Rosherville Gardens was a 19th-century pleasure garden in a disused chalk pit in Northfleet, Kent, England. It was laid out in 1837 and finally closed to the public in 1913, just before World War I.
- Venue
- Rosherville Gardens
- Town
- Dartford, GB
Rosherville Gardens was a 19th-century pleasure garden in a disused chalk pit in Northfleet, Kent, England. It was laid out in 1837 and finally closed to the public in 1913, just before World War I. Structures currently still surviving at Rosherville Gardens are a Grade II-listed bear pit, a Grade II-listed clifftop entrance and tunnelled stairway through the cliff, a hermit cave in a chalk grotto, an Italian garden central feature which also formed part of the Broadwalk, and the Grade II-listed Enigmatic Cavern, drawdock and quay which was the river entrance to the gardens. The gardens were laid out in 1837 by George Jones (a businessman from Islington in north London) in one of the disused chalk pits in Northfleet, covering an area of 17 acres (69,000 m2). Their full title was the 'Kent Zoological and Botanical Gardens Institution’. The gardens were built on a chalk pit owned by Jeremiah Rosher who, from 1830, started building a new town, Rosherville, taking advantage of Gravesend's popularity with Londoners visiting for the day by steamboat along the Thames. They became a favourite destination for thousands of Londoners during good weather, many travelling by paddle steamer down the River Thames to disembark at the pier built to service the gardens. One of the steamboats from Rosherville Gardens met a horrific accident in 1878. The Princess Alice passenger steamer, after leaving Rosherville pier, was in a collision with the collier Bywell Castle at Tripcock Point, a mile downstream from Woolwich. 640 people died from the collision, 240 being children. An inquest was held at Woolwich, but no conclusive reason was ever established as to the cause of the disaster on the Thames. At one time the gardens were managed by Barnet Nathan, brother of the musician and 'friend of Byron' Isaac Nathan. Barnet, who was known professionally as 'Baron Nathan' (in mockery of Nathan Rothschild), was renowned for his act of dancing a hornpipe, blind-folded, across a stage laid out wi