Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. Covent Garden market, London; initially as an area frequented by prostitutes.

a.1625		Beaumont & Fletcher Love’s Cure III i: My House of Office is maintain’d in the Garden.
c.1637		R. Brome Damoiselle I i: Wee’ll talke i’th’ Coach / In, in, and furnish; and so through the Garden.
a.1661		‘Of Banishing the Ladies out of Town’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) I 241: Then farewell Queen-street, and the Fields, / And Garden that such pleasure yields.
1664		Etherege Love In A Tub III ii: I’ll fetch thee again, or conjure the whole Garden up.
1694		J. Crowne Married Beau I i: Here’s my Wife! See! She is no light Piece. She makes the Garden bend, all the Fops bow to her: Would she admit Inhabitants, my Bed Might be a populous Place.
c.1705		‘The Thing’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 124: Jack Tar full of Glee to the Garden will strole, / In search Sirs of something like L--g.
c.1758		John F---g Epistle of a Reformed Rake 17: Where does she live? Oh, in the Garden.
1760		Foote The Minor 14: Our modern lads [...] have their gaming clubs in the Garden.
1770		R. King Frauds of London 72: Spungers [...] are scarce to be distinguished from the Hanger-on, except, if possible, being more impudent, and generally in low life, frequenters of the Garden in order to pick up a dinner, and the Park to get a bottle.
1782		G. Parker Humorous Sketches 90: No more the Garden female orgies view.
1791		A. Pasquin Shrove Tuesday 85: These Lads, the glory of the age, / Were in the Garden all the rage.
1801		Sporting Mag. Oct. XIX 14/1: One o’clock – proposed to roll it round the garden.
1827		J. Wight More Mornings in Bow St. 251: She was then permitted to return to her labour [as a basket-woman] in the Garden.
1833		‘The Last Girl of Drury’ in Rake’s Budget in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 84: Thus kindly I offer two bob for a bed, / Where a mate of the Garden has pillow’d her head.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 81/2: Not only is the ‘Garden’ itself all bustle and activity, but the buyers and sellers stream to and from it in all directions.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1884		Sporting Times 27 Dec. 1/2: And the apples was up to dick, / For he prigged ’em out of the Garden .
1895		Mirror of Life 21 Dec. 14/2: [He] works in the ‘Garden’ (Covent Garden), and in consequence of working in that ‘Garden’ is just about as fit as a pocket Hercules.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 237/2: Synagogue (Covent Garden, 1890 on). Shed in the north-east corner of ‘the Garden’. So called from this place (erected 1890) being wholly ‘run’ by Jews.
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 69: A porter in the Garding was a-arstin’ me riddles about where I lived.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 174: It would do him a world of good to have a barrow for a bit, particularly if he handled his own buying up at the Garden, or did a bit of totting.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

c.1800

Song No. 19 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: He [...] goes with the Gardens lads to every night a bawdy ken.

3. Covent Garden Theatre, London.

1730		Pope Blunderella B: O Madam! but I beg your Pardon / There is a Song, that in the Garden Cuzzoni sings.
1756		W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans III 157: He [...] sings as many fat songs as the best man in the Garden.
c.1820		The Sapient Pig 22: The favourite of Drury they reckon so Kean, He’s so cutting at times they weep with both e’en, / And then at The Garden they’ve got a new Booth.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 13 Oct. 64/1: Where is Braham? Is he going to join Macready at the Garden after all?
1859		Bell’s Life in Tasmania 19 July 4/2: ‘Going to the garden to-night?’' enquired the loquacious servitor; ‘Liston acts’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		G.A. Sala in Living London (1883) Jan. 27: There were schools upon schools galore at ‘the Garden’ that Thursday afternoon.

4. Hatton Garden, London.

1890		Tit-bits 29 Mar. 389/1: Let me describe the Garden. A long, straight street, stretching almost due north and south, from Holborn Circus to Clerkenwell Road [F&H].
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 23: She learned the inside of the tomfoolery trade from Joe Davis in the Garden.

5. Madison Square Garden, New York City.

1912		T.A. Dorgan Daffydils 9 Oct. [synd. cartoon strip] It was midnight and the Garden was black with people. The six-day riders lined up for the start.
1919		Wodehouse ‘Aunt and the Sluggard’ in My Man Jeeves [ebook] Jimmy had just come to New York on a hit-the-trail campaign, and I had popped in at the Garden [...] to hear him.
1930		R. Whitfield ‘Murder in the Ring’ in Big Bk of Black Mask Stories (2010) 345: It [i.e. a punch] landed with a sound that could be heard all over the Garden.
1938		R.L. Bellem ‘Grappling Trilby’ in Popular Sports June 🌐 You have got to take this tramp [...] Remember, this is our last chance here at the Garden.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 136: Willie had taken an awful shellacking from Jerry Hyams in the Garden.
1973		C.P. Rosenberg in Heller In This Corner (1974) 88: I boxed Bud Taylor in the Garden.
1992		B. Gifford Night People 95: She pushed him into the Garden with Sugar.
2000		F.X. Toole Rope Burns 1: Madison Square Garden would become Camelot for me [...] The Garden was home to me as much as Shubert Alley.