Jon has had to put up with many oddities from my part along the years (I won’t eat the tip of gherkins, I carry a screwdriver everywhere I go, I am adamant that Paul Newman and Robert Redford make it out alive at the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc.), so when I insisted that we should visit a sea shell grotto, he looked upon it as yet another expression of my eccentricity, got into the car, and drove to Margate.
If, like me, you like the bizarre, the not-quite-explained, or the downright bonkers, you’ll love Margate’s Shell Grotto.
In Ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire, grottoes decorated with shells – or nymphaea – were dedicated to water deities. Italian architects of the Renaissance brought the trend back as they created neo-classical gardens before the fashion finally reached Great Britain in the 17th when they became a popular feature of country houses. One of the earliest examples of British shell grottoes was King James I’s 1624 folly, which was built under Whitehall Palace, but unfortunately, it didn’t stand the test of time.
As to Margate’s very own shell grotto, no one really knows how, when, or why it came into existence.
Discovered in the first half of the 19th century (some claim it was in 1835, though the Kentish Gazette only mentions it three years later, on the 22nd of May 1838), the Grotto has remained a mystery ever since, as something doesn’t quite fit in the rich man’s folly theory. Indeed, as the official website informs us, it is built under farmland and has never been part of a larger estate. Plus, follies were meant to be demonstrations of wealth, while the seashells used in the grotto are 99% local (mainly mussels, oysters, cockles and razor shells), meaning they were easy to come by and not at all exotic or impressive in any way.
With that mystery in mind, we arrived in Margate and left the car in Aldi’s car park because it was free and there didn’t seem to be anywhere else to park. Now, if you like quaint English seaside towns with colourful houses and a Victorian vibe, like Deal, you most certainly will dislike Margate. I know I did.
The city seems to be bizarrely divided into two parts: the West side looks like an amusement park that would have sprung from Tim Burton’s imagination on a night of binge drinking, and the East side reminded me of the suburbs of alternate 1985 Hill Valley when Biff Tannen is the mayor and Marty’s mum has fake boobs. I am not saying the town is terrible, but it really isn’t great. It is covered with the veil of neglect that you can only see in places that were bled to death during the Thatcher era and never were given a chance to recover afterwards. The East made me terribly sad, and the West made me terribly angry.
But we had a shell grotto to see, and I was determined to make the most of it.
Located on the aptly named Grotto Hill, the Shell Grotto could go completely unnoticed if it weren’t for the discreet panel on the side of the blueish façade; other than that, you would easily confuse the entrance of the museum with your regular seaside tearoom. Some sea shell crafts are displayed in the window, and a family is having tea by the counter.
We purchase tickets and a cheerful middle-aged lady invites us to go down a flight of stairs.
The first room hosts a permanent exhibition that sums up the history of the sea shell grotto. It’s all very interesting, but it doesn’t teach us anything that we haven’t read ahead, so we move further down in a quiet rush to avoid being stuck in the cave with the group of nine Spanish tourists who are pressing behind us. It’s a small place, so it already looks crowded.
Down the second flight of stairs, I contemplate one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. A subterranean corridor, covered in blackened seashells, meanders for what seems to be a very long distance, though it is a trick of perspective. A few steps further, an opening leads me to a sort of chapel whose strange features are accentuated by timid sun rays coming from a light shaft. The whole thing is bizarre and oddly enchanting.
The seashells are black because up until the second half of the 20th century, the grotto was equipped with gas lighting. Though it must have been particularly magic under the eerie gas light, the emanation from the lamps damaged the colours of the shells and they are now beyond cleaning. In fact, the last attempt at removing the layer of dirt revealed that the discolouration was irreversible as the shells had turned white under it. It’s not much of a pity though, as I think the dark tones give the ensemble a je-ne-sais-quoi that oscillates between mystery and nostalgia.
And then there’s the last room, which is even more enigmatic than the rest. Here I stand, in an undated grotto, a good ten feet underground, excavated by unknown people, decorated with nearly five million seashells for unknown reasons, and that very room has, on its narrowest wall, what can unmistakably only be identified as an altar. What was it built for? Who used it? Well, your guess is as good as mine.
I emerge from the shell grotto with more questions than I had upon arriving. Yet, I really like the atmosphere of uncertainty of it, somewhat comparable to that quiet amazement you experience when you come across a bunch of standing stones in the middle of an empty field. Not knowing what to do next, I follow the crowd (four people, five tops) into the souvenir shop and distractedly look at the knick-knacks on display. Should I buy these lobster forks encrusted with fake pearls? I decide against it and exit the building.
” What do you make of all this?” Jon asks as we are walking back to our car, leaving behind the Shell Grotto. “I don’t know,” I reply. “Let’s have a beer.”
Details
- Location: Grotto Hill, Margate, Kent CT9 2BU, UK.
- Opening times: Open every day, from 11 am to 4 pm.
- Entrance fees: £4.50/Adult, £4/Student/Senior/Serving personel/Veterans, £2/Child (4-16 years old), £1/Family (two adults + two children).
- Unfortunately, the grotto is not accessible to wheelchairs.
- Official website.
