Embedding a Groovy Console in Spring context

In search of the perfect way of adding a console to my Java application, for debugging and test purposes, I stumbled upon the article Embedding a Groovy Console in a Java Server Application by Bruce Fancher. It has a code demo of which runs two flavors of Groovy Consoles from the Spring context of his application. This vantage point gives one access to all the services available to spring, and sits smack in the middle of the most important parts of your application where you can access services and databases. Check out the supplied demo, which still runs nicely with Ant + Tomcat.