WATERCRESS 65 



to many to make a success of a hole (unless the hole 

 is a mine), and the site of that celebrated Cockney resort 

 was, and is, nothing else ; being in fact one of the 

 oldest and largest of the chalk-quarries, excavated 

 to a depth of one hundred and fifty feet in some 

 parts. 



There a curious kind of rusticity was tempered with 

 an equally curious urban flavour ; there the succulent 

 shrimp and the modest watercress (" Tea ninepence ; 

 srimps and watercreases, one shilling "), were supple- 

 mented romantically by the strains of husky bands. 

 There art was represented by broken-nosed plaster 

 statues of Ceres and a variety of other heathen 

 goddesses, some supporting gas-lamps in sawdusty bars 

 and restaurants ; others gracing lawns and flower-beds. 

 To those who delighted in plaster statues grown 

 decrepit and minus a leg or an arm, like so many 

 neo-classic Chelsea pensioners, Rosherville was ideal. 



" Where to spend a happy day," as the advertise- 

 ments used to invite — " Rosherville." The watercress 

 consumed there, and at the other popular places near 

 by, came from Springhead, which will be found in the 

 country at the back of Gravesend. In 1907 died the 

 last survivinor dauojhter of the man who " invented " 

 watercress as an article of food. It was about 1815 

 that William Bradbery, of S^^ringhead, began to 

 cultivate from a green weed that grew in the ditches 

 this favourite addition to tea-tables. 



He cultivated with care, and laid out extensive beds, 

 then, when he had a marketable crop, sold it locally. 

 It soon became a famous table dainty, and nothing 

 would satisfy him but the patronage of London. He 

 filled an old tea-chest with cress, and, with this on his 

 back, trudged off to the metropolis, a score or more 

 miles away. The sample was satisfactory, and he 

 quickly developed a London trade. 



Bradbery (it is said) when he was building up his 

 London connection, paid a vocalist to go at night from 

 one place of entertainment to another, singing a song in 



