Buckingham Palace Grounds: Mulberry Gardens

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Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Buckingham Palace with a mention of Mulberry Gardens:

The grounds of Buckingham Palace are about forty acres in extent, and contain a large piece of ornamental water, on the shore of which is a pavilion, or summer-house, with frescoes by Eastlake, Maclise, Landseer, Dyce, and others, illustrating Milton's "Comus."

The channel of the Tyburn, now a sewer, passes under the palace.

The Marble Arch, at the north-east corner of Hyde Park, was first designed to face the palace, where it stood until 1850.

The palace is partly on the site of the well-known Mulberry Gardens, a place of entertainment in the seventeenth century.

These gardens originated in an order of James I, who wished to encourage the rearing of silkworms in England.

This project, like many others of the same King, proved a failure, and the gardens were turned into a place of public recreation.

The frequenters were of the fashionable classes, and came in the evening to sit in small arbours, and "be regaled with cheesecakes, syllabubs, and wine sweetened with sugar."

In this form the place was extremely popular, and is often mentioned in contemporary literature.

Dryden came there to eat tarts with "Mrs." Anne Reeve, and doubtless Evelyn and Pepys often strolled about in the gay crowd, a crowd much gayer than it would now (1903) be - in the matter of costume, at all events. The scene of "The Mulberry Gardens," a play by Sir Charles Sedley (1668) is laid here.

Stafford House, not far from St. James's Palace, and overlooking the Green Park, is now (1903) tenanted by the Duke of Sutherland. It was originally built for the Duke of York, brother to George IV, but he died before its completion.

It stands on the site of an older building, called Godolphin House, and also occupies the site of the Queen's Library formed by Caroline, wife of George IV.

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