Overlooking the village of Braunton, in North Devon, a ‘prominent church-like’ tower was once a landmark on the heights of East Hill. It was however ‘less ecclesiastical’ than it looked, being a belvedere that was inaugurated in 1857 in commemoration of Sir Robert Peel and his efforts to repeal the Corn Laws in 1846. Only a crumbling ruin remains today, which is a great shame as it has the most fascinating of histories.

The monument was the work of Thomas Mortimer (1798-1866) who lived at nearby Franklin Cottage. According to the 1851 census, Mortimer worked in the Civil Department of the Ordnance, and contemporary documents note him as a ‘linguist, politician and above all philanthropist’. As a ‘staunch liberal’ he had ‘deep sympathies with the working classes’, and is remembered as one who would ‘rather wipe the dew-drops from the brow of an honest labourer than salute the cheek of a duchess’. He was ‘an ardent admirer’ of Sir Robert Peel (below), to whom the tower was dedicated.

Mortimer was also a poet, and he composed some lines about Braunton, in which he described his reasons for settling in the village:

For here, contented with my humble lot,
I early built myself a lowly cot;
Where varied prospects, land and sea,
All tend to my felicity.

His ‘lowly cot’, which he named Franklin Cottage, stood in a large garden and a zig-zag path led up to Mortimer’s ‘pretty tower’ which had a rooftop terrace, complete with battlements and pinnacles, giving magnificent views.

The tower was described as ‘in course of erection’ when Billing’s Directory and Gazetteer of the County of Devon was published in 1857. When completed, the book announced, the tower would have a greenhouse in the lower storey, a study in the upper room, and an observatory at the top. The author was also informed that a bust of Sir Robert Peel was to be placed in a niche between the second and third floors.

Guests from the worlds of literature and politics met in August 1857 to inaugurate the tower, the building of which had been delayed by illness and death: Mortimer’s wife Elizabeth died in 1848 and his teenage son in 1854, and Mortimer himself had spent two years confined to his cottage with an illness from which he feared he would never recover. A flag was flown from the rooftop bearing three Ps for Plenty, Peace and Peel.

Happily, the long inscription was recorded before the tower fell into disrepair:

This tower was built by THOMAS MORTIMER, a Working Man, in honour of SIR ROBERT PEEL, the first British Minister who regarded the claims of Labour, and who when plainly perceiving the justice of FREE TRADE PRINCIPLES, promptly sacrificed his private predilections, and resigned his leadership of a powerful Party, in order to promote the permanent prosperity of the PEOPLE.

He filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he sent empty away.

While Grandeur’s sons seek Glory’s shrine,
At War’s grim Moloch kneel:
Let Labour lovingly incline
To Plenty, Peace and Peel.

One room in the tower was home to a display of local fossils, and built on at the base was a space described as of a ‘more NECESSARY than ornamental kind’ – in other words it housed a privy. This space was ‘dedicated’ to Benjamin Disraeli, who had clashed with Peel over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, and the inscription demonstrated Mortimer’s aversion to the man:

DISRAELI’S REFUGE
Sneering, jeering, satirical BEN –
Most specious of sophists and spiteful of men.

Inside the ‘refuge’ were what the reporter delicately called ‘some lines appropriate to the place’. This was presumably nineteenth century toilet humour, and the newspaper declined to elaborate further.

Within only a few years of Mortimer’s death the tower’s history had become muddled, with a gazetteer published in 1879 claiming that the tower had been erected in 1833 to commemorate the passing of the Reform Bill. The tower seems to have been left to moulder and by 1936 it was overgrown with ivy and ‘battered by storms’. In that year the local parish council decided to buy the land at East Hill as a public open space, and to accept the gift of the tower from the then owner, Captain Stephen Chugg. The councillors thought the hillside would be the ‘perfect space to celebrate’ the forthcoming coronation (of Edward VIII, although of course it would be George VI who was eventually crowned).

The Flâneuse arrived in Braunton keen to visit the tower and this public space but was, alas, thwarted. For reasons unknown, the council’s purchase of the land does not seem to have gone ahead and, after driving round in circles, she couldn’t find any access to the tower.

Post-war, the condition of the tower had been raised, and an article in the local paper asked if there were any ‘Braunton people sufficiently interested in its preservation to take some action in the matter’. It doesn’t appear that there was any interest, and the tower continued to deteriorate.

By the time the Ordnance Survey map was updated in the 1960s it was described as ‘Peel Tower (Ruin)’. The tower was listed at grade II in 1985, but sadly there is little left of Mortimer’s platform for his views – political and panoramic.

Sir Robert Peel died in 1850 and he was buried at St Peter’s at Drayton Bassett in Staffordshire. With monuments and statues being erected across the country, his family chose to install a simple plaque in the church:

In memory of
The Rt Hon Sir Robert Peel, Bart.
to whom the People
have raised Monuments
in many places.
His Children
erect this in the place
where his body
has been buried.

Among the many monuments raised by the people was another ‘Peel Tower’. This was erected on Holcombe Moor, near Ramsbottom in Lancashire, and opened in 1852. Unlike the Braunton tower, the Flâneuse did not struggle to find this mighty landmark.

Thanks to Rosemary Madgett of Braunton Museum for her help with this post.

… and, as ever, thank you for reading. Please scroll down to the comments box to share any thoughts or further information. If you would like a complimentary folly story in your inbox each Saturday morning, please click the subscribe button.

