GROTTO

natural or artificial cave used as a decorative feature in 18th-century European gardens. Grottoes derived from natural caves were regarded in antiquity as dwelling places of divinities. Grottoes were often constructed from a fanciful arrangement of rocks, shells, bones, broken glass, and other strangely assorted objects and were commonly associated with water (see nymphaeum). Well-known garden grottoes were the Grotto of Thetis at Versailles, Fr., Alexander Pope's grotto at Twickenham, Middlesex, Eng. (now part of Greater London), and the grotto at Stourhead, Wiltshire, Eng.