The Grotto Located Within The Grounds Of The Former Grove Estate

1157/0/10068 The Grotto located within the grounds 10-OCT-03 of the former Grove Estate

II Grotto. Circa 1790. Brick inner core with flint and random stone facing to exterior, including conglomerates, sandstones, marble and tufa; scallop shell decoration to interior dome. The grotto, with an inner chamber, circular in plan, reached via a lobby, is set within an artificial mound of earth. The grotto is entered through a recessed arched doorway, set into the tripartite front. A circular hole at the top admits light to the circular subterranean chamber, which has a deliberately primitive altar opposite the entrance, formed from a heavy slab of Hertfordshire sandstone carried on squat legs, carved to represent arrow-filled quivers. The brick walls are plain, while the brick inner surface of the domed roof retains shell decoration comprising 12 rows of red cockle shells; impressions in the mortar at the top of the wall show that another row of shells ran around at this level too. The floor is of beaten earth, and shows no sign of any decorative treatment (ie pebbles, knuckle bones). The lantern may originally have been glazed. HISTORY: this grotto, a highly characteristic survival of mid-Georgian landscape architecture, belonged to the garden laid out around The Grove (demolished 1979). Re 'The Ambulator' in 1820, it was probably built on the orders of a German City merchant named Fierville, who possessed the estate between 1782 and 1790 when he was succeeded by Dr Alexander von Mayersbach. The grotto stood within a Wilderness: close by was a very unusual replica of Rousseau's grave on the Ile des Peupliers at Ermenonville; elsewhere on the estate was a hermitage and a mock-tumulus. The altar is an unusual feature, and may have been dedicated to Diana, Goddess of Hunting.The grotto is a reminder of a largely-vanished romantic landscape, and is symbolic of the earlier history of Stanmore as a place of genteel retirement.