In 1761, Henry Blundell was given control of the Ince Blundell estate by his father. He had recently married Elizabeth Mostyn and the couple settled into the mansion house, which had been built earlier in the century. Blundell was an avid collector, with the funds to indulge his passion, and after his wife’s early death he spent time in Italy before returning to Ince Blundell to build two temples ‘purposely for the reception of statuary’.

Blundell (1724-1810) had become very wealthy thanks to family bequests and Ince Blundell was home to an impressive collection of Old Master and modern paintings. What was lacking was a fine collection of Roman statuary, so in 1776 he set off for Italy to join his friend, fellow collector and fellow Catholic, Charles Townley. With advice from Townley, and a network of contacts, he went on something of a shopping spree. Blundell returned to Italy in subsequent years, and also continued to buy works privately and at auction in Britain, quickly running out of space to display the works.

Blundell’s solution was to display sculpture in a complex of garden buildings fronted by a classical pedimented temple. This was connected to a greenhouse and an octagonal room, all of which were filled with sculpture as well as plants (the tithe map of 1843 shows this substantial range of buildings). The temple carries a Greek inscription, shown in the engraving above, which is usually translated as ‘here spring is eternal and it is summer in months not its own’ – i.e. the heated glasshouses allowed plants to flourish in all seasons (this inscription also appears on the orangery in Clapham).

The temple is attributed to the Liverpool architect William Everard (1723-1792) on the evidence that a portrait of the architect showed him with ‘the plan in his hand’, pointing to the completed structure (the portrait was shown at a lecture in Liverpool in 1869, but its current whereabouts are unknown). The temple was extant by February 1790 when it is shown in a drawing (see below). In that same year the Polish princess Isabel Czartoryska visited – she was not impressed by the combination of sculpture and verdure. She complained that Ince was a ‘storehouse of various objects gathered without taste or choice. Plenty of ugly statues and many sarcophagi, so called antique, positioned among the geraniums in the hot houses’.

Blundell soon needed still more space, and in 1801 he discussed the creation a new gallery with Townley. He commissioned a wooden model (sadly lost) of the planned ‘room’, which took the form of a rotunda modelled on the pantheon in Rome.

Like the original, the building was top-lit although, this being Lancashire, it was glazed. When complete it was used to house his ‘choicest specimens’ and one visitor recorded how his ‘eye roved in admiration from figure to figure’. Blundell had boasted that many of the buildings on his estate were to his own design, and he may have designed this building himself, using an executant architect/mason named briefly in the surviving accounts as Hope.

Blundell carefully catalogued his collection and in 1803 he published a handlist of the works in the house and both temples, followed in 1809 by a lavish two-volume illustrated work.

Originally the pantheon was freestanding, but in the second half of the nineteenth century it was connected to the house via a single storey link.

Whilst Blundell understandably favoured classical buildings in which to display the sculpture collection, there was a gothic ornament in his park. Sometime before 1786 a prospect tower was erected east of the house (it is shown on Yates’s map of the County Palatine of Lancaster published in that year). Described in 1823 as the ‘observatory’, it was said to ‘command a very extensive view’.

Named on nineteenth century Ordnance Survey maps as ‘Blundell Tower’, it disappeared early in the next century and is known only from two artworks. The drawing above, formerly at Stonor Park (once home to Blundell’s son-in-law), is a great record of the lost tower. National Museums Liverpool was able to purchase this view for the city’s collection at Christies in 1992. The tower also appears in a painting by Charles Towne of Blundell’s horse, Duchess (private collection).

James Lees-Milne, Historic Buildings Secretary of the National Trust, visited Ince, a ‘romantic Papist establishment’ in August 1947. By that date the house had descended to the Weld family, who had added the name Blundell.  Lees-Milne found the Pantheon ‘marvellous’, and thought the displays at Ince Blundell must be the ‘finest statuary collections left in private hands’. That ownership was not to last: in 1959 the family presented many of the sculptures to the city of Liverpool, and a year later the house was sold to the Augustinian Sisters, a Catholic order of nuns, to be used as a care home.

Although the art world was relieved that the works were to be preserved as a single collection, there was sadness that it could not remain, as Geoffrey Grigson wrote, in ‘the delightful setting which Henry Blundell devised for it’. A group of ‘distinguished members of the Georgian Group’ wrote to the Times expressing their dismay that the collection was to be removed. Writing in response, Vere E. Cotton, former Lord Mayor of Liverpool, explained that the Liverpool Corporation had only decided on removing the collection with ‘extreme reluctance’. The corporation had explored constructing a new access to the Pantheon, taking a long lease on the temple and even taking down the Pantheon and rebuilding it in a Liverpool park. But none of the options was feasible.

Only a fraction of the sculpture collection can be seen in Liverpool today, with the majority of the works inaccessible in store. The Walker Art Gallery has a selection of the eighteenth century copies from Ince Blundell on display, but the city’s World Museum has no works on show,

But there is some very good news. Ince Blundell recently became a respite centre where unpaid carers can take a break and relax. As well as ensuring a future for the house, and providing a wonderful resource for the local area, this new use means that public access is possible, and pre-booked guided tours are available (and highly recommended).

The tour includes the Pantheon, which is now bare of sculpture, although some of the niches still display the catalogue number assigned by Blundell. The interior is in reasonable condition, but sadly the reliefs mounted on the exterior are badly degraded.

