Ranelagh [ Sports & Leisure ]
… – the use of an Italian term being in itself evocative of the sociability of fashionable visitors sharing Italianate tastes. It was possible to cross the Thames on a wherry to reach Vauxhall on the opposite bank. The layout and ornaments … formal garden where visitors could take walks in the alleys, and a canal with a Chinese pavilion reflecting the growing taste for exoticism; at night, the garden was illuminated with lanterns. From 1767 there was a garden orchestra. The most … of volcanic explosions with Vulcan’s forge was added in 1792. Spectacle was thus a social bond, drawing on the current tastes for exoticism, on the popularization of recent science such as research on volcanoes and spectacular disruptive …
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