financed a bordello
for Fanny so she could be financially secure.
Rossetti, whom I emulated, met Fanny at the Cremhorne Gardens. He
was dancing in the pavilion when Fanny on the sideline began to
throw peanut shells at him. One might guess she was insulting
Rossetti, who was amused and came over to talk to her. Fanny would
become the model for Rossetti’s `Fair Rosamund’. Fanny and my mother
Rosemary, both had red hair which some authors are associating with
the Mary Magdalene cult. Many Pre-Raphaelite works of art are
employed in the hunt for more material that will prove a prostitute
caught the attention of the Son of God, who fell in love with her,
married her, and begot the Grail Bloodline, a “Rose Line”.
For the reason I connect this Rosy Hypothesis with my family, and
the world famous artist Rosamond, whom painted beautiful women, I am
labeled “mad” obsessed” and need to take my meds. What is truly
going on is, I have interfered with the Narcissistic Hunt of these
people whom have attached themselves to the hunt for this Holy Grail
Bloodline, and expect to be thoroughly rewarded for bringing home
their kill, their bacon, their bits of bone and hair that they have
gathered along the trail.
Running your creation through Jesus is the number one industry in
the West. The simple words of a carpenter have begat a zillion
words, most of them bound in books, and stacked in libraries like
frozen slabs of meat, or, frozen T.V. dinners, not a one ever
wanting their Last Supper, or, the Real Thing to come along.
For this reason outsiders with the covert help of the un-artists in
the family, randomly picked Bi-Polarism as Rosamond’s archetypal
malady, that drove her insane, and bid her to render all those
beautiful images she sold for Big Bucks, and never did they look at
Rosamond’s mother, nor her brother who she once called “my teacher”
because this might move them to the front of the line, and give them
first dibs in the Narcissistic Feeding Frenzy that is still going on
this very day.
For three years now I have been keeping Cremhorne in the back of
mind, waiting for the right moment to divulge my information that
might eventually be stolen by my rivals, because they are obsessed
with the idea of touching Immortality, and be rewarded with million
of Rosy Bucks if only they had AN ANGLE!
Cremhorne Gardens appears to have been a place where young working
women and girls could go to meet suitors, who understood they could
have sex with these working girls if the price was right. Due to the
industrial age, many young men in rural areas came to the city for
work. This meant that they would not be marrying and supporting the
farm girl next door in a customary manner, thus forcing them to seek
employment in the big cities of England. Many worked in the homes of
the wealthy where they were sometime bid to submit to the sexual
appetite of the Lord of the Manner in order to keep their jobs.
It appears Cremhorne Gardens was a place where young women could
meet young men in a acceptable social setting, and make agreements.
This was the Victorian Age whose high morals were more applicable to
well to do, those who promoted prearranged marriages with their
children in order to keep the wealth in the family. Were these young
women considered high-class hookers by the tough working girls of
London, their parents nothing but Pimps?
Cremhorne might be the birthplace of Woman’s Liberation, even
Bohemianism for the masses that would eventually spawn the idea of
Free Love amongst the Hippies who suggested American women can be
used as sexual objects in exchange for Major Appliances, and a
wedding ring.
Cremhorne Gardens was the Fillmore of its day. Christine Rosamond’s
women were viewed as the liberated women of the 70s. And then came
Disco. How many Children were conceived in America the night Mommy
danced with that Dude who ran his creation through John Travolta, he
making all the right moves?
Most of the Evangelicals who vote the Republican ticket, live in the
rural areas of America, where the well to do have returned to build
upscale versions of the cottages their parents once owned, and who
employ a false morality against the wickedness in the Big Cities,
just to get more tax cuts in order to buy their wives more kitchen
appliances, even a complete remodel?
It has been suggested the Pre-Raphaelites INVENTED a more paganish
morality for the more promiscuous employing Holy Grail themes, and a
enunciation here and their by gorgeous and sexy angels, who in real
life were prostitutes who modeled for the Pre-Raphaelites who passed
them around, let other members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
EMPLOY them in their Narcissistic Quest to become rich and famous.
What I have just presented is what is called ‘A Theme’ ‘A Artistic
Theme’ A Literary Theme’ that is very valid. In looking at the
mutual love and rosy theme I shared with my mother and sister, I
came to understand why this love and theme became forbidden. I know
those who have attached themselves to my Rosamond woken, have
fiercly fought me, even wished I was dead, but, I have come to
prepare their way, once again, and sweep the Pretenders from the
dance floor! For…..here they come, to do the Fox Trot, to dance
the Begin of the Beguin, for this is what my dead mother and my dead
sister want me to do, put them amongst the Artiists of the Holy
Grail, and not down in the gutter, grovelling in mental illness and
alcoholism, in my rivals evil version of – Forever!
What the fuck do they know! I lived with these two beautiful
Rosamond women, my beloved ‘dolly mops’, since I was an innocent
child. I went shopping with them for a brand new sofa, and because
we did not have enough money, we came away with what Bill
titled ‘The Un-sofa’. It was Bill, the artisitc genius, who
suggested we worship the Un-sofa, bow down to it, and use it only
for special occasions. This is what made this sofa, this modern ugly
ducking, our most prized possesion – next to our genius sence of
humor that is in danger of being lost forever!
Over my dead body it will! Bi-polar – my ass!
Jon Presco
“Fanny Cornforth, moved to London from the country and made her
living as a prostitute. She took a fancy to Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
and was reputed to have first got his attention by pelting him with
peanuts in the Cremhorne Gardens. Larger and louder than life she
enjoyed the company of Bohemians, indulging the young artists in
return for gifts and favours. With their help she set up a boarding
house-cum-brothel and made a good living. She remained Rossetti’s
companion and housekeeper into old age.
The situation of working class women unprotected by a family was
very difficult at that time. The only real opportunity open to them
was to work as domestic servants, which involved long hours, very
low wages, and a virtually total loss of personal freedom. The
result of this was an army of young women in London working as, and
around the edges of prostitution. Quite often these women did not
sleep with men on a regular basis, frequency being dictated by
financial necessity. Such a young woman was Fanny Cornforth. It is
quite wrong to simply describe these women baldly as prostitutes-
collectively they were known as `dolly mops.’
http://forum.skadi.net/showthread.php?t=39238
Whistler in the Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea (England, 1869)
Rosamond Press 
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