The Garden Temple can also be seen, but the attached greenhouse is long gone (ruins of the furthest room can be seen, although this was later remodelled as part of a range of glasshouses). The temple was restored in the late 1990s, but damp is an ongoing problem. Some wall-mounted works can still be admired, but the free-standing statuary has been removed.

The vast sculpture collection is listed in Blundell’s own publications, and more recently it has been discussed in depth in the volumes of The Ince Blundell Collection of Classical Sculpture, published from 1991.

House, Pantheon and Temple are listed at grade II*. The park is grade II* registered. Ince Blundell is north of Liverpool and, although originally in Lancashire, it became part of the new county of Merseyside in 1974. You can find Ince Blundell visitor information here. 

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Pontypool House, in the ancient Welsh county of Monmouthshire, was a seat of the Hanbury family and stood in a park that was described in 1801 as ‘pleasing, wild and diversified’. The writer of this description was taken on a ‘pleasant ride’ up to a ‘summer house’ called ‘the folly’, from which there was an extensive panorama. It was, he concluded, a ‘singular and almost boundless prospect’ which no visitor to Monmouthshire should miss.

That visitor was William Coxe, who published An Historical Tour in Monmouthshire in 1801. Sadly he gives no further detail of the folly, and few contemporary accounts of Pontypool mention it at all. A tourist in 1784 described being encouraged to visit ‘the folly’ to admire the delightful prospect, and wrote that the view ‘far surpasses my powers of description’. Sadly, he failed to describe the folly itself. Another visitor in that same year noted that it was a near two-mile ride uphill to reach the folly.

There was enlightenment from John Evans, a self-styled ‘Juvenile Tourist’ who noted ‘the Folly‘ in 1804 as ‘a summer-house of semi-circular form, built by the late Mr Hanbury’. This was John Hanbury (1744-1784) who had inherited the Pontypool estate from his father in 1765.

But this is all a little complicated. For what is known as ‘The Folly’ today is an octagonal belvedere, of which more below. In his book The Hanburys of Monmouthshire (1995) Richard Hanbury Tenison writes that the Folly was ‘substantially rebuilt’ in the late 1820s, so perhaps that is when the tower appeared?

What is certain is that by the early nineteenth century the Pontypool estate was ornamented with this octagonal prospect tower known as The Folly.  It is marked as such  on the 1st Series Ordnance Survey map, published in 1832, along with its alternative title of ‘Twr Watch’ (Watch Tower).

The estate had by that date descended to John Hanbury’s second son, Capel Hanbury Leigh (1776-1861). Capel Hanbury Leigh died in strange circumstances in 1861, having taken poison ‘accidentally administered by his valet’. The tower seems to have been allowed to decline in his later years, and a visitor in 1864 found the door locked and the seats around the tower falling to pieces. It was covered with graffiti, but the tourist could not help but admire the ‘poetical proclivities’ of the author of this couplet:

Oh, monument most melancholy
Of stupid and egregious folly.

In 1921 Pontypool Park passed into public ownership. The house became a convent and the park became a recreation ground for the people of Pontypool. In 1932 there were plans to raise a public subscription to renovate the tower, which was showing signs of decay. As a clumsy rhyme of 1937 recorded, the tower

…stares at space with a grave, octagonal frown
While winds tear and tug at his crumbling crown

Progress was slow, and as the decade progressed turmoil in Europe pushed thoughts of folly towers from the minds of the public. In 1938 Pontypudlians would have watched as a new complex was built close to the town: this was one of the new Royal Ordnance Factories manufacturing arms and ammunition for the war effort. The site for the Glascoed facility was chosen because its sheltered location meant that the enemy was less likely to be able to target it with bombs, and also because the damp climate was perfect for the handling of volatile explosives.

Sadly the folly tower was in the wrong place at the wrong time: its prominent site near the new factory was thought to make it a conspicuous landmark for the Luftwaffe, and so in 1940 it was pulled down.

After the war there were calls to rebuild the popular local attraction, but once again nothing was achieved. It was not until the 1990s that local campaigners succeeded in getting a replica landmark back onto its hilltop site. The new tower was officially opened by the Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) on 22nd July 1994.

Pontypool Park is freely accessible and there are walks to the grotto and tower: it’s a challenging climb and you can’t just drive up in your handsome motor as in the first postcard shown above. The exterior of the tower and grotto can be viewed at any time, but the interiors are only open on designated days.

There’s a delightful 6 mile round walk which takes in the grotto and tower. After the hard work of the climb to the follies it’s a gentle return stretch downhill. You can then saunter back along the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal. Allow time to explore the Torfaen Museum when you get back to the park.

Thank you for reading. Please get in touch if you have further information – you can share any thoughts via the comments box at the foot of the page.

It is not everyday that someone builds a seven-storey brick tower on the edge of one of the busiest and most rapidly-growing towns in Britain, especially in the middle of the eighteenth century, so one would assume that the construction of this folly would have been noticed. Birmingham was home to one of the earliest provincial newspapers – surely the curious structure made the pages? But no, the early history of the tower seems very hard to find. The building was originally referred to as the observatory, or as Perrott’s Monument, but soon became ‘vulgarly’ known as Perrott’s Folly because it was born of an ‘insane vanity’.

