Grotto in Carshalton Park

The Grade II listing was made on 16 March 1954 as list entry 1065628, under the statutory address "Grotto in Carshalton Park, Ruskin Road". It was built in about 1724 as one of the first features of an ambitious early eighteenth-century scheme to build a new mansion, or palace, in the park; the Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni was chosen to design the building and carry out the landscaping, and only the Orangery was ever built. A branch of the River Wandle used to rise in a subterranean chalk chamber beneath the grotto, and the river flowed through the centre of the park; in early 2014, after months of heavy rain, the river flowed from the grotto again for a time. The former park boundary wall carries its own entry, the rear garden walls to numbers 5 to 27 odd, Grade II, NHLE 1065698. Wallington station is 572 m away and Carshalton Beeches 850 m.