224 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



romance. Here Charles II. was frequently seen visiting 

 Moll Davis, Sir Cyril Wyche, and the Earl of Ranelagh. 

 The Earl of Romney, and the Duke of Ormond, and 

 Count Tallard the French Ambassador, are names con- 

 nected with the Square in William III.'s time, and 

 Josiah Wedgwood lived at No. 7. But these and many 

 other historical personages did not look from their 

 windows on to a well-ordered garden, and the Court 

 beauties did not wander with their admirers under the 

 spreading trees. The centre of the Square was left open, 

 and merely like a field. The chief use to which the 

 space seems to have been put was for displays of fire- 

 works. One of the great occasions for these was after 

 the Peace of Ryswick, but unfortunately they were not 

 always very successful. An eye-witness, writing to Sir 

 Christopher Hatton, says of Sir Martin Beckman, who 

 had the management of them, that he "hath got the 

 curses of a good many and the praises of nobody." The 

 open space eventually became so untidy that the residents 

 in 1726 petitioned Parliament to allow them to levy a 

 special rate to " cleanse, adorn, and beautify the Square," 

 as " the ground hath for some years past lain, and doth 

 now lie, rude and in great disorder, contrary to the 

 design of King Charles II., who granted the soil for 

 erecting capital buildings." So badly used was it that 

 even a coach-builder had erected a shed in the middle of 

 it, in which to store his timber. Strong measures were 

 taken, and any one "annoying the Square" after May i, 

 1726, was to be fined 20s., and any one encroaching 

 on it, £s^- No hackney coach was allowed to ply 

 there, and unless a coachman, after setting down his fare, 

 immediately drove out of the Square, he was to be fined 

 I OS. The whole place was levelled and paved, and a 



