Margate Shell Grotto – origin, creator, purpose: unknown
‘One of the most curious and interesting sights that can possibly be conceived’.
I think it’s fair to say that among the ambitions of anyone who ‘does’ history is the desire to discover something new or mysterious, but ultimately, revelatory.
We are detectives. Using the available evidence, and a little informed speculation, we piece together the puzzle of the past to retell its stories. But integral to the process is not just the discovering, but the revealing.
The Margate Shell Grotto has been thwarting the efforts of history detectives for almost two centuries. Located on an unassuming, mostly residential street (named Grotto Hill in its honour), the subterranean structure is a storied attraction in the south-east English coastal town.
What’s largely accepted is that it was ‘discovered’ in 1835. But that’s where the consensus ends. When it was built, by whom, and what for are still up for debate and open to individual interpretation.
From a purely descriptive point of view, we can say what it is:
Accessed via a chalk passage descending just less than two metres, is a pair of semicircular passages which lead to a central dome and then a passage which leads to a rectangular room called the ‘Alter Chamber’. The complex measures 30metres in length and the passage walls and ceilings, and three of the four Chamber walls, are completely covered in shells which form distinctive patterns. (The east wall of the Chamber is bare, having been rebuilt following bomb damage in World War Two.) The dome – which is about a third of the way in from the entrance – today features a skylight to the world above. There are stories that the Chamber once featured a barrel-vaulted ceiling which was also covered in shells, but today it’s flat and bare.
The shells have been numbered at “approximately 4.6million” and identified as native British, largely local species, except for two queen conches (Caribbean) and some giant clams (Indo-Pacific) in the Altar Chamber.
The Shell Grotto is Grade I listed by English Heritage, which means it is “of exceptional interest”. Of the 370,000 listed buildings in England, only 2.5% are designated Grade I.
When was it built?
It is said there’s no anecdotal evidence of it being remembered by locals before the agreed discovery date of 1835. It's absent from known local directories before 1846 and not indicated on a map of Margate from 1821 (below). The earliest reference to it is in a May 1838 Kentish Gazette article announcing its forthcoming opening to the public, where it’s described as:
“[...] an extensive grotto, completely studded with shells in curious devices, most elaborately worked up, extending an immense distance in serpentine walks, alcoves, and lanes, the whole forming one of the most curious and interesting sights that can possibly be conceived, and must have been executed by torch light.”
Who built it?
The above map shows there were no buildings, nor any estate gardens, on the Grotto site in 1821, leaving no clear indication of who owned the property it sits beneath prior to the 1830s.
Although there are variations on the discovery story, the most accepted element is that excavation works at a property called Belle Vue Cottage (now Rose Lodge) uncovered it.
There exists an 1890s interview with Frances Newlove, daughter of the cottage’s owner/tenant, who was 12 years old at the time the Grotto was unearthed. In it she remembers the Grotto being ‘in an unfinished state’ when discovered and that her father hired a bricklayer to complete it.
Might this account for traces of materials from different time periods that have been found in the Grotto? Or is that simply an expected result of years (centuries!) of maintenance?
What was it for?
You can take your pick of theories: place of worship, secret meeting place, folly, or simply a folk art-decorated former chalk mine. Each of which could variously point to its creator(s) being Romans, Druids, Knights Templar, or Georgians. Perhaps it’s none, or multiple, of these.
English Heritage describes the shell designs featured throughout as “common Egyptian, Greek, and Indian motifs”. The Grotto admits that interpretations of the designs featured on its own map – including tree of life, Bacchus, corn goddess, birth, and phallus – are “entirely subjective”.
“There’s something undeniably eerie about it. Walk through those shadowy corridors, and you can’t help but feel a chill. Locals have long whispered about its darker side. Some say it was used for secret rituals, with claims of cults and witchcraft swirling for years.
“Even now, some steer clear of the Grotto altogether, saying it’s a ‘bad energy’ spot.”
It’s all so curious and intriguing – characteristics that I’m drawn to and driven by in my life and history practice. I’m also a completist. I’m a list-maker and task tick-off-er. Before I was a history writer, I started my career as a daily newspaper journalist, so reporting the truth and getting to the bottom of the story is baked into my professional being. I want to know!
But there's a school of thought that says the mystery of the Margate Shell Grotto is too good to solve.
It's an idea Bigg subscribes to: “I think the mystery is what makes it so special. It’s both enchanting and unnerving, a place where history and myth collide, and Margate wouldn’t be Margate without it."
So perhaps I need to accept the things I cannot know and park my history detective drive on this occasion, in the interest of the greater good.
