Marylebone Gardens

Marylebone Gardens or Marybone Gardens was a London pleasure garden sited in the grounds of the old manor house of Marylebone and frequented from the mid-17th century, when Marylebone was a village separated from London by fields and market gardens, to the third quarter of the 18th century.

It was situated in the area which is now between Marylebone Road, Marylebone High Street, Weymouth Street, and Harley Street; its site was developed as Beaumont Street and part of Devonshire Street.

Originally consisting of two bowling greens adjoining the Rose of Normandy tavern on the east side of Marylebone High Street, its size was increased to about eight acres by acquisition of land from Marylebone Manor House, which had been converted into a hunting lodge by Henry VIII and was later used as a boarding school, eventually being demolished in 1791.

The Marylebone Gardens, surrounded by a high brick wall and set about with fruit trees, had a carriage entrance in the High Street of Marylebone village and another entrance from the fields at the back. Its center was an open oval bowling green encompassed by a wide gravelled walk and many smaller walks and greens surrounded by clipped quickset hedges, which were "kept in good order, and indented like town walls."

Marylebone Gardens were mentioned by John Gay in The Beggar's Opera (1728) as a haunt of its 'hero', the highwayman Macheath. The tavern had become a resort for gambling, and "There will be deep play tonight" Macheath says to a confederate, "and consequently money may be pick'd up on the road. Meet me there, and I'll give you the hint who is worth setting." The real highwayman Dick Turpin was a visitor in the 1720s. The gardens were used for, amongst other entertainments, gambling, cock-fighting, bull-baiting and boxing matches (with both male and female contestants).

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