Rosamond's Pond

[Rosamond's Pond.] Succeeding kings allowed the people the privilege of walking in the Mall; and the passage from Spring Gardens was opened in 1699 by permission of King William. Queen Caroline, however, talked of shutting up the Park, and converting it into a noble garden for St. James's Palace: she asked Walpole what it might probably cost; who replied, "Only three crowns."

Dean Swift, who often walked here with the poets Prior and Rowe, writes of skating as a novelty to Stella, in 1711: "Delicious walking weather," says he; "and the Canal and Rosamond's Pond full of rabble sliding, and with skaitts, if you know what it is." …

On the south-west side of [St. James's] Park, connected with the Canal by a sluice, was the gloomy Rosamond's Pond, of oblong shape, and overhung by the trees of the Long Avenue: it is mentioned in a grant of Henry VIII. It occurs as a place of assignation in the comedies of Otway, Congreve, Farquhar, Southerne, and Colley Cibber; and Pope calls it "Rosamonda's Lake." Its name is referred to the frequency of love-suicides committed here. The Pond was filled up in 1770, when the gate into Petty France was opened for bringing in the soil to fill up the Pond and the upper part of the Canal.

About 1740, Hogarth painted a large view of Rosamond's Pond, now in the collection of Mr. H.R. Willett, at Merly House, Dorset. This picture has been engraved, but the impressions (100) have not been published; it was copied by George Cruikshank, in 1842, in his illustrations of Ainsworth's Miser's Daugheter. Hogarth also painted a cabinet view of Rosamond's Pond, likewise in the possession of Mr. Willett, who has the receipt for 1l. 7s. (the sum charged by the painter) in the handwriting of Mrs. Hogarth. The Pond has been engraved by J.T. Smith and W.H. Toms.

In a house belonging to the Crown, at the south-east corner of Rosamond's Pond, was born George Colman the Younger, who describes the snow-white tents of the Guards, who were encamped in the Park during the Riots of 1780.

Rosamond's Pond, a sheet of water in the south-west corner of St. James's Park, "long consecrated to disastrous love and elegiac poetry."¹ The earliest notice of it appears to be contained in a payment, issued from the Exchequer in 1612, of £400 "towards the charge of making and bringing a current of water from Hyde Park, in a vault of brick arched over, to fall into Rosamond's Pond at St. James's Park."² It was filled up in 1770; in June of which year Mr. Whately writes to George Grenville: "Lord Suffolk is very happy that orders are given for draining the ponds near his house. Rosamond's Pond is also to be filled up and a road carried across it to [Great] George Street; the rest is to be all lawn."³ It lay obliquely across the west end of the present Bird Cage Walk. Lord Suffolk lived in Duke Street, Westminster, and the ponds which he was so happy to get rid of were "the places for the fowle" of the old maps.

Mrs. Friendall. His note since dinner desires you would meet him at seven at Rosamond's Pond.—Southerne, The Wives' Excuse, 4to, 1692.

Lady Trickitt. Was it fine walking last night, Mr. Granger? Was there good company at Rosamond's Pond?

Granger. I did not see your ladyship there.

Lady Trickitt. Me! fie, fie, a married woman there, Mr. Granger!—Southerne, The Maid's Last Prayer, or Any rather than Fail, 4to, 1693.

Sir Novelty (reads). Excuse, my dear Sir Novelty, the forc'd indifference I have shewn you, and let me recompense your past sufferings with an hour's conversation, after the play, at Rosamond's Pond.—Colley Cibber, Love's Last Shift, 4to, 1696.

Mirabel. Meet me at one o'clock by Rosamond's Pond.—Congreve, The Way of the World, 4to, 1700.

Young Wou'd Be. Are the ladies come?

Serv. Half an hour ago, my lord.

Young Wou'd Be. Where did you light on 'em?

Serv. One in the passage at the old Playhouse—I found another very melancholy paring her nails by Rosamond's Pond—and a couple I got at the Chequer Alehouse in Holborn.—Farquhar, The Twin Rivals, 4to, 1703.

January 31, 1710–1711. We are here in as smart a frost for the time as I have seen; delicate walking weather, and the Canal and Rosamond's Pond full of the rabble sliding, and with skates, if you know what those are. Patrick's bird's water freezes in the gally-pot, and my hands in bed.—Swift, Journal to Stella.

Upon the next public Thanksgiving Day it is my design to sit astride on the dragon on Bow steeple, from whence, after the discharge of the Tower guns, I intend to mount into the air, fly over Fleet Street, and pitch upon the Maypole in the Strand. From thence, by gradual descent, I shall make the best of my way for St. James's Park, and light upon the ground near Rosamond's Pond.—The Guardian, No. 112.

As I was last Friday taking a walk in the Park, I saw a country gentleman at the side of Rosamond's Pond, pulling a handful of oats out of his pocket, and with a great deal of pleasure gathering the ducks about him. Upon my coming up to him, who should it be but my friend the Fox-Hunter, whom I gave some account of in my 22nd paper! I immediately joined him, and partook of his diversion, until he had not an oat left in his pocket.—Addison, The Freeholder, No. 44, May 21, 1716.

This the Beau-monde shall from the Mall survey
*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
This the blest lover shall for Venus take,
And send up vows from Rosamonda's Lake.—Rape of the Lock.

The termination of this delectable walk [in St. James's Park] was a knot of lofty elms by a Pond side; round some of which were commodious seats for the tired ambulators to refresh their weary pedestals. Here a parcel of old worn-out Cavaliers were conning over the Civil Wars.—Ned Ward's London Spy, ed. 1753, p. 164.

Tom Brown speaks of the Close Walk at the head of the pond.⁴ Another pond in the Green Park (nearly opposite Coventry House) bore the name of Rosamond down to 1840–1841.

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¹ Warburton to Hurd, p. 151.

² Devon's Issues from the Exchequer, 4to, 1836, p. 150.

³ Grenville Corr., vol. iv. p. 517. There is an engraving of Rosamond's Pond by J.T. Smith, from a drawing made in 1758, and a still better view by W.H. Toms, from a drawing by Chatelain in 1752. In the Crowle Pennant in the British Museum is a careful pen-and-ink drawing of the pond by J. Maurer, 1742. No. 86 of the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1774 was "A View of Rosamond's Pond in St. James's Park,"
by John Feary.

⁴ Amusements of London, 8vo, 1700, p. 65.