Posted by Saucy Suwi on February 26, 2008, 3:04 pm 195.93.21.7
The Great Bed of Ware... The Great Bed of Ware is an extremely large oak four poster bed, carved with marquetry, that was originally housed in the White Hart Inn in Ware, England. Built by Hertfordshire carpenter Jonas Fosbrooke circa 1590, the bed measures ten by eleven feet and can sleep over 15 people at once. Many of those who have used the bed have carved their names into its posts.
By the 1800s, the bed had been moved from the White Hart Inn to the Saracen's Head, another Ware inn. In 1870, William Henry Teale, the owner of the Rye House, acquired the bed and put it to use in a pleasure garden. When interest in the garden waned in the 1920s, the bed was sold. In 1931, it was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Scott's Grotto.... Scott's Grotto is a series of interconnected chambers, extending some 67ft into the chalk hillside. It is rumoured to have cost ?10,000 and is thought to have taken 30 years to complete. The chambers and tunnels are lined with shells, flints and pieces of coloured glass, some donated by friends. On top of the hill above the tunnels there is a summer house which would have commanded a wonderful view over the town of Ware. The picture on the left shows the inside of the Council Chamber as labelled on Mr R T Andrews's 1900 Plan of the Grotto. This chamber is the most highly decorated and has seats inset into it's wall. One of these seats even has the word FROG written in shells, referring to his wife, Sarah Frogley Several theories exist as to why he built it, was it that he just wanted to decorate his garden or perhaps he wanted somewhere to write? Another possibility is he needed an attraction to draw London society out to visit him in Ware. Scott kept a visitor's book which contains three thousand names so the attraction obviously worked.
