Shell Grottoes of Mrs. Delany

Last weekend, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day by rereading my copy of Mrs. Delany: Her Life and Her Flowers by Ruth Hayden. While Mrs. Delany was English rather than Irish, she did marry an Irish Protestant minister, Dr. Delany. And she did live in Ireland for many years, so in a way, it seemed an appropriate way to spend St. Patrick's Day. (And far better than drinking green beer.)

Mrs. Delany fascinates me to no end. I've written about her floral paper mosaicks in the past, but I have not yet delved into her other talents: needlework; drawing; and shellwork. Until I recently read Shell Houses and Grottoes (a book about which I learned via The Devoted Classicist), I had completely forgotten that Mrs. Delany's interest in shells extended to her designing shell grottoes, something that was very much in fashion in 18th c. England. Mrs. Delany was in fact responsible for the design of a few grottoes including that at Bulstrode, the home of her great friend the Duchess of Portland. Unfortunately, many of these grottoes have been demolished over the last few centuries, so not much evidence of Mrs. Delany's grotto work remains.

I have managed to round up a couple of photos and sketches of Mrs. Delany's shell embellished interiors and grottoes, but in order to round out my post, I am including a few additional images that show the Shell Gallery in the home of two 18th c. English cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter. The Parminter cousins' shell decorations have remained more or less intact.




The grotto at Bulstrode. In the 1770s, Mrs. Delany and the Duchess of Portland designed this grotto using masses of snail shells that had been collected by the Duchess. The grotto was unfortunately destroyed in the 19th century.



At the Bath House at Walton Hall, Warwickshire, Mrs. Delany advised Sir Charles Mordaunt's daughters on the design of the tea parlour's shell swags. Though Mrs. Delany's original work was later destroyed, the designs were recently recreated and are what you see in the restored room, above.



Mrs. Delany added shell decoration to the ceiling at the Chapel at Delville, the estate of Dr. Delany. This undated photo shows part of the shell encrusted cornice.



The Parminter cousins, both spinsters, built this Shell Gallery at their home, A la Ronde, in Devon. The gallery dates to the 1790s.



The Shell Gallery at A la Ronde.


Portrait of Mrs. Delany and detail photo of shell cornice from Mrs. Delany: Her Life and Her Flowers; photo of Walton Hall from The Shell: A World of Decoration and Ornament by Ingrid Thomas; Parminter window photo from Mrs. Delany and Her Circle (Yale Center for British Art).