On May 12, 1838, the Kentish Mercury reported a strange discovery:
Belle Vue cottage, a detached residence, has been lately been purchased by a gentleman, who, having occasion for some alterations, directed the workmen to excavate some few feet, during which operation the work was impeded a large stone, the gentleman being immediately called to the spot, directed a minute examination, which led to the discovery of 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 conceived, and must have been executed by torch light. We understand the proprietor intends shortly to open the whole for exhibition, at small charge for admission.
Later, a woman named Fanny Newlove claimed that her brother had known about the existence of the underground marvel, later called the Margate Shell Grotto:
My brother found out about the underground place sometime before it was known. He never dared to tell father. He found the chalk loose at one end of the passage next to the cottage, which was built afterwards, and he opened it up by taking the stuff away, as it were in rough blocks. Then when the opening was wide enough, he crawled through and got into the Grotto. And so did I. Yes, and two or three other young girls too. We crept in through the opening, and had to scrub ourselves right through the dirty chalk, and lor, we did make a mess of ourselves. But we got in and saw it all; we had to take a candle in a lantern round somebody’s neck.Imagine this: to be a child, playing in a field, eyes sharp for treasure—a speckled egg or special stone. To find something out of a dream or fairytale: the entrance to a suite of hidden rooms, an underground palace, encrusted with millions of shells, whorled into patterns and pictures vibrant and strange (their color was leeched away by oil lamp pollution from the crowds that came later, bleaching the shells to the color of bone.)
No one knows exactly when or why the Margate Shell Grotto was built, though there was a positive rage in the 1700s for shell-work and shell rooms. Before she picked up her scissors to snip paper into bloom, Mary Delany arranged shells into blossoms and bouquets, encrusted chandeliers and ceilings. Writing to her sister in June 1732, she described how she was spending her days:
About half-a-mile from hence there is a very pretty green hill, one side of it covered with nut wood; on the summit of the hill is a natural grotto, with seats in it that will hold four people. We go every morning at seven o’clock to that place to adorn it with shells—the Bishop has a large collection of very fine ones; [Anne Donnellan] and I are the engineers, the men fetch and carry for us what we want, and think themselves highly honoured.
To look at pictures of these rooms is to wonder that there is a mollusk left in the sea; maybe it is to wonder at the abundance of the sea. People have been using shells for decoration so long, from temples in ancient Greece to the Renaissance follies that set the pattern for the grottos that came later.
A shell is time, layers of calcium carbonate shaped by evolution and adaptation, and shell-work is time: the collecting and the sorting, the creating of patterns, the fixing into permanence. These shell rooms remind me of xenophora, a type of marine snail that attaches the shells of other creatures to its own shell; collectors like us. I imagine a shell room of my own, here in a place far from the sea. A room cool and dark, where I can wear a gown the color of kelp with pearls dripping from my neck and fossils hanging from my ears, a room where I can put my ear to the wall and hear the dulled, dim roaring of waves.
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