Pleasure gardens were open to the public for a fee during the summer months. Entertainments offered there included fireworks, masquerades, and music as well as dining facilities. Sydney Gardens in Bath were planned and laid out by architect Thomas Baldwin in 1792 and opened to the public in May 1795 by his successor Harcourt Masters. Admission charges for the first season were 6d. per person and 6d. for tea. Subscribers paid 2s 6d per month, 5s quarterly, or 7s. 6d for the season.

See Brenda Snaddon, The Last Promenade: Sydney Gardens Bath (Bath: Millstream, 2000) and ‘Pleasure Gardens’, in An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture, 1776-1832, ed. by Iain McCalman et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 649-50.