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Product Description
The artificial grotto has a long and intriguing history in architecture and garden design. The earliest grottoes in ancient Greece were pagan shrines dedicated to water nymphs. In the eighteenth century the Renaissance grotto was much admired on the Grand Tour and became a fashionable feature in the new landscape gardens of the wealthy British landowners. This book describes the origins of the grotto in Renaissance Italy, its heyday in eighteenth-century England, its decline in the nineteenth century and its return to favour in the twentieth century. Over 250 surviving grottoes are listed, in varying states of repair, and there are more to be discovered. This book contains a comprehensive gazetteer of grottoes and shell houses that the pubic can visit.
From the Author
It all started with the hurricane of 1987 when a fallen tree uncovered a long-lost eighteenth century grotto in my local park, Marble Hill Park in Twickenham. In the years that followed my sister and I regularly visited it to inspect its restoration until eventually, in 1995, my sister, who is a keen gardener, asked me to help her find out more about grottoes in general with a view to building one in her garden. This set me off on a five year quest which continues to this day.
A grotto has no real defined form or function. The only limits are the budget, the taste and the imagination of the owner. My aim in writing this book is to bring grottoes to the attention of a wider audience who will appreciate their beauty, extravagance and eccentricity and be moved to restore decaying grottoes and build new ones. Read, visit and enjoy.
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Format:Paperback
This is a wonderful little book. If you are interested in grottoes, shells, follies then this is the place to start. If you are reading this then you should also consider joining the Folly Fellowship! Ms Jackson (no relation) is considered one of the pioneers of Shell House researchers and her attention to detail and interesting anecdotes make this gazetteer a fascinating read. Worth every penny.
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