Shell Grotto

The origin and purpose of the structure are unknown. A member of the Kent Archaeological Society analyzed the grotto and concluded in 2006 that it was likely a mediaeval denehole, a small chalk mine, reworked and decorated in the 17th or 18th century. The decoration may have been created or added to in the early 19th century. People have come up with a variety of speculations and hypotheses for the age and purpose of the grotto, such as: it was an 18th or 19th-century rich man's folly; In the late 1940s, a writer, who was also interested in the Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship, published a book about his theory of Phoenician origins for the shell grotto. In 1952, a member of the…

The Shell Grotto consists of a winding subterranean passageway, about 8 ft high and 70 ft in length, terminating in a rectangular room, referred to as the "altar chamber" and measuring approximately 15 by. The grotto is entirely underground. Steps at the upper end lead into a passage about 3 ft wide, roughly hewn out of the chalk, which winds down in serpentine fashion until it reaches an arch, the walls and roof of which here onward are covered in with shell mosaic. The arch leads to what is known as the "rotunda", a central circular column, meeting at the farther side at the domea shaft rising to the surface, capped to allow some daylight into the structure. The sub-base of the dome is…