Arena of Astley's Amphitheatre, Surrey Road

This print appeared in Robert Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata. Graphic and Historical Memorials of Monasteries, Churches, Chapels, Schools, Charitable Foundations, Palaces, Halls, Courts, Processions, Places of Early Amusement, and Modern Present Theatres, in the Cities and Suburbs of London and Westminster, Volume 2 , 1825.

It shows Astley's Amphitheatre which had been founded by Philip Astley in 1769 and featured clowns including Grimaldi, acrobats and conjurers as well as equestrians. In Sketches by Boz Dickens, who loved Astleys, he described how everything there was ' delightful, splendid and surprising'. The Amphitheatre was rebuilt after a fire in 1803 and 1841, finally being demolished in 1893. The engraving shows a man riding on the back of a horse in the arena following the equestrian displays made famous by Astley, a former cavalry officer. Wilkinson was a printseller in Cornhill and Fenchurch Street who was very attached to antiquarian pursuits. He started the Londina Illustrata in 1803 with the first volume published in 1819 and the second completed on his death in 1825.