Underground Wonderlands

Today we associate grottoes with Santa Claus, but at one time no English country house was complete without one

- Lawrence Alexander

Hosts to ancient Greek oracles and playgrounds of Roman emperors, the romantic otherworldliness of man-made caves has delighted us since antiquity. Whether enhanced natural caves or fabricated from scratch, left spartan or spangled with statues, stalactites and stones, grottoes convey mystery, magic and timeless romance.

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.