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Copenhagen House

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Venue Type & Location

Tavern

Overview

  • Address: Barnsbury Estate, Islington. For a current map, Click Here. For an historical map showing the venue (in addition to the one excerpted at right), Click Here.

  • Alternate Names: Copenhagen Fields Pleasure Gardens.

  • Performance Space Description: Information about this venue has not yet been compiled; however, some sense of the performance space may be gleaned by following the links at right. In particular:

  • See the 'Bibliographic Sources' link for a provisional list of venue-relevant resources (both primary and secondary). Wherever possible (i.e. when the pertinent text is relatively short and/or easily condensed) this material has been transcribed, and appears beneath the appropriate bibliographic citation.

  • See the 'Events at venue' link for a listing of blackface/minstrelsy-related events that took place in this performance space (with attached bibliographic references).

    Beth Marquis

    • Troupes at Copenhagen House

    Film Affiliated people Film Type # of event(s)
    No Troupe Definite No Troupe

    Events at Copenhagen House

    Event Date Venue Location Film
    Cultural Performance - London, London (city-county) No Troupe

    Bibliographic Sources

    View a list of abbreviations.

    • London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1881


      “Copenhagen Fields were, it is said, the site of a public-house opened by a Dane, about the time when the King of Denmark paid his visit to his brother-in-law, James I. In Camden's map, 1695, it is called ‘Coopen Hagen,’ for the Danes who were then frequenting it had kept up the Danish pronunciation. Eventually, after the Restoration, it became a great tea-house, and a resort for players at skittles and Dutch pins.

      The house was much frequented for its tea gardens, its fine view of the Hampstead and High gate heights, and the opportunities it afforded for recreation. […]” (275-6)
    • London: H.G. Clarke & Co., 1851


      “PLEASURE GARDENS. The character of these places have, with the habits of the people, experienced a very considerable change; and tea, formerly the chief article of consumption here, has been supplanted by liquors of a more stimulating character. At some of these, concerts of an inferior description are performed; and other attractions are added that generally detain the company, always of a miscellaneous character, till the approach of midnight. The following are the principal in the vicinity of the metropolis:- New Bayswater Tea Gardens; Manor House Tavern, Walworth; Chalk Farm, Primrose Hill; Copenhagen House, Copenhagen Fields …” (259).