Today we associate grottoes with Santa Claus, but at one time no English country house was complete without one
In the late 15th century, the Renaissance dream of a lost, romantic past became even more fabulous when Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea (Golden House) was discovered under the Baths of Trajan in Rome. The strange, ruined, underground grotto was a sensation. Everyone wanted a ruined palace in the grounds of their new Palladian-style villa.
Young, wealthy men in 17th and 18th century Britain were encouraged to complete their education with a Grand Tour around Europe. They brought back ideas of the latest trends in art, architecture and garden structures. Architects with a keen sense of theatre such as Inigo Jones were early adopters of the ‘lost Arcadian paradise’ theme and later, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s, British landscape style simply begged for a grotto to go with the follies, temples and eye-catchers, studded with coral, seaweed, stalactites, seashells and fossils.
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