Deep in Surrey, near Godalming, lies the village of Witley. A mile and a quarter west, in a ramshackle wood, next to a walled kitchen garden, you’ll find a holly tree wrapped around a hut with a door in it.
Go down the spiral concrete steps, and there, 40ft beneath the surface, lies a teardrop-shaped tunnel that leads to Britain’s most extraordinary folly — a ballroom, built of iron and glass, beneath a lake.
Leading off it, an aquarium-cum-smoking room was added, where guests puffed on their cigars and admired the passing carp.
Above the domed, glazed ceiling of the underwater ballroom, a yellowish natural light shines through the murky lake water. A giant statue of Neptune stands at the dome’s peak, poking above the surface, apparently walking on water.
This underwater ballroom is the last, mad, magnificent fragment of a Victorian fantasy world. To create it, 600 workmen dug out four lakes, swept aside hills that got in the way of the view, and built a 32-room neo-Tudor house which was packed with treasures from across the world, including Italian statues and a bronze dolphin’s head so big that it got stuck under a bridge on the way from Southampton. (They had to lower the road to get it out.)
Most of this architectural fantasia has gone now. The house, gutted by fire in 1952, was later demolished. A few forlorn lodges and some stables survive. No one dances in the underwater ballroom any more.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058772/Witley-Park-Surrey-The-story-Whitaker-Wright-Britains-bizarre-folly.html#ixzz3M6qENrmI and: http://www.visualnews.com/2014/12/09/secret-underwater-ballroom-built-notorious-victorian-swindler/
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