Grand Sacred, Vocal and Instrumental Concert on Good Friday. Free Cafà Chantant Wet or Fine. Magnificent Display of Fireworks!! (By Messrs. James Pain & Son, Pyrotechists to H.M. The King) Up to Date Side Shows. The Bastile. House of Many Troubles. Mirrors of Mystery. Palace of Illusions, and The Human Ostrich or Egyptian Marvel. Professor Chevallier Cliquot The Marvellous Sword Swallower.

Handbill, 285 x 140 mm. printed in red, large chip to top right corner with slight loss of text. Built in a disused chalk pit in 1837, Rosherville Pleasure Gardens was one of the largest of the Victorian pleasure gardens and attracted many visitors from London who would travel by steamboat along the Thames to a special pier built to serve the gardens. They went bankrupt and closed in 1901, then were briefly revived in 1903, lasting until just before the outbreak of World War One. Some traces of the original gardens remain: the bear pit, the specially designed entrance and the staircase that wound down into the quarry. It was a packed steamer from Rosherville Gardens, the 'Princess Alice' which, in 1878, collided with a collier off Woolwich leading to the death of 640 people, many of them children. The advent of railways led to its eventual demise as it became easier to reach coastal resorts such as Southend and Margate.