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Grotto Passage
Grotto Passage is a narrow pedestrian passage off Paddington Street, W1U, tucked between shop and house frontages before widening into a small courtyard at its rear. The name derives from the commercial grotto of John Castles, who leased the land from 1737 and opened a shell-lined attraction in 1738 that drew fashionable visitors for several decades. The grotto closed around 1780 and the site declined into a slum. By 1846 the Grotto Passage Ragged and Industrial School had been established here, serving destitute children. The passage today is primarily a cut-through, with no historic fabric surviving from either the grotto or the school.
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