Listed Building record MDO9584 - Grotto in St Giles Park, Wimborne St Giles

(SU 03451142) Grotto (NAT) <1>

(6) GROTTO (03451142), with walls of flint and rubble, roofed partly with tiles and partly with slate, begun in 1751 to the design of Mr. Castles of Marylebone.
The main compartments, an ante-room and an inner grotto, have their walls lined with shells, fossils, coral and stone flakes mounted on an irregular timber framework composed partly of unhewn tree-roots.
The lath-and-plaster 'vault' is similarly concealed. In the ante-room the pavement is of patterned pebble mosaic; the inner room has a late 19th-century tiled floor and fireplace. Smaller compartments flanking the ante-room are lined with architectural fragments and flints, many of the latter suspended from the timber roof by iron hooks. <3>

Grotto at St Giles House. Grade II*. <2, 4>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

<2> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset (Monograph). SWX1290.

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 97 (Monograph). SDO129.

<4> DOE (HHR), 1986, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest: Wimborne District, 46 (Scheduling record). SDO18076.

<5> English Heritage, 1984-1987, Register of parks and gardens of special historic interest in England: Dorset (Monograph). SWX1383.

<6> Historic England, Historic England Archive, Object Number: 2K/07952. (Index). SDO14738.

Object Title: Grotto.

<7> Historic England, Historic England Archive, Object Number: BF112187. (Index). SDO14738.

Object Title: St Giles House, Wimborne St Giles.

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 213841 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 14 2024 5:06PM