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I have put the last hand to my works ... happily finishing the subterraneous Way and Grotto: I then found a spring of the clearest water, which falls in a perpetual Rill, that echoes thru' the Cavern day and night. ...When you shut the Doors of this Grotto, it becomes on the instant, from a luminous Room, a Camera Obscura, on the walls of which all the objects of the River, Hills, Woods, and Boats, are forming a moving Picture ... And when you have a mind to light it up, it affords you a very different Scene: it is finished with Shells interspersed with Pieces of Looking-glass in angular Forms ... at which when a Lamp ...is hung in the Middle, a thousand pointed Rays glitter and are reflected over the place. [2]
Pope supposedly said, "Were it to have nymphs as well – it would be complete in everything." [15] The chamber at the west end where the spring was located has since been destroyed. [1]
In 1739 Pope visited a spa at the Avon Gorge and decided to transform the grotto to resemble a mine. For four years he redecorated it with marble, alabaster, colourful ores such as mundic and snakestones, stalactites, crystals, and diamonds from Bristol and Cornwall, much of it supplied by William Borlase, a Cornish geologist. [2] Sir Hans Sloane gave Pope two "joints" of basalt from the Giant's Causeway, one of which is still in the grotto. He also received a stalagmite from Wookey Hole, giving rise to a false rumour which has persisted into the 21st century that he hired locals to shoot stalactites from the roof of the Witches' Cavern. [2]
After Pope's death in 1744, the grotto became popular with tourists, many of whom are said to have taken parts of the decoration away as souvenirs. [1]
Most of the grotto survives under 20th-century buildings. [2] It was made a Grade II* listed building on 2 September 1952. [16] It now consists of a loggia and a central room with north and south "chapels" branching from it; little survives of the rustic arcades and columns and other decoration from Pope's time, and the existing religious decorations—a carved stone in the ceiling of the loggia representing the Crown of Thorns, a shield with the Five Wounds of Christ above the arch leading to the main room and statues of the Virgin Mary and of St James of Compostella in the two "chapels"—are all believed to be 19th-century. The tunnel which led to the garden has been widened and lengthened. [1] The grotto has been restored and will open to the public for 30 weekends a year from 2023 under the auspices of the Pope's Grotto Preservation Trust. [17]
Thomas Young, a tea merchant, came into possession of the property in 1842 and had a 'Tudor Gothic' house built on the site of Pope's villa, designed by Henry Edward Kendall Jr. This was completed c. 1845. [3] [18] [19] It has been a school since 1919, first St. Catherine's Convent School and convent, [5] since 2010 Radnor House Independent School, [20] and has been substantially altered.
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, was a British architect and noble often called the "Apollo of the Arts" and the "Architect Earl". The son of the 2nd Earl of Burlington and 3rd Earl of Cork, Burlington never took more than a passing interest in politics despite his position as a Privy Counsellor and a member of both the British House of Lords and the Irish House of Lords. His great interests in life were architecture and landscaping, and he is remembered for being a builder and a patron of architects, craftsmen and landscapers, Indeed, he is credited with bringing Palladian architecture to Britain and Ireland. His major projects include Burlington House, Westminster School, Chiswick House and Northwick Park.
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Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and the principles of formal classical architecture from ancient Greek and Roman traditions. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture developed into the style known as Palladianism.
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