The decorative park pavilion was erected by Brenna before the construction of the staircase in 1792-1794. The treillage consisted of three parts, the walls were made of openwork wooden lattices; it is a light gazebo with a dome and mesh walls. In 1816, during repairs by G. P. Pilnikov, the side parts were dismantled. The wooden structure was repeatedly repaired. The weathered lattices of the treillage were removed in 1957 for restoration, which never took place. The pavilion, which survived the war, has still not been restored.

The stone staircase from the treillage to the pond was built by V. Brenna in 1793; it had six marble statues on the side ledges and initially the same number of lions, later replaced by four vases made of Russian Olonets marble. These statues were removed long before the Revolution and placed in other locations; one of them, Aphrodite Kallipygos, now stands on the small pond opposite the Aviary. In the winter of 1920, one of the vases was thrown down the stairs and broken by Red Army soldiers. The stone landing platform at the end of the staircase was built later according to a design by A. Voronikhin, featuring his characteristic four lion-sphinxes; it is possible that these are the very lions received from the Academy of Arts in 1817 and therefore placed here after the death of the author himself. The slopes of the shore, the base of the balustrade, and the base of the landing are securely reinforced with several rows of piles.

The treillage staircase is symmetrical to the Italian staircase located on the other side of the Pavlovsk Palace, also descending to the Slavyanka River, since the Mariental pond is part of this river and serves as the compositional axis of the entire Pavlovsk palace and park complex.

The main difference between the treillage staircase and the Italian one is the absence of sculptural decoration. Although the pedestals, as you can see, have been preserved. The staircase lost its sculptural decoration not during the war, as one might expect. The statues from the treillage staircase were moved to various places in Pavlovsk Park back in the 19th century. Only the lions remained.

During the Great Patriotic War, one of the lions disappeared (there is a version that it was thrown into the Mariental pond). To maintain symmetry, two sculptures were left on the landing, and the third was moved to the walls of the Pavlovsk Palace. Currently, there are no lions at the staircase; on March 12, 2019, with the participation of the St. Petersburg Improvement Committee and on the recommendation of the Committee for State Control, Use, and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, the statues were moved to the territory of the Pavlovsk State Museum-Reserve. In 2019, the lions were relocated to the walls of the right wing of the Pavlovsk Palace.

Thus, better conditions for the storage of the statues and their protection from possible acts of vandalism have been ensured, as well as the elimination of the risk of statues falling into the Slavyanka River due to a possible collapse of the landing. They can be admired on the way to the Gonzago Gallery or the Private Garden; the return of the granite lions to their historic place is not planned.

The decision to leave the lions by the walls of the Pavlovsk Palace is understandable, but the granite beauties sitting by the water are greatly missed on the now empty treillage staircase, which has also become neglected and is slowly deteriorating.

During the Great Patriotic War, a German cemetery was located on the platform in front of the Large Treillage Pavilion.

Sources:

https://www.citywalls.ru/house25791.html

V. N. Taleporovsky, “Pavlovsk Park,” Brockhaus-Efron Publishing, Petersburg, 1923, p. 85

“Guide to the Mariental Valley,” compiled from the books of B.V. Yanush parts I, II, III, “Unknown Pavlovsk” by methodologist T.K. Safonova, DDT “Pavlovsky”