John Perrott (c.1704-1776) owned the Bell Hall estate at Belbroughton in Worcestershire, and also had a house in Edgbaston, then a village near Birmingham. Near his Edgbaston home, in rural Rotton Park, he built his tower.

The first history of Birmingham was written by William Hutton and published in 1781. Hutton mentions the ‘observatory’ in passing, but makes no mention of its builder or history. William Pye made an ‘excursion round the town in the summer of 1818’ and saw the ‘observatory’. He recorded that the ‘lofty’ tower was known as the Monument and had been erected by John Perrot [sic] in ‘around 1758’: all later accounts of the tower seem to be based on this account. It was certainly extant by February 1773 when a classified advertisement in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette notes a property near ‘Mr Perrott’s Observatory’. No records have yet been found to identify the architect and craftsmen who created the tower.

It might, however, have been under constriction in 1761, when poet and landscaper William Shenstone wrote to Perrott’s neighbour Matthew Boulton suggesting that Perrott was so busy with his workmen that he was hard to see socially. Shenstone hoped that by inviting Perrott to dine on a Sunday, he could not claim to be otherwise engaged. Although this may of course have been work on Perrott’s Belbroughton estate – but a rare mention of the man is worth noting.

Although we now think of an observatory as a building from which to regard the night skies, in this period it was synonymous with belvedere, literally somewhere from which to observe the view. The upper room is beautifully decorated with ornate plasterwork, suggesting a space where one enjoyed refined refreshments whilst admiring the surrounding countryside.

It seems likely that the tower was also used to view the chase, for the surrounding countryside was used by the hunt. More fanciful are the tales that Perrott built it to give his wife a view of her childhood home in Belbroughton in Worcestershire. Or, that it was erected so Perrott could see his wife’s grave, or the home of the daughter who had married against his wishes, both also in Belbroughton. Great as these stories are, they are pure local legend: as a plaque in Holy Trinity church in Belbroughton makes clear, Perrott’s wife outlived him for many years. But more importantly, the Clent Hills block any view of Belbroughton. His son-in-law was the beneficiary of his will, so it seems unlikely that Perrott disapproved of him. But a catalogue of tall tales is particularly appropriate for this towering folly.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the ‘lofty picturesque building known as The Monument’ was offered for sale. By that date it stood in the grounds of Monument House, a ‘commodious and gentlemanly residence’, but no further information about the tower was given in the sales particulars.

In 1907 the Birmingham Mail pondered the reasons for the erection of the tower and concluded that it was for ‘convivial gatherings’. By that date the views the folly had once enjoyed had been compromised by the growth of Birmingham, now a large city. The paper commented on the contrast between the ‘crisp clear country air on one side and the thick smoky acid-laden cloud which hangs like a pall over the city on the other side’. The paper also questioned the mental stability of folly builders, concluding that the tower was ‘erected to gratify an ill-balanced mind’.

The smog was clearly not an issue for meteorological types and from the late nineteenth century until 1979 the tower was used as an observatory to record weather conditions. Emergency repairs to save the tower from collapse were carried out by Birmingham Conservation Trust, with work completed in 2005.

The tower has since had a number of uses, including as an art gallery and a party venue. Today it is home to Re.Future Collective, an arts and architecture collective formed in 2012 to ‘deliver arts, health and heritage activities to connect communities and to help address disadvantage’. Current projects include an Art Youth Club, workshops for adults experiencing loneliness or isolation and working with asylum seekers to create a mosaic for Perrott’s Folly. The collective is also actively researching the history of the tower, and paint samples are currently being analysed to see what they reveal – these are vibrant and exciting times for the folly.

It is not possible to discuss the tower (grade II*) without mentioning J.R.R. Tolkien. The author grew up in Birmingham, and fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy believe that the folly, and the tower of the nearby waterworks, inspired The Two Towers, the second volume in the series.

Perrott’s Folly and the waterworks tower are easy to find – head to the helpfully named Waterworks Road, just off  Monument Road.

Thank you for reading. If you have any thoughts or further information you would like to share, please scroll down to find the comments box.

In the middle of the eighteenth century Ralph Allen, who had both a Bath townhouse and the Prior Park estate in a fine landscape just out of town, erected a gothic eye-catcher on high ground above Bath.  The folly took the form of a turreted and castellated screen, unadorned at the back and intended only to be viewed from the city. By the end of the eighteenth century the folly had become known as the ‘Sham Castle’, and it has attracted the gaze of artists ever since it was built.

In 1755 the architect Sanderson Miller, known for fashionable landscape ornaments, was mooted as the ideal candidate to design Allen’s proposed ‘considerable Gothic Object’. However the folly was claimed as his own by Allen’s Clerk of Works, Richard Jones. In an account of his life Jones, wrote ‘in 1762 began the Castle in the warren, and was built in a quarter of a year to my plan’. To further complicate matters, the folly appears on an engraved prospect of Bath published in 1757. Hence the Flâneuse settling for mid-century as a date, and hoping for further evidence to emerge in due course. What is certain is that Allen died in 1764, so he had little time to enjoy his new landscape ornament.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the folly ‘had been allowed to fall into decay’. The two end towers were crumbling and this was blamed on boys who used the castle as a ‘rendezvous for games’.

