The Flora Tea Gardens (or Mount Gardens), were on the right hand side of the Westminster Bridge Road going towards the Obelisk, and opposite the Temple of Flora. They were in existence about 1796–7. The gardens were well kept and contained “genteel paintings.” They were open on week-days and on Sundays till about 11 p.m., and the admission was sixpence.
Among the frequenters were democratic shopmen, who might be heard railing against King and Church, and a good many ladies respectable and the reverse. The “Sunday Rambler” (1796–7) describes the company as very orderly, but at some time before 1800 the place was suppressed on account of dissolute persons frequenting it.
Some small cottages were then built in the middle of the garden, which retained a rural appearance till shortly before 1827, when several rows of houses, “Mount Gardens,” were erected on the site.
[The Flora Tea Gardens described in A Modern Sabbath (1797), chap. viii., are evidently identical with the Mount Gardens mentioned by Allen (Lambeth, 335), though he does not mention their alternative name (cp. Walford, vi. 389). Allen (loc. cit.) is the authority for the suppression of the gardens.]