Eighty years ago this month Sir Osbert Sitwell and his good friend Rex Whistler were discussing how materials such as papier-mâché, much used in theatrical set construction, could be used in the ‘arts of landscaping and garden design’. Once the war was over they planned to erect a dramatic eye-catcher at Sir Osbert’s Renishaw home. But two months after their meeting came tragic news: in July 1944 Whistler was killed in action in France.

Having designed sets for drama, ballet and opera, Whistler (1905-1944) had become fascinated by the use of ‘papier-mâché and other kindred substances’ by set builders, and thought they had developed to a point where they would be durable enough to survive outside for around 50 years. He planned ‘great constructions of all kinds’ including colonnades, aqueducts, clusters of towers, gigantic statues, artificial hills and ‘panoramic visions of vast cities’. These were all ideas which he had explored in two dimensions in his art, and in particular his great murals for the Tate Gallery and Plas Newydd.

At Renishaw the men planned to test Whistler’s idea by erecting a ‘vast colonnade’ at the bottom of the garden, framing views over the lake. Sir Osbert (1892-1969) recalled that his father, Sir George Sitwell, had planned something similar in ‘bricks and rubble’, but it had never come to fruition.

As Sir Osbert believed that Whistler, a ‘wonderful and extraordinary being’, had been the only man who could ‘comprehend or undertake’ such a work, this pioneering scheme for Renishaw was abandoned after his death. As Whistler’s brother Laurence later wrote, this plan for a grand garden arcade would have been ‘magnificent in form and flimsy in magnificence: the folly of follies.’

Even if Whistler and Sir Osbert’s plan for Renishaw had been implemented, they believed it unlikely to have a long life. Sir Osbert calculated that the colonnade would have ‘dissolved’ by the end of the 20th century (if not already swept away by the successive generation).

But perhaps they had underestimated the material. Papier-mâché had been used for internal and external ornaments in the 18th century, and there were a number of manufactories in London.

The Temple of Bacchus at Painshill, in Surrey, had ornament within the pediment that was crafted in papier-mâché. It was put up in the early 1760s and, as the photo’ below shows, it was still intact, if a little decrepit, in the 1940s. Papier-mâché was also used in the construction of Painshill’s Turkish Tent. Although the Duffour family business, whose trade card is featured above, was employed at Painshill in 1752-4, no documents have been discovered to link them to the garden buildings.

By the middle of the 20th century the columns that supported the pediment of the Temple of Bacchus had been reused at the house, and the temple was shortly to collapse into total ruin. The Painshill Park Trust commissioned a new temple on the footprint of the old, and the exterior work was completed in 2019.

Whilst not quite the ‘vast city’ of Whistler’s imagination, there was once an entire papier-mâché village. It was created in 1835 by the papier-mâché specialist Charles Frederick Bielefeld for his client, Mr Seymour, who was about to start a new life in Australia. The village consisted of 10 houses which included a villa with an elaborate papier-mâché mantelpiece supported by caryatids. An early exercise in pre-fabrication, or flat-pack, the village was easy to transport and erect, and was tested at Bielefeld’s Staines manufactory. The Illustrated London News reported that during this period the site flooded, but despite being ‘nearly two feet under water’ the buildings were not damaged.

Although the Illustrated London News story was picked up by the Australian press, no further reports have been found, so sadly it is not known if the village ever reached the other side of the world.

As ever, the Flâneuse digresses…. so back to Renishaw. There may not be any papier-mâché scenery, but the estate has plenty of other attractions, including the house itself and two early 19th century garden ornaments, all the work of Sir Sitwell Sitwell (1769-1811). On a lawn near the house stands the Gothic Temple, once a glazed conservatory, and later an aviary, but now a pretty shell filled with the graves of family pets.

Loveliest of all is the Gothic Lodge, built in c.1807 to a design by Sir Sitwell himself. The lodge is now a shell, but sometime in the nineteenth century the central arch was filled to create a dwelling (the drive through the arch had by then been rerouted). In 1938 it was declared ‘unfit for habitation’ and the central room must have been demolished soon after. The lodge then took on its new role as a garden ornament, and what Barbara Jones called a ‘very pretty borderline folly’.

The gardens are open regularly. There is a weekly house tour when the many views of Renishaw by another artist friend of the family, John Piper, can be seen in the eclectic Sitwell collection. There are also fascinating displays in the Sitwell Museum in the stable block.