The estate was still owned by the Allen family at this date, but financial aid to save the folly came from a different source. In 1880 a local paper noted that restoration was underway thanks to help from an unnamed female benefactor. It was only on her death in 1891 that the identity of the philanthropist became widely known: Mary Downing Russell Elliott (née Scott) had quietly, and unbeknownst to even her closest friends, funded a number of civic projects over the years.

Mrs Elliott’s investment allowed the two end towers of the Sham Castle to be rebuilt and the centre towers to be restored. She also funded the restoration of the obelisk and gardens in Orange Grove, next to Bath Abbey.

The Allen family sold the ‘remaining portion’ of their Bathampton estate at auction in March 1921. This included the Sham Castle and around an acre of ground. This parcel was bought by a Mr Candy, who purchased it with the farm he had tenanted, and from the start he was clear about his intentions of selling the folly soon after. That auction of the Sham Castle was held in June 1921, and various uses for the folly were suggested: a tea garden was a tempting proposition, but one rather alarming suggestion was that an ‘asbestos back’ might be added behind the facade to ‘convert the structure into a bungalow’.

Happily (in the latter instance) there was little interest, and the castle didn’t sell, but good news was soon to follow. In July the local paper reported that ‘Bathonians must have noted with much pleasure the announcement last Thursday that the Sham Castle has been purchased by two gentlemen for presentation to the City’. Mr Candy was given due credit for selling the folly at ‘preferential terms’.

Unlike Mrs Elliott, these donors were happy for their identities to be known, and a plaque was erected acknowledging their generous gift to the city. As the inscription records, some further restoration work was carried out in this period.

The Sham Castle has continued to catch the eye of artists. Richard Guyatt chose it as his subject when commissioned by Shell to produce an image for the ‘To Visit Britain’s Landmarks’ poster series, displayed on the sides of the company’s delivery lorries in the 1930s.

And completing four centuries of views of the landmark, Christopher Gee painted this view of the folly…

… and Ed Kluz depicted the folly in a vibrant collage.

If you are in Bath before 10 May, as well as climbing up to the folly for magnificent views (it is publicly accessible – just follow Sham Castle Lane) you can see Richard Guyatt’s view of the Sham Castle in Poster Power!, an excellent exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery.

Thank you for reading. Comments, as ever, are welcome – just scroll down to the foot of the page to get in touch. 

In 1840 the foundation stone was laid for a column on the Brocklesby estate which can be found near Grimsby, in Lincolnshire. Eventually reaching a height of 130 feet, it could soon be seen from miles around. The plantations surrounding it have long since matured, and today you have to look a little harder to find what became known as Pelham’s Pillar.

Charles Anderson (1749-1823) succeeded to the Brocklesby estate of his great uncle, Charles Pelham, in 1763, and added the Pelham name to his own. Pelham, created Baron Yarborough in 1794 greatly improved the vast estate, ornamentally and productively, with advice from Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.

Building work on his monument was begun by his son, Charles Anderson Pelham (1781-1846), created 1st Earl of Yarborough in 1837, and the column commemorates the 12,532,700 trees planted by his father between 1787 and his death in 1823. Construction was completed by his son, Charles (1809-1862), 2nd Earl of Yarborough, after he succeeded in 1846.

The architect was Edward James Willson (1787-1854) of Lincoln and the builder was Mr Tomlin of Grantham (probably John Tomlin, stonemason). Work was well underway by 1844 when ‘many workmen’ were reported to be on site. By 1845 it was rising above the trees and visible from boats on the Humber. The urn was fixed on the top in autumn 1847, and by 1848 it was said to be ‘now completed’. The lions that guard the entrance were carved by William Day Keyworth (1817-1897) of Hull.

The inscription on the column gives 1849 as the official opening date and one of the first to see the new column was Prince Albert, who was staying at Brocklesby in April 1849 when on official business in Grimsby (noting Albert’s visit to Lincolnshire in her diary, Queen Victoria wrote ‘I always miss him terribly when he leaves me’).

The Prince was driven around the park, where large groups gathered hoping to catch a glimpse of the royal visitor. Elizabeth Dixon, a local farmer’s wife, watched the procession from the Newsham Lodge and then followed the Prince to the pillar where she had ‘an excellent view of the whole party’.

Even before it was complete the pillar had become not just a landmark for travellers on the roads and river, but a prominent spot for the Earl of Yarborough’s hounds to assemble before the chase.

Brocklesby was already home to other ornaments, including a garden temple, a hermitage and an exquisite mausoleum of 1787. In 1844 it was noted that visitors were welcomed into the park. There they could ‘wander in extensive and beautiful plantations’ and take refreshments in a woodland cottage ‘built in the Swiss style’ which stood near the rising column. In 1885 the Brocklesby estate was described in a tourist guide as a ‘place of holiday resort’, with the pillar and the Swiss Cottage amongst the highlights.

Unfortunately some of these tourists were not on their best behaviour, and in 1849 the estate office offered an ultimatum: if the carving of names in trees and the disfiguring of seats did not stop, then access to the park would be limited. The announcement continued that in future access to Pelham’s Pillar and the mausoleum would be by ticket only, obtainable on application to the estate office. Once access to the column had been gained, the message was reiterated on a plaque requesting that persons visiting the pillar refrain from writing or cutting their names or ‘otherwise disfigure the walls’.

