Scott's Grotto in Ware, Hertfordshire, is a Grade I listed building [1] and with six chambers the most extensive shell grotto in the United Kingdom. [2] "It is, although on a small scale, far more complex than Alexander Pope's at Twickenham. Compared with the grotto at Stourhead, on the other hand, it is minute, but that only enhances the enchantment." [3] The surrounding gardens and structures are Grade II* listed. [4]
The grotto is set into the northeast face of a hill, and comprises an entrance hall and a series of six chambers extending over 65 feet (20 m) into and 30 feet (9.1 m) below the chalk hillside, together with air shafts, light wells and connecting passages. The chambers are decorated with shells, stones such as flint and fossils, and coloured glass. A plan drawn in 1900 calls the six chambers the "Council Chamber" (a circular chamber 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter to the right of the entrance, with a domed roof light), and smaller chambers to the left of the entrance are named the "Committee Room No 2" (a square chamber with niches) and the "Refreshments Room"; on the centreline, connected by an air shaft, are the "Consulting Room", the "Committee Room", and the "Robing Room".
The grotto was formerly in the garden of Amwell House. Its construction may have taken several years and was completed by John Scott, an 18th-century Quaker poet who inherited Amwell House from his father in 1768. Scott also had other romantic features built in his garden, including an octagonal gazebo on the hillside above. Scott kept a book which lists 3,000 visitors from 1779 to 1787. Samuel Johnson visited in 1773, describing it as a "fairy hall". [5]
The house and garden were inherited by Scott's daughter Marie. The nearby Scotts Road was built after she died in 1863 and the land was acquired by British Land for development. The grotto was opened to visiting tourists in the 19th century, and become a listed building in 1950. Modern houses were built on Scotts Road in the 1960s and 1970s; originally the builders intended to demolish the grotto to build houses, but the local council intervened and the grotto was left in a patch of open ground. [6] [7]
The grotto was acquired by East Hertfordshire District Council in 1974, and was restored in 1990–91 by the Ware Society. The works included a reconstruction of the entrance hall that had been demolished in 1960: a small fragment of the demolished Berlin Wall was inserted in the entrance hall as a time marker. The architect for the restoration was James Howley and the project manager David Perman, Hon. Secretary of the Ware Society. [2]
The grotto and gardens are now owned and managed by the Scott's Grotto Trust, Charity Number 1180709.
Sir William Chambers was a Swedish-Scottish architect, based in London. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy.
Gawsworth Old Hall is a Grade I listed country house in the village of Gawsworth, Cheshire, England. It is a timber-framed house in the Cheshire black-and-white style. The present house was built between 1480 and 1600, replacing an earlier Norman house. It was probably built as a courtyard house enclosing a quadrangle, but much of it has been demolished, leaving the house with a U-shaped plan. The present hall was owned originally by the Fitton family, and later by the Gerards, and then the Stanhopes. Since the 1930s it has been in the possession of the Richards family. Raymond Richards collected a number of items from other historic buildings and incorporated them into the hall.
Hoddesdon is a town in the Borough of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, lying entirely within the London Metropolitan Area and Greater London Urban Area. The area is on the River Lea and the Lee Navigation along with the New River.
A grotto is a natural or artificial cave used by humans in both modern times and antiquity, and historically or prehistorically. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or often flooded at high tide. Sometimes, artificial grottoes are used as garden features. The Grotta Azzurra at Capri and the grotto at Tiberius' Villa Jovis in the Bay of Naples are examples of popular natural seashore grottoes.
Ware is a town in Hertfordshire, England close to the county town of Hertford. It is also a civil parish in East Hertfordshire district.
John Scott, known as Scott of Amwell, was an English landscape gardener and writer on social matters. He was also the first notable Quaker poet, although in modern times he is remembered for only one anti-militarist poem.
Moor Park is a Neo-Palladian mansion set within several hundred acres of parkland to the south-east of Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, England. It is called Moor Park Mansion because it is in the old park of the Manor of More. It now serves as the clubhouse of Moor Park Golf Club.
Goldney Hall is a self-catered hall of residence in the University of Bristol. It is one of three in the Clifton area of Bristol, England.
Hertford Heath is a village and civil parish near the county town of Hertford in Hertfordshire, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 2,672.
Great Amwell is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) southeast of Ware and about 20 miles (32 km) north of London.
The Church of Saint Leonard is a Norman church in Bengeo, Hertfordshire, England. Located on the hillside overlooking the shared Beane and Lea valley, the Grade I Listed church dates from about 1120, and is the oldest building in Hertford.
Cheshunt Great House was a manor house in the town of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England, near to Waltham Abbey. It is said to have been built by Henry VIII of England for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. The family seat of the Shaw family for over a century, by the late 19th century it was used as a Freemasons Hall and was later used during World War II. After the war, the hall was too costly to run and was opened to the public until a fire gutted it in 1965. It had been made a Grade II listed building on 11 June 1954.
Fanhams Hall is an 18th-century Queen Anne House-style country house in Wareside, Hertfordshire in the south east of England. It is a Grade II* listed building which is now operating as a hotel.
Ingress Abbey is a Neo-gothic Jacobean-style country house in Greenhithe, Kent, England, built in 1833 on the site of an earlier Palladian-style house.
Temple Manor is a scheduled ancient monument and grade I listed building in Strood, Kent. The Manor has been owned by various religious, national and farming owners over 600 years. The building has been added to and adapted over the centuries, but the basic structure is now clearly visible.
A shell grotto is a type of folly, a grotto decorated with sea shells. The shell grotto was a popular feature of many British country houses in the 17th and 18th centuries. It suited the Baroque and Rococo styles and often represented the mimicry of architectural features from the Italian Renaissance. The idea of a grotto was originally a means to enhance a dank undercroft, or provide an antechamber before a piano nobile, but later it became a garden feature independent of the house, sometimes on the edge of a lake, with water flowing through it.
Pope's villa was the residence of Alexander Pope at Twickenham, then a village west of London in Middlesex. He moved there in 1719 and created gardens and an underground grotto. When Baroness Howe of Langar (1762–1835) purchased the house, she demolished it in 1808 and built a new house next to the site. The house and grotto were topics of 18th- and 19th-century poetry and art. In about 1845, a neo-Tudor house known as Pope's Villa was built on approximately the same site; it has been used as a school since the early 20th century. Pope's Grotto, which is listed Grade II* by Historic England, survives and is occasionally open to the public.
The Shire Hall is a municipal building in Fore Street, Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire, England. The building, which currently serves as a Magistrates' Court, is a Grade I listed building.
Howgills in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, England, is a Grade II listed building on the Register of Historic England in use as a Meeting House for the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Letchworth Town Hall is a municipal building in Broadway, Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Letchworth Urban District Council, is a Grade II listed building.