London's Lost Pleasure Gardens

Join actors, musicians and Dr Matthew Green for a mesmerising moonlit tour of London’s lost pleasure gardens in Vauxhall and Lambeth. To violin music borne on the wind, discover — in vivid, salacious detail — how, following the medieval curfew, Dionysian circuses glittering with sin blossomed beside the Thames, bringing euphoria and liberation in a carousel of masks, fire-sculptures and discarded clothes. Feel, as London’s nightlife goes into free fall, a tinge of nostalgia for this forgotten world and discover which hidden venues continue to honour the fast-fading traditions of London's lost, lascivious nightlife.

With generous servings of chilled gin punch. We will finish in a mystery venue in Vauxhall.

• Meet outside Pimlico Station, on Bessborough Street, ready to cross Vauxhall Bridge 

As twilight descends over the Thames, journey through Vauxhall and Camberwell in search of the ghostly sites where Londoners once came to lose themselves after dark. From the famous Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens to the vanished Royal Flora Gardens, discover how the sleepy southern bank became Europe’s playground: a place where royalty mingled with rogues, lovers slipped into moonlit groves and the ordinary rules of society were left behind.

Along the way, costumed actors and musicians resurrect the celebrated performers who once enthralled thousands beneath the trees, while authentic eighteenth-century violin music once again fills the evening air. Hear the voices of the singers who made Vauxhall famous, encounter its impresarios and libertines, and meet some of the extraordinary characters who turned a riverside garden into the beating heart of Georgian London.

The pleasure gardens offered wonders almost beyond belief: miles of illuminated walks glowing beneath thousands of coloured lamps; masked masquerades and elegant promenades; orchestras and celebrated soloists; lavish supper boxes; astonishing firework displays; acrobats, rope dancers and exotic performers; panoramic spectacles; military re-enactments; and even daring hot-air balloon ascents that carried aeronauts into the night sky above London. Here, beneath the trees, the modern idea of nightlife was born.

Part historical odyssey, part immersive theatre, this unique summer experience explores the long history of London’s after-dark pleasures, from medieval fairs and stews to Georgian masquerades and finally to the hidden bars, queer venues and riverside haunts that still preserve something of this ancient spirit of nocturnal freedom.

The pleasure gardens are long gone. Their spirit, perhaps, is not.

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DR MATTHEW GREEN

Writer, historian & broadcaster Dr Matthew Green is the author of Shadowlands: A Journey through Lost Britain (Faber), a Times top 10 bestseller, Waterstones Book of the Year 2023, and shortlisted for the Wainwright Literary Prize. He has a doctorate in history from Oxford University and has appeared in many television documentaries and radio programmes, and writes for the Telegraph, Guardian and FT. His first book, London: A Travel Guide through Time (Penguin) was described by the Sunday Times as ‘all-sensory and immersive’ and by the Londonist as ‘easily the best social history of London for a decade’. His writing has been praised by Claire Tomalin, Ian Mortimer, Cerys Matthews, and by historian and podcaster Tom Holland as ‘brilliant’. He lives in Leytonstone and loves red wine and cold-water swimming (not in that order).