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 1, 
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 
1 os. The whole place was levelled and paved, and a 
