Lambeth Fantastical - June 2025
Magic and Mortality
The circus is coming to Waterloo. Between the 5th and the 15th of June the mini circus, Circus Piddly, will be setting up its little top on Millennium Green on Waterloo Road.
Details here.
By sheer coincidence I will be running a guided walk on the birth and history of the circus in Waterloo on Saturday 14th June. The walk will start at the location of the ha'penny hatch where Philip and Patti Astley started their open air Equestrian show on Easter Monday and ending at the location of their legendary amphitheatre near St Thomas's hospital. Along the way I'll be talking about celebrated horse riders, clowns, acrobats, rivalries and successors.
So in keeping with all of that this month's Lambeth Fantastical looks at couple of Fantastical elements linked to circus history in Waterloo.
I'm going to start off with a book on conjuring written by Philip Astley. Born in Newcastle Under-Lyme Astley was a former military man with a boisterous manner with a thick Staffordshire accent. Despite his show business acumen many considered him to be uneducated and allegedly illiterate. This was far from the truth. He actually authored several books on horsemanship and military strategy. One of his books, which took him off at an entirely different tangent, was 'Natural Magic', published in 1785. It full title was, 'Natural Magic-or Physical Amusements' as Revealed by Philip Astley, Riding-Master, Westminster-Bridge, London'.
The books explain the details and methods of two dozen theatrical conjuring tricks, which Astley refers to as experiments, many of which he promises will be performed for entertainment in his amphitheatre the following year. Amongst the tricks are numerous slight of hand card tricks, an illusion where three pen knives appear to jump out of cups, and a watch pounded to pieces in a mortar which magically restores to original form when shown to the audience. There's also a particularly cruel trick involving the decapitation of a pigeon by means of drawing a knife across its shadow.
Revealing all of these secrets probably didn't go down too well with London's magical fraternity. There was also a distinct possibility that parts of the book were plagiarised. Quite a lot of it was said to bear a similarity to a book by French conjurer, Henri Decremps, which had been translated into English under the title 'The Conjuror Unmasked'.
Astley also revealed the secrets and workings of two pieces of Clockwork automata that had appeared in his shows. 'The Grand Sultan', also known as 'The Little Turk', and another called 'The Little Huntsman'. Astley claimed at point that using automatons in his show had gotten him into trouble with Kingston magistrates court, where he was accused of dabbling into the occult. Astley, however, wasn't averse to gilding the lily somewhat when he was promoting something he was involved in. While he made a good few court appearances, mainly concerning entertainment license infringements, there's no evidence to suggest he was ever tried for witchcraft.
Astley built a row of cottages in Waterloo, behind the Hercules Pillars, the house he built for himself. Other than William Blake most of his tenants were circus and theatrical acts. Entertainers also lived in properties in nearby Sangate Street. Pioneering clown, Joseph Grimaldi, bought a property there in the early 19th century. At the time he was at the height of his career, but he wasn't in the best of health physically or mentally, and had developed an obsession about his apparent imminent death.
His father had experienced similar morbid obsessions. After reading 'The Uncertainty of Signs of Death' published by Jean Jacques Bruhier d'Abliauncourt in 1756 he was particularly concerned about the possibility of being buried alive. So much so that he left instructions that to avoid such risk his head was to be removed from his body when he died. As a consequence such a decapitation did take place after his passing.
While living in Sangate Street Grimldi is said to have become obsessed with his late father and the harsh upbringing he endured at his hands, often claiming that his father's ghost would visit him in the night. He fell in with an occult bookseller who also lived on Sandgate Street. The two of them would allegedly take midnight strolls in nearby St George's Fields, deep in discussion about death and the supernatural.
Grimaldi's time in Waterloo only lasted a couple of years. Rising debts caused him to sell the property and move back across the river. Despite living a stone's through away from Astley's amphitheatre he never performed there, although he would later make an appearance at Astley's Dublin venue. And despite his paranoia about imminent death at the time, he actually live on another thirty odd years after his Waterloo sojourn.
My birth of the circus walk explores Philip and Patty Astley's achievements and controversies, their rivals and successors (Grimaldi gets a mention too). There's a two for one offer on tickets. Find out more here.
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