In March 1863 Sir Tatton Sykes, 4th baronet, died at Sledmere, his seat in Yorkshire. Almost immediately there were calls for a monument to his memory, and a committee was formed to oversee the project and solicit subscriptions. Various sites were considered, and a competition launched to find the perfect design. Early in 1865 a site high on Garton Hill was decided upon, and the chosen architect, John Gibbs, visited Yorkshire to see the location before the foundation stone was laid.
Church or Folly? Hassall, near Sandbach, Cheshire
In 1836 William Lowndes began to build a church on raised ground on his Hassall Hall estate in Cheshire. He was a man of ‘strong religious feelings’ and funded the entire project from his own pocket. But by 1900 the church remained incomplete, and was described as a folly.
The title of folly was bestowed upon the church in the Harmsworth Magazine in 1900. Oswald Marvin wrote an article on the subject with the most peculiar subtitle of ‘Stories of Bubbles in Stone’. This is not explained in any way, but did give the designer a chance to have some fun and dot bubbles all around the images.
In September 1837 it was reported in the newspapers that Lowndes was erecting a chapel, and that his ‘praiseworthy munificence deserves to be widely known’. Lowndes had the church built out of fine handmade red bricks, and there were tall stone pinnacles and a slim bell tower which could be ‘seen from miles around’. Underneath were vaults, which were presumably to become the family’s burial place. It overlooked a piece of water in the ornamental grounds of Hassall Hall called Dog Kennel Pond.
The church, by then externally complete, was bedecked with flags to mark the coronation of Queen Victoria in June 1838. But, as Marvin wrote, ‘joy was turned to sorrow’ when Lowndes died suddenly the very next day. This has no basis in fact, and Marvin had lifted his text from an earlier, and equally unreliable, source.
Lowndes death was indeed ‘awfully sudden’ – but it was some months before the coronation. One morning in January 1838 he was ‘found dead in his dining-room, being left in good health when the family retired to rest’. Curiously, Lowndes made no mention of his church, or where he wished to be buried, in his will of April 1837 and he was interred at the parish church of St Mary’s in Sandbach.
Although marked on nineteenth century maps as ‘church’ the building was never completed or consecrated, and no-one knows for sure why it was abandoned with only the interior left to fit out. It is thought that Lowndes’s heirs (he left no issue) had no desire to complete the building – but neither did they wish to fund the cost of demolition, so the structure was simply abandoned.
But the windowless shell did become something of a local landmark and tourist attraction. By 1899 it was described as ‘a singular site’ although ‘depressing to see’: it was overgrown with ivy, and the many tourists had recorded their visits by incising their names in the brick and stone. There were plans for demolition in 1915, with the materials earmarked for new farm buildings, but nothing happened. Visitor numbers increased in September 1922 after the local paper announced that it was finally going to be demolished, and people returned for one last look.
Not a trace of this fine church can be seen today, but there is still something of ecclesiastical interest in the area. A couple of miles from the lost church is Hassall Green, where this tin tabernacle is pretty in pink. A tale is told of this church which is just as fanciful as those that attach themselves to follies. It is said that in 1897 a group of farmers from Hassall Green were in Alsager, where a temporary tin church was being taken down. According to the legend they promptly bought it and carted it back to their village.
Except… the ‘iron church’ in Hassall Green was opened in 1883. It was erected by Isaac Dixon, whose Windsor Ironworks in Liverpool specialised in ‘tin’ chapels, mission rooms and schools. An ‘exceedingly large congregation’ was present for the opening service and tea party. In his speech Reverend Williams commented that the area had long needed a church, and mentioned Lowndes’s church project which, sadly, had been ‘cut off by death’.
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The Hermitage, Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland
Hawkes 1955
In 1807 the 9th earl of Winchelsea built a rustic retreat deep in woodland in his park at Burley-on-the-Hill. The building was known as ‘The Hermitage’, and soon became the subject of tales which were somewhat fanciful, even in the fantastical world of follies.
The Grotto, Thornton, Buckinghamshire.
The Thornton Hall estate came into the possession of Thomas Sheppard after his marriage to the heiress Elizabeth Cotton in 1774. Sheppard considered the church of St Michael and All Angels, close to the hall, to be outdated and cluttered. As part of a major restoration he dismantled an ancient tomb, with the ornate side panels becoming features of a grotto in a sequestered spot in the gardens.
The Tower, Tan-y-Coed, Old Colwyn, Clwyd
This little sham castle, once on an open hillside but now surrounded by trees, was erected in the grounds of a house called Tan-y-Coed (Foot of the Woods) in Old Colwyn. It was the home of Charles Frederick Woodall, a retired woollen draper from Manchester, who settled on the North Wales coast in the 1880s for the benefit of his health. He created pretty gardens around his house, with the sham castle the most prominent feature. The tower is a prime example of a folly where the tales told about it don’t bear close scrutiny…
The Tower, Penistone Hill, Haworth, West Yorkshire
As part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture a new landscape ornament has appeared on an elevated spot above the little town of Haworth, best known as the home of the Brontë sisters. Creative Director Shanaz Gulzar commissioned four artists to create site-specific works for Penistone Hill Country Park. The project is called Wild Uplands as the artworks are sited on a lofty and lonely common (the wily, windy moors of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights) that is only ten miles or so from busy Bradford.
The House of Rock, Brighton, East Sussex
With the summer holidays in full swing, the Flâneuse is heading to the seaside for this week’s story. In the late 1960s Richard Attenborough filmed parts of Oh! What a Lovely War on the Brighton seafront. When filming was over, he donated a seaside kiosk that had featured in the film to the Brighton Festival. In May 1970 the architect Sir Hugh Casson transformed it into a ‘small folly built – or at least embellished – in Brighton rock’.
The Folly, Belchamp Walter, Essex.
Belchamp Walter, in Essex (but very close to the Suffolk border) is the quintessential English village with a manor house and church at its heart. But on a field boundary behind the hall stands a less common feature – a curious, and very clever, folly facade.
The Monument, Lemmington Hall, Northumberland (via Surrey)
In rural Northumberland an elegant stone column rises in a field. A passer-by would guess it to be an eighteenth century ornament, and they would be right: work to erect it was completed in 1786. But it was not built in Northumberland, where it has stood for a mere century. The monument actually started its life at Felbridge in Surrey, some 350 miles to the south.
The Summerhouse, Long Melford, Suffolk
Towards the northern end of the lengthy village street of Long Melford, in Suffolk, stands Melford Hall. In a corner of the garden, overlooking the road and the green opposite, stands a rutilant brick summerhouse. Once furnished with a table and chairs, the little building must have hosted the most elegant intimate parties.