For generations the men of the Jackson family, who lived at Pelham Pillar Lodge, were both woodsmen for the adjacent plantations and custodians of the monument. Their address was often abbreviated, making it appear that the family inhabited the column itself:

Happily the behaviour of the visitors must have improved, and the estate continued to allow access. In 1889 the Primitive Methodists met at the pillar for a bank holiday gathering, perhaps tempted along by the ‘meat tea’ that was provided. In that same year, a local cycling club visited Pelham’s Pillar and the Swiss Cottage with their ‘wives, sisters, and lady friends’. Fear not any frail female readers alarmed at this exertion: the ladies were ‘conveyed in wagonettes’.

But sadly history repeats itself: in the late twentieth century the Brocklesby estate created a popular permissive path which took in a number of the monuments, many of which had been restored. In 2021 it was announced that the route was to be permanently closed after several incidents of ‘anti-social behaviour’. Pelham’s Pillar too is out of bounds, but it can be glimpsed through trees (in winter)  from the adjoining road.

The Flâneuse climbed the tower many years ago when public access was allowed, but has no decent photographs, so thanks to the Garden Historian for the photo of the lions, and to Mike Booth of M.A.B. Media for the title image and the view above. His excellent film showing the detail of the architecture and the landscape setting of the column is well worth a look and can be found by clicking here.

Thanks for reading. Your thoughts are very welcome and you can get in touch via the comments box at the foot of the page. If you would like a complimentary folly story in your inbox each Saturday morning please click the ‘subscribe’ tab. 

In 1836 General Loft, a committed church-crawler, visited Fotherby, near Louth in Lincolnshire, and found the ancient fabric of the church of St Mary’s ‘now terribly mutilated’. In the later 1850s a major rebuild was proposed, and the Bishop of Lincoln threw his weight behind the appeal with a donation of £20. James Robson, tenant and later owner of Brackenborough Hall, an attractive moated Georgian house about a mile from the church, was also a donor. As work got underway, he salvaged some of the stone from the old church and used it to build a sham ruin on a mound in the corner of his garden.

James Fowler of Louth was chosen as architect for the new church at Fotherby, and with funds in place it was agreed that work could begin in 1861. The crumbling old church was pulled down and, after a period of worshipping in nearby barns and meeting rooms, the congregation assembled in the new church in May 1863. Fowler was congratulated on the ‘imposing appearance of the edifice’.

At Brackenborough the folly was built on a mound in the corner of the moated enclosure that surrounds the garden. It was probably built contemporaneously with the new church at Fotherby, in the first years of the 1860s, but no records seem to survive to confirm an exact date. Robson (1820-1899) was a churchwarden and contributed to the cost of the new church, but no records of him acquiring the stone have yet been found. The folly no doubt functioned as a belvedere, summerhouse and eye-catcher, and in what was described in 1887 as ‘fine hunting country’ it may also have been a landmark for the hunt. When first built the south elevation was higher than the other sides and incorporated further recycled masonry, as seen in this 1907 view. No architect is associated with the folly: Fowler may have given advice, or it may have been Robson’s own design.

Brackenborough stands in an elevated position (relatively, in the flatlands of Lincolnshire), and before the plantations matured the view from the folly would have taken in local churches: there is still a vista to the elegant parish church of St James in Louth, with its spire said to be the highest of any parish church in Britain (the church was restored by Fowler in the 1760s).

Robson was declared bankrupt in 1887, after a collapse in the prices of agricultural produce, and the estate was put up for sale. Frustratingly, the sales particulars for the auction of the estate that year make no mention of the folly, although it was certainly extant a year later when the 25″ Ordnance Survey map was surveyed (published 1889) and the square tower is shown on its mound. The earliest written description found to date is in the sales particulars when the estate was again put up for auction in 1907. The folly was then noted as a ‘picturesque keep erected from stones from an old Ecclesiastical house’ (with house used in the sense of a church, or house of god). The estate was purchased by Frederick W. Bennett, whose family remain at Brackenborough today.

In the first edition of the Buildings of England: Lincolnshire, published in 1964, John Harris described the garden ornament as a ‘felicitous folly concocted from the remains of Fotherby church’ (for the Lincolnshire volume Nikolaus Pevsner concentrated mainly on churches and left secular buildings to Harris). Harris identified the fragments incorporated into the little tower as a thirteenth century arch, a three light Perpendicular window and a Decorated window ‘all built into a rugged ruin’. Photographs taken by Harris in 1959 during his research (Historic England collection) are similar to that shown above, and show that the south elevation was largely intact at that date.

The folly was ‘toppling precariously’ by the time Barbara Jones saw it in around 1970. The building was listed at grade II in 1986, by which time the upper section of the south elevation must have collapsed and it is not mentioned in the description. For years afterwards the folly was smothered in ivy and brambles and a large sycamore had taken root within the structure: it had become what Jones called a ‘ruinous sham ruin’ (Follies & Grottoes, 1974).

In 2015 Paul and Flora Bennett commissioned a structural survey from Capstone Consulting Engineers which concluded that the options were to repair and consolidate the folly as a ruin, or to repair and restore the folly creating a more ‘robust structure’. In 2020, after discussions at local and national levels, the Bennetts were given listed building consent to dismantle and reconstruct the badly listing folly under the supervision of Historic Building Consultant Liz Mayle.

The folly was dismantled, the stones numbered, and the folly rebuilt on secure foundations with new oak lintels and steel ties to support the structure. Flora even trawled the moat in search of stones that had toppled from the folly. In 2023 the restoration was recognised by a Pride of Place award from Louth Civic Trust.

