At Stowe you can discover an 18th century grotto and cave set in a Grade I World Heritage Site. The grotto was designed by William Kent in the 1730s with a neo-classical appearance. It was later restyled in the eighteenth century with tufa and rockwork to give a rustic, subterranean look, as was the fashion at that time.
Lord Cobham, whose family name was Temple coincidentally, took liberty and tyranny as the two key themes reflecting his views on contemporary politics. As a result temples abound throughout the estate. In the 1730s he hired William Kent, the landscape artist to design the grotto at the head of the Serpentine River. In it a statue of Venus overlooks water flowing in to a basin and then into the river in the manner of early Roman grottoes. The finished grotto was then used as a banqueting house for light refreshment and entertainments. Within a few years the Grotto was flanked just to the south on both sides by small rotundas, one decorated with shells and the other with pebbles. Unfortunately these are now no longer there. Today the grotto is open to visitors to inspect but still needs some restoration work to the interior of the roof where rocks have become dislodged and fallen.
Source: Osborne.house