Site Event/Activity record EEM14806 - 2016: HBA - Ashcombe Grotto

A small subterranean building which is set into the riverbank below White Rock Cottage in Ashcombe, Simonsbath. It has been suggested to be an ice house (Burton 1994), a grotto (South West Archaeology 2015) or cold store. As part of wider landscape studies of the site, the stonework of the structure was cleaned in autumn 2016 and a detailed assessment of the fabric carried out, together with the examination of the building in terms of other comparator sites. The resulting report suggests that the subterranean building was built as a cold store, but that it almost certainly formed part of a coherent composition of practical buildings (along with White Rock Cottage, a gardeners’ store and a bridge) that formed a backdrop to one aspect of John Knight’s picturesque gardens in Ashcombe. The building – in its original form – would have appeared as a plain stone elevation with two arches visible, and two simple small rectangular windows below. Much of the elevation has been rebuilt, possibly as recently as 1952 following the flood disaster on Exmoor.