Marian Grotto Wetteren

This Lourdes grotto is located in the castle park of Vilain XIIII.

This Marian grotto isn't a natural cave, as Wetteren isn't located in the Ardennes. It was artificially constructed in the 1950s, when the monastery was already owned by the Apostolines of Saint Joseph.

The site of the Marian Grotto used to be the castle's icehouse . The castle's noble guests enjoyed a cool drink or ice cream during the hot summers. Freezers and ice machines didn't exist yet, but castles and manor houses often had an icehouse built under the house or in the park garden, under the trees, in the shade. The icehouse had a north-facing door to prevent it from cooling down too much when you went inside to get ice.

The ice was collected during the winter. It often came from the castle's own pond , and during freezing periods, it was cut from the pond and stored in the ice cellar. In 1898, an ice cellar was a must-have, just as everyone wants air conditioning today. When refrigerators and freezers became part of the monastery's household, the famous ice cellar became a Marian grotto. Although you can see the Marian grotto today, the actual cellar space is still located beneath or behind the structure.

The sisters wanted to thank Mary for protecting them from the violence of war.

If you look closely at the cave, you'll see that the "rocks" look quite remarkable. Often, these types of caves were made using slag or cinders (a waste product from the metal industry or coal combustion) covered with cement. This created a rough, jagged effect meant to resemble real mountain rocks, something that, of course, didn't occur in the flat Wetteren region.

Willem Vandenameele