Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
If you would like to write a summary for this topic, email phil [at] gyford [dot] com
Foxhall, Faukeshall, or Vauxhall, a manor in Surrey, properly Fulke’s. Hall, and so called from Fulke de Breaute, the notorious mercenary follower of King John. The manor house was afterwards known as Copped or Copt Hall. Sir Samuel Morland obtained a lease of the place, and King Charles made him Master of Mechanics, and here “he (Morland), anno 1667, built a fine room,” says Aubrey, “the inside all of looking-glass and fountains, very pleasant to behold.” The gardens were formed about 1661, and originally called the “New Spring Gardens,” to distinguish them from the “Old Spring Gardens” at Charing Cross, but according to the present description by Pepys there was both an Old and a New Spring Garden at Vauxhall. Balthazar Monconys, who visited England early in the reign of Charles II., describes the ‘Jardins Printemps’ at Lambeth as having lawns and gravel walks, dividing squares of twenty or thirty yards enclosed with hedges of gooseberry trees, within which were planted roses.
There’s more about the history of Vauxhall here: http://www.vauxhallsociety.org.uk/Vauxhall.html
old gardens and map
http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/4897.php
new gardens ref
see Moreland:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/4898.php
later map general;
http://www.motco.com/map/81001/SeriesSearchPlatesFulla.asp?mode=query&title=Vaux+Hall+&artist=383&other=229&x=11&y=11
1746 map
http://www.motco.com/map/81002/SeriesSearchPlatesFulla.asp?mode=query&title=Vaux+Hall&artist=384&other=478&x=11&y=11
from L&M Companion
Vauxhall. Riverside gardens; a favorite place of resort for Londoners and visitors to London: consisting ‘entirely of avenues and covered walks where people stroll up and down, and green huts in which one can get a glass of wine…although everything is very dear and bad. Generally vast crowds to be seen here, especially females of doubtful morals, who are dressed as finely as ladies of quality…’ (von Uffenbach, 1710). The ‘New Spring Garden’ there was formed about 1661 and lay a little east of the modern Vauxhal Bridge. ‘Foxhall’ was the common contemporary spelling.