The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century

Barley Mow Tea House and Gardens, Islington

The Barley Mow Tea House and Gardens were on the west side of Frog Lane, now Popham Road, Islington. They are first mentioned in 1786.158 About 1799, the Barley Mow was kept as a public-house by a man named Tate, and George Morland lived there for several months, indulging in drinking and low company, but finding time to paint some good pictures which he generally sold for small sums. He often borrowed for sketching purposes old harness and saddles from a farm-house opposite, and was wont “to send after any rustic-looking character” to obtain a sitting. The Barley Mow has been used as a public-house to the present time, and is now No. 31, Popham Road, but it has been modernised, or rebuilt, and the garden has disappeared.

[Nelson’s Islington, 128, 197; Cromwell’s Islington, p. 194, ff.; Lewis’s Islington, 154, ff.; Walford, ii. 262; Morning Herald, 22 April, 1786.]