Bermondsey Spa

Bermondsey Spa. About 1770 a chalybeate spring was discovered by the owner of the ground, Mr. Thomas Keyse, a self-taught artist, whose pictures of butchers' and fishmongers' shops, joints of beef, vegetables, and the like, found many admirers, and who had been awarded a premium of 30 guineas by the Society of Arts for a method of fixing crayon drawings. In order to make known the virtues of the spring he opened the grounds as a place of entertainment under the name of the Bermondsey Spa, exhibiting as an additional attraction a collection of his own paintings. The place becoming popular, he, in 1780, obtained a music licence and converted it into a "minor Vauxhall." There were music and fireworks, and, as the culminating effect, a representation of the Siege of Gibraltar, designed and arranged by Mr. Keyse, which, with the apparatus, occupied an area of four acres, the height of the rock being about 50 feet and its length 200 feet. Keyse died in 1800, and the gardens were closed about 1805, and built over, but the site is marked by the Spa Road. Jacob's Island, familiar to the readers of Oliver Twist, has a separate notice. [See Jacob's Island.]