londonmuseum.org.uk What were London's pleasure gardens? Thanks to rising incomes and the growth of an urban middle class, Londoners sought out new entertainment and ways of socialising in the 1700s. Pleasure gardens were the answer for those looking to splash some cash on the city’s most exciting cultural offerings. The first and most famous pleasure garden was in Vauxhall. It opened as New Spring Gardens in 1660, was relaunched by entrepreneur Jonathan Tyers in 1729, and renamed Vauxhall Gardens in 1785. Vauxhall’s more exclusive rival, Ranelagh Gardens, opened in Chelsea in 1742.

Londoners drank, danced and dined at pleasure gardens. They’d show off their finest clothes, don costumes for masquerade balls and enjoy music from contemporary composers and performers. An eight-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart even performed at Ranelagh in 1764. They were places where people of different genders could meet freely – and in the earlier years even mingle with celebrities, royals and the wealthy. But gardens like Vauxhall and Cremorne developed reputations as dangerous, dubious places full of drunkenness, scandal and sex. By the 1800s, the wealthy, fashionable crowds had drifted away.

Mainly Norfolk; Jane and Amanda Threlfall sang Cupid’s Garden on their 2002 CD Gown of Green and on their 2007 CD Revisited. They noted: The version sung here comes from William Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time (1858-59). The title is thought to refer to Cuper’s Gardens, once a celebrated place of amusement on the south side of the Thames, eclipsed into closure in 1753 by the opening of the ‘new’ Vauxhall Gardens.

wikipedia; Lamorna is a Cornish adaptation of a music hall song titled Pomona or Away down to Pomona which originates from Manchester in the north west of England. 'Albert Square' is a square in front of Manchester Town Hall, and Pomona Palace and gardens were a site of popular entertainment in Cornbrook, Old Trafford, southwest of the city centre. Pomona Docks were built on the site of the Pomona Gardens.

BBC Languages; Vauxhall became a synonym for pleasure gardens, one of which was situated in Pavlovsk in Russia. It became the destination of the first Russian railway line. So the word vokzal, originally used for 'pleasure garden', got transferred to the meaning 'railway station'.