Scott'S Grotto

Scott's Grotto

A grotto consisting of an entrance porch, subterranean passages, light wells and air shafts connecting with six chambers. Built between 1764 and 1768 by John Scott, the Quaker poet of Amwell House, the grotto was originally located in the garden of Amwell House until 1863, when part of the estate was sold to the British Land Company and Scotts Road was constructed. The original porch was demolished in 1960, but the grotto was restored in 1990–91 by the Ware Society under architect James Howley, when the entrance porch was reconstructed in a slightly modified form.

The single-storey building features a central door flanked by niches and a pediment breaking forward of a larger pediment with a semicircular fanlight and twin oculi, leading into the hillside. The entire structure is covered in flint, shells, stones, fossils and glass over brick.

The porch is lit by a vaulted rooflight and contains 1990 reconstructed primitive 'orders' of tree trunks forming entrances to passages on the left and right, with a central arched entrance. Above the central arch is set a small fragment of the Berlin Wall. The passages and chambers retain their original decorations intact, except for the restored Council Chamber.

The left-hand passage descends and turns left, with a long shell-covered ventilation shaft continuing ahead. Walls are lined with flint and decorated with niches containing shells, conches and minerals. Square and circular chambers, designated Committee Room No. 2 and Refreshments Room in 1900, follow. The passage continues and turns right towards the circular Committee Room, decorated with ormer and oyster shells. This is linked to the entrance porch, the outer Consultation Room and the inner Robing Room by a long axial ventilation shaft. A curving left fork of the main passage leads to the Robing Room, originally known as the Palm Pillar Room due to its central timber column and radiating struts (no longer extant). This is the deepest chamber, 67 feet from the entrance and 34 feet below the summit of the hill, with irregular linear decoration of black knapped flint and silver ormers. The passage returns as a long flint-lined corridor to the circular Council Chamber, 12 feet in diameter, with a domed rooflight above reconstructed in 1990. This chamber has a pebble-patterned floor and shell-lined walls with six niches containing seats decorated in patterns highlighted by silver ormer shells, restored in 1990 following the originals. Fifty different types of shells are used, along with quartz, micaceous schist, Hertfordshire puddingstone and vitreous clusters. Above a band of earl oyster shells, the surfaces of the shallow segmental vault and rooflight well are similarly decorated. A flight of steps returns to the porch.

The grotto was well-known to visitors from its completion. Dr Samuel Johnson visited it in 1773 and described it as a 'fairy hall'. A Visitors Book dated 1779–1786 is held in the Hertfordshire County Record Office. Following the 1863 estate sale, the grotto came within the garden of a Victorian villa called 'The Grotto' and remained on open land between Nos. 28 and 34 Scotts Road when modern houses were built in 1966–73. A gazebo and rustic seat associated with the grotto were restored at the same time. The grotto is the most extensive of its type in England.