Batty’s Hippodrome and Soyer’s Symposium, Kensington
The Great Exhibition of 1851 was indirectly responsible for the existence in Kensington of two short-lived institutions—a circus and a restaurant. They are rather outside our subject, but, as having something of an open-air character, may be briefly described.
In the autumn of 1850 William Batty, a famous circus proprietor, acquired some land within five minutes’ walk of the new world-wonder, the ‘Crystal Palace,’ and erected thereon an elliptical-roofed pavilion which accommodated many thousands of spectators, and had a large arena open to the sky.
The Royal Hippodrome was opened in May, 1851, with a French troupe brought over from the Hippodrome at Paris. The performances generally took place in the evening, and the lowest price of admission was sixpence. Two brass bands of a rather blatant character enlivened the proceedings. Favourite features of the entertainment were a Roman chariot race and a ‘triumphal race of the Roman Consuls,’ who were represented by the three brothers Debach, each guiding six horses. Why Roman Consuls should race is not explained, and probably did not matter. Another excitement of the evening was the Barbary Race of twelve unmounted horses, who dashed headlong to the goal with distended nostrils and eyes of fire. Other attractions were balloon ascents 30 and F. Debach’s journey on the Arienne Ball up and down a narrow inclined plank.
The Hippodrome closed with the Exhibition, and only lived for one other season, in 1852. Subsequently, and in the sixties, it was used as a riding-school. The site lay nearly opposite the broad walk of Kensington Gardens, between part of Victoria Road and Victoria Walk and the present Palace Gate. De Vere Gardens mainly occupy the site.
[Newspapers: John Bull, September, 1850, p. 582; Theatrical Journal, 1851; views of the Hippodrome in Illustrated London News for 1851.]
The founder of the restaurant, of which, it was hoped, the Great Exhibition would make the fortune, was Alexis Soyer, the former chef of the Reform Club, one of the best-known cooks—though by no means the greatest—of the classic ages of dining. Soyer was a man of inventive genius and resource, but one who (as the author of the Art of Dining dryly remarked) ‘was more likely to earn immortality by his soup-kitchen than by his soup.’ 31
In the early part of 1851 he took Gore House, the famous home of Lady Blessington at Kensington, and fantastic skill and showy decoration soon made the old-fashioned stucco-fronted building the wonder of a London as yet unfamiliar with palatial restaurants. The newspapers and a prospectus printed on satin paper with green-tinted edges announced the advent of ‘Soyer’s Universal Symposium,’ a single ticket for which was to cost a guinea, and a family ticket—your family might consist of five—three guineas. Every room in the house was provided with a seductive name: the Blessington Temple of the Muses; the Salle des Noces de Danae; the glittering Roscaille of Eternal Snow; the Bower of Ariadne; and the Celestial Hall of Golden Lilies.
The Grand Staircase had its walls painted with a ‘Macédoine of all Nations,’ a monstrous medley of animals, politicians, and artists, the chef d’œuvre of George Augustus Sala, who for a time acted as Soyer’s assistant.
The Cabinet de Toilette à la Pompadour (Lady Blessington’s boudoir) led to the Danae saloon, which was embossed in gold and silver with showers of ‘tears’ or ‘gems.’ The Bower of Ariadne was painted with vines and Italian landscapes, and the Celestial Hall was in the Chinese taste.
The garden—a delightful adjunct to a London restaurant—contained some fine trees, walnut and mulberry trees among them, which had been the pride of the good William Wilberforce when he lived in Gore House, before the coming of the gorgeous Countess. The meadow or ‘park’ of the domain—really a grazing-meadow hired from a Kensington cow-keeper—was adroitly styled the Pré d’Orsay, and here was erected the Encampment of All Nations, which was the public dining-hall, 400 feet long, ‘with a monster tablecloth, 307 feet long, of British manufacture.’
The garden, reached by flights of steps from the back of the house, had natural beauties of its own—Lady Blessington’s great rose-tree and Wilberforce’s thick-foliaged trees, Soyer added fountains and statuary, a grotto of Ondine, a little pavilion of many-hued stalactites with a crystal roof, and a statue of Hebe dispensing ambrosial liquors through the shafts of the temple. Here also stood the Baronial Hall, a building (not unsuggestive of Rosherville) 100 feet long, with a stained-glass roof. It was hung with pictures by Soyer’s wife (Emma Jones), and with the more interesting crayon portraits by Count d’Orsay. The American Bar and the Ethiopian Serenaders were perhaps more suited to Cremorne.
The Symposium opened on May 1, 1851, and the Metropolitan Sanitary Association and other festively inclined societies began to banquet in its halls. The average attendance was 1,000 a day, and the takings amounted to £21,000; but none the less the great chef was £7,000 out of pocket, and the Symposium closed suddenly and for ever on October 14, 1851. There had, in fact, been many complaints of bad dinners and imperfect management. It is not easy—or was not in those days—to provide simultaneously sightseers’ luncheons and dinners for epicures. Even at this remote period, and without aspiring to the Bower of Ariadne, one is appalled at the idea of dining in an Encampment of All Nations at a table 307 feet long. The roasting of a bullock whole, which took place in the Pré d’Orsay on May 31, no doubt brought many shillings to the treasury, but was reminiscent of Battersea Fields or of a Frost Fair on the Thames.
In February, 1852, the place was dismantled, and the Hall and the Encampment were sold by auction. The Gore estate was purchased the same year by the Commissioners of the Exhibition, and the grounds in later years formed part of those of the Royal Horticultural Society. 33
[Volant and Warren, Memoirs of Alexis Soyer; Davis’s Knightsbridge, p. 142; Walford, Old and New London, v., p. 118 f.; Illustrated London News, May 10 and 17, 1851 (views of the garden and the Baronial Hall); ‘Gore House,’ a water-colour by T. H. Shepherd, circa 1850, in Kensington Public Library; Timbs’s Clubs, quoting Sala’s account from Temple Bar Magazine.]