The building currently known as Grove House dates from three identifiable periods, the earliest of which is 1752/4 and can be seen in the “square block” at the centre of the building as viewed from the outside. From the inside, at ground floor level, it is bounded by the four stone arches.

The premises were originally built at the time when Harrogate was developing as a spa town because of the health giving properties of the water found in a large number of springs and wells. Grove House was built as a small hostelry or guest house and was originally called “The World’s End.”

There is some evidence to show that for a while it served as a staging post for passengers and mail from London to York.

Around 1805 it was acquired and used as a boarding school by a Mrs. Holland. Barbara Hoole, a well-known Yorkshire authoress of the time, later purchased it. She used it as a Ladies Finishing School, and perhaps was a forerunner to what is now the Harrogate College

In so far as surviving records can prove, the earliest known traceable date of a Lodge of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes is 1822 at the Harp Tavern, Great Russell Street near Drury Lane Theatre and was created by stage hands and theatre technicians who had been denied a long held privilege extended to them by the actors and artists of the day.

An Order known as the City of Lushington existed in the late 1700s to the 1800s which consisted almost exclusively of actors or variety artists and held its meetings, mostly for entertainment and social recreation in the Inns and Taverns close to the well populated theatres of the day. In order to be members of the Lushington’s one was required to be either an actor or artist who actually earned their living ‘treading the boards’. Selected guests of members were invited to attend these gatherings, and many stage hands obviously availed themselves of this privilege for a number of years. At some point in time not easily identified the Lushington’s became a ‘closed shop’ presumably because meeting rooms in the Inn or Tavern were not big enough to accommodate everyone (member and visitor alike). Whatever the reason the Lushington’s would only allow members to attend their meetings.