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The new phenomenon of tourism at the most famous of all English landscape gardens made an unprecedented success of Benton Seeley's guide to Stowe. Numerous editions from 1744 into the 1830s reflected changes in the garden and created a model for later site-specific guidebooks. The grotto was originally designed by William Kent in the late 1730s as a symmetrical, freestanding structure decorated with flints, colored glass, and shells. Soon covered over with earth, it was then described as a "romantic retirement." By the 1780s, it was more deeply buried, resurfaced with tufa, and planted with vines and conifers for a cavernous effect.
Dedication signed: B. Seeley.
Illustrations include "prints drawn in perspective by B. Seeley ... also a plan of the principal floor of the house, and plans of the buildings in the gardens ... drawn by Mr. Fairchild".
Deluxe edition.