Brackenborough Hall is a private residence, but the folly can be seen from a public footpath through the park. Or you could celebrate your wedding there, with the folly as a backdrop to your photographs, or stay in one of the holiday lets on the estate (which include an apartment featuring both the workings of the Coach House clock and a grain winch). To find out more visit brackenboroughhall.com.

Thanks to Steffie S. for alerting the Flâneuse to the restored folly, and to Paul, Flora and Poppy the exuberant labrador for a tour and a welcome coffee on a frosty morning.

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Hubert Walter Wandesford Fenwick, architect turned architectural historian and writer, was a regular contributor to The Scots Magazine, a monthly publication that claims to be the oldest magazine in Britain still in publication, having been launched in 1739. In 1965 Fenwick wrote an article about ‘Features and Follies’, in Scotland, illustrated with his own very attractive colour sketches.

Fenwick (1916-2003) starts, as so many writers on architectural curiosities do, with the thorny question of how to define a folly. He quotes the Universal English Dictionary which states that a folly is a ‘useless, fantastic structure, built from foolish caprice’, but he does not think it is an accurate description. He then launches into an analogy which the Flâneuse rather likes: ‘… after all, most oil paintings are useless, unless they happen to cover a gap or a dirty mark on the wall. Most paintings are fantastic, some even foolish, but they, nevertheless, tend to make life more interesting and civilised, and they express an aspect of the human spirit.’ It is, he concludes, the same with a good folly. He is however strict about his classifications of what is a folly and what is a feature.

McCaig’s tower at Oban, for instance, is a feature, not a folly, as it was originally intended as an ’eminently practical’ museum. According to Fenwick’s rules, the Wallace Monument at Stirling is a commemorative tower, not a folly.

The buildings that do qualify as folly in Fenwick’s opinion are a particularly lovely bunch, and amongst his selection are The Whim at Blair which he describes as a ‘dummy fort’, the sham ruin on Balcarres Crag in Fife, the tower on Kinnoul Hill in Perth which was built to show that the Tay was the equal of the Rhine, Ossian’s Temple (aka the Hermitage) at Dunkeld, the Craigiehall Temple and Hume Castle which is a ‘magnificent fake’. The Pineapple at Dunmore is included for its ‘extremely clever and imaginative design’.

Fenwick wrote the piece in response to a book about follies which he had recently read. He felt cheated as it contained ‘less than a dozen Scottish examples’ (actually there are exactly twelve), and only two that ‘could legitimately be so designated’. He failed to name the book, but he does give the clue that it was produced by a ‘petrol firm’, so we can be sure it was Follies, written by Ella Hatt, beautifully illustrated by Paul Sharp, and published by National Benzole in 1963 (there’s more about that book here.) In case you are wondering, the two true follies that Fenwick approved of in the book were the sham on Balcarres Crag and the Hermitage at Dunkeld.

You can read more about the history of the Scots Magazine here.

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The tower on Leith Hill was erected in the 1760s by Richard Hull. The hillside wasn’t actually his property, but his home was nearby and he leased the plot from the landowners, the Evelyn family of nearby Wotton. It became a popular attraction and in 1790 it was said that the view from the tower was ‘esteemed equal, if not superior, to any in the kingdom’. Hull was so fond of his tower that he designated it as his mausoleum.

From the very start Hull, who lived at Leith Hill Place, intended the tower to be a public amenity to be enjoyed by ramblers and day-trippers. A plaque was placed above the entrance and, in summary, the Latin inscription recorded that the tower was built for the prospect, which Hull wished to be enjoyed by all.

Hull died in 1772 leaving an extraordinarily detailed will in which he gave some ‘further direction’ for his executors, setting out how he wished to be laid to rest. He desired to be buried in a very private ceremony, with only his servants present, ‘in a Grave made for me under my Tower on Leith Hill’. A plaque recorded his death as having taken place on 18 January 1772 and stated that he had purchased ‘Leith-hill Place’ for his retirement where he lived as a ‘true Christian and rural Philosopher’.

Soon after Hull’s death the tower was allowed to decay and, ‘accelerated by the hands of the mischievious’, the interior was stripped leaving the tower a shell. In 1788 the antiquarian and traveller William Bray told an audience how sorry he was to find that the tower was ‘already become a ruin’. Although the plaque on the tower gives a date of 1766, it has clearly been recut at some point (the stone has eroded but it appears to give the date of construction in a bizarre combination of Roman and Arabic numerals as MDCC66), and Bray gives the more likely date of 1763, which is corroborated by title deeds which mention the tower in 1765.

In the last years of the eighteenth century William Perrin of Tanhurst, who then owned Leith Hill Place, had the exterior of the tower ‘thoroughly repaired’. To stop further vandalism the lower room was filled with ‘lime and rubbish’, and the entrance walled up. He also raised the height of the tower to make it ‘still more conspicuous as a sea-mark’.

In 1864 William John Evelyn of Wotton added a staircase turret to the tower so that the views from the top could once more be enjoyed by what Barbara Jones called ‘county counters’. She didn’t specify just which shires are allegedly visible from the rooftop, but in 1899 it was suggested that ‘visitors with a glass’ could see twelve counties and a circuit of 200 miles.