For more on visiting Renishaw see https://renishaw-hall.co.uk

Thanks to Christine Beevers, Renishaw’s archivist, for her help with this post, and to Michael Symes and Cherrill Sands for information on papier-mâché at Painshill.

And finally… many readers clicked on the link in last week’s post to see Portmeirion from the air with commentary by John Betjeman. There is to be a celebration of John Betjeman and his work on the 40th Anniversary of his death, Sunday May 19th, with a whole evening of films on BBC4. The rarity is The Last Laugh, the biography shown only once, in 2001. The full schedule is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl6b/2024/05/19

There was good news in autumn 2019 with the announcement that the great Georgian estate of Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, had been awarded National Heritage Lottery funds to allow work to begin on the restoration of the Camellia House. Originally known as the Greenhouse, the building was part of a menagerie complex which housed exotic pheasants. Only 20 miles away, in Bawtry, another curious aviary has sadly not survived. 

The 18th century saw a mania for ornamental birds, and particularly pheasants, introduced into Britain from ‘exotic’ lands. Shops were established where ladies could choose the finest specimens, and architects and landscape designers were kept busy designing menageries and aviaries. The colourful birds also appeared on wallpaper, porcelain, and needlework panels as the fashion took hold.

The menagerie at Wentworth Woodhouse was created in the 1730s by Lord and Lady Malton, later the 1st Earl and Countess of Rockingham, and it took the form of a grass meadow edged with shrubberies. At the side were pens for the birds, mainly ornamental pheasants from around the world, although visitors were impressed by a ‘pair of Cockatoos flying at liberty in the gardens’. Alongside the imported curiosities there were also domestic poultry, and cows grazed nearby, adding to the pastoral scene. Over time more exotic creatures, including an eagle and a moose, were added, and by the middle of the 19th century sheep, goats and llamas lived alongside an American bear, ring-tailed lemurs, kangaroos and many other species.

The double-faced ‘pavilion and greenhouse’ at the upper end of the menagerie provided a place for ladies to drink tea when visiting to admire the flora and fauna. The building must have been a real opportunity for the family to impress guests – exotic birds, an ‘architectural greenhouse’, and a cup of tea – at that date still a luxury item.

The Greenhouse was built in 1738 to replace one elsewhere on the estate. In c.1814 it was extended as a home for an important collection of Camellias, and was suitably renamed. The new building was decorated with Coade stone ornaments: four female statues and two baskets of fruit. Camellias provide welcome winter colour, and were in bloom when they were placed on the coffin of Viscount Milton, son of the 6th Earl Fitzwilliam, in January 1877.

The Camellia House fell into disrepair after the house was requisitioned during World War Two, although the Camellias still grew amid the dereliction, and recent clearance work has re-revealed their glory. The building will be restored as a cafe and tea will once more be drunk there, which is appropriate really as tea (Camellia sinensis) is a close relation of the ornamental camellia.

Not too far away from Wentworth is Bawtry Hall, which can be found on the edge of the village of the same name, close to the border with Nottinghamshire. The estate was purchased by Pemberton Milnes in 1779, and soon after that date he built a new mansion to the design of Doncaster architect William Lindley. Milnes died in 1795, and the estate passed to his daughter, Bridget, who in 1775 had married Peter Auriol Hay Drummond, a son of the then Archbishop of York. The couple had lived at Bawtry Hall during her father’s lifetime, paying a peppercorn rent from at least 1789. In 1793 a visitor described ‘Mr Drummond’s very pretty grounds’; the highlight was ‘a Charming Avery (sic) fancifully built, enclosing some beautiful Pheasants, particularly the golden.’

Drummond died in 1799, and in 1803 Bridget married Robert Monckton-Arundel, 4th Viscount Galway. They lived at nearby Serlby Hall until Galway’s death in 1810, but the Viscountess made visits to Bawtry to manage her estate. In 1804 Doncaster’s historian Edward Miller wrote that she ‘has the groves and grounds in the nicest order; and in a beautiful little area, surrounded by shrubs, has erected the annexed elegant menagerie for the reception of curious and rare birds to which she pays great attention.’ It is only thanks to Miller’s ‘annexed’ engraving that we know that the aviary took the form of a large round cage.

Following the death of her second husband, Bridget returned to Bawtry Hall and to the care of her gardens and aviary. Peck’s Topographical History of Bawtry, published in 1813, notes that the menagerie’s principal inhabitants were three species of ornamental pheasant; the golden, the silver and the common. The aviary was still in use in April 1835 when a reward of £5 was offered for information on the theft of a silver pheasant. The dowager died in November of that year and the house was then rented out, the aviary probably declining from that date.

