Description

Summary: photograph, sepia - copy: Grotto at Walhampton House c. 1890.

Identification note: shows entrance to grotto.

Identification note: The curious shell grotto at Walhampton is thought to have been created by Sir Harry Burrard Neale. It used to be called the Boatswain’s Grotto, and the legend attached to its history is that Sir Harry Burrard Neale brought his coxswain to live at Walhampton, during his retirement.The man spent his twilight years creating this cave, full of designs in shells. When the grotto was completed, he had nothing else left to live for, so he drowned himself in the Solent! The Grotto is shown on a map of the estate of 1841, but the style is from an earlier period, and the fashion for shell grottos declined at the end of the 18th century.