In the later years of the ninetenth century tourists could also enjoy teas and ginger beer provided Mrs Skilton, the custodian of the tower. After 30 years in that post, aged 72, her sight was apparently so good that she could see the dome of St Paul’s, ships in the English Channel and Windsor Castle without a telescope. She also claimed that forty churches were visible from the top of the tower. There are countless picture postcards of the tower showing the many visitors who climbed the hill, but sadly no photographs have been found showing the kangaroos that Evelyn ‘set loose’ on Leith Hill, although they apparently ‘flourished for years till gradually exterminated by ruthless individuals’.

The tower also inspired the artist Samuel Palmer (1805-1881), who could see it from his studio. He used it as a model in a number of works, including this watercolour of the ‘high lonely tower’ in Milton’s Il Penseroso

In 1922 the tower was offered for sale, and there were fears that public access would be lost. In March 1923 it was announced that ‘all lovers of rural Surrey’ would rejoice to learn that the tower, and five acres of land around it, were to be given to the National Trust, thanks to the generosity of Reigate businessman W. J. MacAndrew. The tower was restored in 1984 when workmen uncovered Hull’s tomb during the works.

Follies have appeared on stamps, stamp-books and coins, but this is the first example the Flâneuse has found of a folly on a sugar cube wrapper. At date unknown Tate+Lyle featured Leith Hill Tower on a wrapper which celebrated Surrey as the home of the Magna Carta. How many people idly stirred two lumps into their coffee without even noticing the handsome folly on the wrapper?

The tower can be climbed on certain days in the summer season, taking visitors to the highest point in the county, and there is always access to the hillside to appreciate the exterior. As early postcards show, it was a stiff climb up to the tower, but today a car park on the slope of the hill allows a gentler ascent. The wider site remains part of the Evelyn’s Wotton Estate, and public access is managed by Surrey County Council. A cafe operates from a hatch at the foot of the tower serving light refreshments (alas, no sugar cubes with a view of the tower). Leith Hill Place is also in the care of the National Trust and can be visited in the summer season. There’s more access information here.

Thank you for reading. As ever your thoughts are very welcome, as are any further examples of follies on sugar cube wrappers. Scroll down to find the comments box at the foot of the page.

In 1938 readers of the Surrey Advertiser were baffled by an announcement that the Earl of Inchcape was seeking permission to build a ‘Martello Tower’ on his Chinthurst Hill estate. Following up on a notice published the previous week, the paper felt the need to explain to its readers what a Martello Tower was. The article described the purpose of the defensive towers that had appeared during the Napoleonic wars, and the writer then concluded that ‘it seems improbable that Lord Inchcape’s proposed tower will be exactly similar to the coastal originals’.

Kenneth Mackay, 2nd Earl of Inchcape (1887-1939) was a barrister by training, and chaired many companies including the Westminster Bank and the P&O shipping company, as featured in this cartoon from Punch in 1927:

In 1937 he bought the Chinthurst Hill Estate, with a house designed by Edwin Lutyens in the 1890s and a Gertrude Jekyll garden. The selling agent described the estate as sitting in ‘probably the finest position in Surrey’. Inchcape intended it as his retirement home – he also had a London property in Grosvenor Square and the Glenapp Castle estate in Scotland.

Lord Inchcape’s proposal to build his tower was reported in the last days of February 1938, and work was quickly underway. The Surrey Archaeological Society was kept informed of discoveries of flints and other discoveries made as the building of the ‘Martello Tower’ got underway.

Lord Inchcape died suddenly in 1939, aged only 51, so he didn’t have much time to enjoy his new tower. Very few accounts of its early history can be found, but in one of the accounts of Lord Inchcape’s death it is described as ‘commanding views of some of Surrey’s prettiest scenery’. An article in the Daily Express was more sinister in tone, noting that the gardens featured ‘bomb-proof’ shelters and that the tower was ‘gas-proof’ with blinds that ‘close tightly at the touch of a button’. This report suggests that Inchcape’s ‘Martello Tower’, with war looming, was indeed defensive, but this information is not repeated elsewhere, and attempts to discover more, including the name of the architect, have drawn a complete blank.

The Chinthurst Hill Estate left Inchcape family ownership in the early 1950s, with the tower then described as a ‘lookout’. In 1961 some outlying parts of the estate were offered for sale by auction in twelve lots, and there were fears that Chinthurst Hill would fall into the hands of developers. Surrey County Council, with strong local support, bought sixteen acres of the hillside as a public amenity, and the purchase included the ‘stone tower known as THE FOLLY’ which gave ‘panoramic views’. The three-storey tower was described as being in a ‘neglected condition’ and in 1964 funds were allocated to restore the tower and create a car park.

Sadly the restored tower, seen above, remained a target for vandals and quickly deteriorated. In 1986 the tower was given a grade II listing by English Heritage: at that date it was roofless and the windows were boarded up. Sadly this is how it remains today.

The tower is however still a fascinating feature at the end of an invigorating uphill hike, or a ramble on a gentler circular stroll. When the Flâneuse visited very recently the walk was cushioned by a carpet of sweet chestnut husks, and it wasn’t just the tower that glowed in the sun.

Public access to Chinthurst Hill is managed by Surrey County Council and the conservation of the woodland by Surrey Wildlife Trust. There’s more information on parking and walks here.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts, as ever, are most welcome. The comments box can be found at the foot of the page.