Beargarden - Spectacle

Spectacle

Surviving descriptions of the "entertainment" offered at the Beargarden have an extraordinary ring to a modern ear and sensibility. The crowds were amused at the whipping of the old blind bear "Harry Hunks" until the blood ran down his shoulders. (At least some bears — perhaps the fiercest, longest-enduring ones — were given names: "George Stone," "Ned Whiting," and the most famous, "Sackerson.") There are extant descriptions of horses with apes tied to their backs set upon by dogs. An early account, from the visiting Duke of Najera in 1544, mentions

"...a pony with an ape fastened on its back, and to see the animal kicking among the dogs, with the screams of the ape, beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, is very laughable."

Pepys describes a bull tossing a dog into a spectators' box. Others mention the bulls tossing dogs into the air and then catching the falling dogs on their horns again. On a few rare occasions (in 1604 and 1605, and in 1609 and 1610), lions were baited.

The shows at the Beargarden had surprising aspects; according to contemporary accounts, music and fireworks were used, and special effects were employed. German tourist Lupold von Wedel was at the Beargarden on August 23, 1584; he left a description that cites the usual and expected baiting of bulls and bears, and a horse chased by the dogs, plus people dancing, and a man who threw white bread to the crowd (they "scrambled for it"). And then,

"Right over the middle of the place a rose was fixed, this rose being set on fire by a rocket: suddenly lots of apples and pears fell out of it down upon the people standing below. Whilst the people were scrambling for the apples, some rockets were made to fall down upon them out of the rose, which caused a great fright but amused the spectators. After this, rockets and other fireworks came flying out of all corners, and that was the end...."

The last recorded instance of animal baiting at the Hope/Beargarden occurred on April 12, 1682, when "a fine but vicious horse was advertised to be baited to death for the amusement of the Moroccan ambassador...and for as many as would pay to see it." The horse reportedly had killed several men and other horses. It survived and beat off the dogs; to please the clamoring crowd, the horse was stabbed to death with a sword.

Nowadays, by contrast, the term "Bear Garden" is employed by a retailer of teddy bears and stuffed animals. However, the Bear Pit is not entirely forgotten: Alleyn bought the manor of Dulwich in 1605 and in the course of establishing his tenure, implemented a requirement of Sir Francis Bacon's Star Chamber to establish a charitable school "for 12 poor children of the parish of Camberwell" - who appear in practice to have often been the players of the female parts at the Globe. Their own sub-company, named the Bear Pit, continued in the original School, which passed through the Dulwich College Lower School in the 1850s to Alleyn's School in 1887, and remains active to this day, run without any parental or scholastic support, regularly producing household names in the theatre. The intention of theatre as a medium for the young was further promoted by the secondment of the School's Head of English, Michael Croft, in the late 1950s to establish the National Youth Theatre. Although many members were from the School, their outreach achieved the target of opening the theatre to many of less advantaged backgrounds, and a worldwide movement resulted.