The Dowager Viscountess Galway’s heirs sold the estate in 1904 and in 1939 it was acquired by the Ministry of Defence, who made it the HQ of Bomber Command from 1941. After the war the hall was retained by the RAF although much of the grounds was developed for housing. The hall was sold in the 1980s and was subsequently used as offices and as a religious retreat until in 2017 it became a wedding and events venue. The plantation called Menagerie Wood is the only reminder of the unusual building that once ornamented the grounds.

There’s more about the Chippendale Society here https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/temple-newsam/
and much of the society’s wonderful collection is on display at Temple Newsam, near Leeds https://www.leeds.gov.uk/museumsandgalleries/templenewsamhouse

For Wentworth Woodhouse see https://wentworthwoodhouse.org.uk

On Sunday, The Folly Flâneuse was one of the happy few who discovered the location of the Secret Salons, three venues which combined the finest music and architecture. As part of Richmond’s annual festival celebrating all things Georgian, the evening was a fundraiser for the town’s Theatre Royal, a unique intact survivor from that era. Participants promenaded between three lovely venues, but of course the one that gave the greatest joy to the present writer was the Culloden Tower.

On an eminence on the edge of town the tower is a dramatic landmark. It was built by John Yorke as a feature in the park surrounding his mansion, The Green, which was demolished in the 1820s. Although known today as the Culloden Tower, in the 19th century it was called the Cumberland Tower, or Temple, and it is marked simply as The Temple on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps. It was built on, or close to, the site of an earlier peel tower but an exact date has not yet been discovered. It must however be between 1732 – as it bears the arms of Anne Darcy who Yorke married in that year – and 1749 when it is described as a ‘Gothick Tower on an eminence’. It is attributed to the architect Daniel Garrett on stylistic grounds, and he was certainly active in the area, but again firm evidence has eluded researchers.

The tower sits on a plain square base but then gains ornament as it rises. The base housed a ‘cow shed’ but above were banqueting rooms, one with gothic detail and one classical. At the top a turret contains a door leading out onto the roof with balustrade and pinnacles. There are extensive views of the River Swale, Richmond Castle and town, and until it was demolished in the 1820s, Yorke’s mansion and extensive gardens. 

Clarkson, the Richmond historian, called the tower ‘The Cumberland Temple’ in 1821 and said it was built ‘in compliment’ to the Duke of Cumberland, who was in command at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 when the Scotch rebels were defeated.

However, an account written some 40 years before Clarkson’s suggests that Cumberland’s role in the War of the Austrian Succession may have caused the tower to be erected. The tourist describes climbing ‘the grass hill to Dettingen which stands upon the summit. It is a very high octagon stone tower… built with great taste.’ The Battle of Dettingen took place in June 1743 and the British troops, with their Hanoverian and Austrian allies, defeated the French at Dettingen in Bavaria. The battle was notable as George II himself led the troops into battle with his son, the Duke of Cumberland, at his side. It is particularly remembered today as since that date no British monarch has led troops into active combat. The victory was widely celebrated at home and Handel wrote the Dettingen Te Deum to mark the occasion.

Which brings The Folly Flâneuse back to music. Performing in the Culloden Tower was harpist Alex Rider, and it was absolutely enchanting. A highlight was a performance of ‘The Magical Aviary’ by Marcel Tournier, not an 18th century piece but apposite as the Yorke family’s Georgian menagerie survives today, just a short distance from the tower. You can see Alex play the piece here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlZiXb7SyEE

The Culloden Tower fell into disrepair in the 1970s and was rescued by The Landmark Trust which completed an exemplary restoration in 1982, including the painstaking recreation of the plasterwork shown above.

Huge thanks to The Landmark Trust, and to the owners of Millgate House, and a private house, for hosting the Secret Salons. Also to the other musicians who were uniformly excellent.

The Culloden Tower can be seen from a permissive footpath accessed from The Green. The Landmark Trust has annual open days, check their website for details https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/culloden-tower-5579#Overview. The menagerie is now a private home and there is no public access.

More Secret Salons are planned for 2020. Keep an eye out for announcements here https://www.richmond.org/georgefest/

And if you do visit you might consider staying, as The Folly Flâneuse did, at the lovely Millgate House, a Georgian House with a wonderful garden which offers seriously good B&B https://www.millgatehouse.com