g2 
the Publick Places,’’ and subscribe for the Balls, the Pump 
Room Music, &c. ‘‘ His next Subscription is a Crown, half-a- 
Guinea, or a Guinea, according to his Rank and Quality, for 
the Liberty of Walking in the private Walks belonging to 
Harrison’s Assembly House.” 
These Rooms and Gardens, then in the occupancy of Gyde, 
devolved to the Duke of Kingston, on the death at her resi- 
de.ice in Queen Square, on May the 2gth, 1773, of Mrs. Mary 
Webb, daughter of ‘‘ Mr. Thomas Harrison, the first improver 
of this City.” 
As the spaces available for recreation within or close to the 
city walls were built upon, society necessarily pushed further 
afield, and though Harrison’s Gardens (present North Parade 
gardens occupy part of the site) retained continuous popularity, 
a formidable rival came into vogue immediately across the 
Avon—Spring Gardens. Gilmore’s plan, 1694, shows a 
house on the site of these, and Wood’s plan, 1735, gives 
a small plot laid out as a garden in the “ Bathwick Meadows.” 
On Thorpe’s map, 1742 (made when he was residing in Kings- 
mead Street, near the present Journal office), appears a 
larger plot, and for the first time on a map the name Spring 
Gardens is given. At this date Harrison’s Gardens had been 
encroached upon by the building of the North Parade, and 
are shewn by him as part of “‘ Batts Gardens.’’ Direct evidence 
is not available, but Spring-Gardens seem to have been estab- 
lished as a pleasure resort on a modest scale at the time of 
Thorpe’s survey. 
The Journai, May goth, 1748, announced, “ To be Lett. At 
Michaelmas next, A Messuage or Tenement with the Gardens 
and Fish Ponds thereto belonging called Spring Gardens in 
the Parish of Bathwick near Bath, now in the Possession of 
Mr. Edmondson. Enquire of Mr. Purlewent, Attorney in Bath.” 
In the same year, William Purdie, then keeping a lodging- 
house in Orange Court, Orange Grove, advertised that he 
“Sells all Sorts of Mineral Waters, viz.: Spaw, Pyrmont, 
Cheltenham, Bristol, Road, Holt, &c., &c.,’ later Purdie 
became well known as the energetic lessee of the Gardens. 
The edition of ‘‘ Nugeze Antiqu:e,” published in 1769, con- 
tains an appendix, consisting of letters purporting to have been 
sent in 1752-3 by a foreigner residing at Bath, to a friend in 
London. In one of these letters, dated April 30th (1753) 
“From the Garden of the Spring near Bath” (obviously 
Spring Gardens) the writer pictures ‘‘the fair Elysium of 
