Grotto in the garden of 101 Bristol Road is a Grade II listed building in the Birmingham local planning authority area, England. Grotto.
Grotto in the garden of 101 Bristol Road
- WRENN ID
- unlit-barrel-moon
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Birmingham
- Constituency
- Birmingham Edgbaston MP: Preet Kaur Gill (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Type
- Grotto
- Address
- Grotto in the garden of 101 Bristol Road, B5 7TX
- OS grid reference
- SP 066 851
- Coordinates
- 52.46398, -1.90418
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Grotto in the garden of 101 Bristol Road is a Gothick structure, likely built for James Guest, a merchant, in the early 19th century.
Constructed from red brick and faced with blast-furnace slag, the grotto incorporates shells, animal bones, and teeth impressed into cement. It has a D-shaped plan with a flat front elevation and a semi-circular rear wall.
The front of the grotto features a pediment with two pointed-arch windows on either side of a central ogee-arched door. The surrounds of the windows and door are adorned with shells and animal teeth. Above the shell frieze, the pediment displays a central star-burst motif and three short obelisk pinnacles at each corner. Only the lower part of the rear semi-circular wall remains, with its inner surface showcasing low-level panels framed by sheep or cow vertebrae and decorated with shells. This wall also has slots that suggest there may have been a fitted bench around it. Fragments of a timber door are believed to still exist, but the roof is no longer present.
Local climate
Grotto in the garden of 101 Bristol Road receives an average of 780 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 60% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 76% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 39 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 75% of listed buildings. Of these, 19 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- Sale history — 1 transaction since 2022
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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