Welcome!

Grove House was built sometime between 1780  and 1832.

From 1833, when it was still called Sadlers house, it was inhabited by the mother of the future Cardinal Newman. From around 1862 the house (now Rose Bank) was regularly visited by clergyman and portrait photographer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll; by the time Dodgson died in 1898, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was the most popular children's book in England. The other well-known owner of the house has been Vivien Greene, widow of Graham. The famously adulterous novelist bought the house for his wife just before their separation in 1949, and it was Mrs Greene who renamed the property Grove House. In 1955 Vivien Greene published English Dolls' Houses of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. By 1960 a separate museum was needed for her growing collection of antique dolls' houses. The Rotunda opened on 27 June 1962, and was open on Sundays, and only to those over sixteen. Due to failing eyesight the collection was sold at Bonham's in 1998 and 1999. In August 2003 Vivien Greene celebrated her 99th birthday at home, and nineteen days later she died here.

Polly McLean has owned the house since August 2004. She is currently restoring the house to its former glory, aiming to make it a marvel of ecological renovation and facilitate much joy and merriment in the process.

This website has been set up to record the unfolding story of Grove House. Please go to the weblog to read the unfolding story... it is updated quite frequently, honest!