On a promontory overlooking the harbour at Boscastle stands a squat white building bedecked with flags and antennas. It started life in the middle of the 18th century when it was erected as a summerhouse and eye-catcher by Cotton Amy, whose Botreaux Castle estate included the harbour and lands around it. In 1821 the land was purchased by Thomas Rickard Avery, a local merchant and, depending on who you believe, a ‘notorious wrecker’.

In 1764 a passing tourist noted the ‘summerhouse’ that Mr Amy had built as a ‘landmark’, but we know little more about its early history other than that it was named as ‘Pleasure House’ on the 1813 1st series Ordnance Survey map. The harbour it overlooks was originally known as Botreaux Castle Quay, but Botreaux Castle was soon shortened to Boscastle, as the village is known today.

The summerhouse’s story becomes more lively after its purchase by Avery (1785-1858). He was a Cornish boy and a major employer in the area — on his death in 1858 it was said that a ‘great number of people’ would lose their income as ‘Mr Avery carried on an extensive business’. Avery was also a Deputy Lieutenant of Cornwall, a Magistrate and a Land Tax Commissioner, as well as chairing local business forums.

But this pillar of the community was alleged to have a much darker side: his Summer House (as it was named on the 1842 tithe map) was apparently a base for smuggling, gambling, drinking and womanising, and Avery was said to spend the evenings walking the cliffs looking for wrecks.

Although much of this history was recorded long after Avery’s death, there is a contemporary account. Avery died on 20 December 1858 and Reverend Stephen Hawker, the vicar of Morwenstow, recorded in his diary a few days later that there were violent storms in the days following Avery’s death, and the locals associated this phenomena with the death of the ‘notorious wrecker’. It should be said that Avery was not accused of deliberately luring ships onto the rocks, rather his ‘crime’ was to profit from being first on the scene to salvage the wrecked ships.

In Avery’s defence, in 1843 the former Master of the barque ‘Sedulous’ wrote to the local paper to thank the coast-guard stations at Bude and Boscastle for coming to the rescue of his stricken ship. He was ‘particularly indebted’ to Mr Avery for his ‘able superintendence’ of the situation. So was Avery the model citizen, or did he have his eye on the prize? We shall probably never know the whole story, but many years after Avery’s death the little tower played its part in avoiding further wrecks when the coastguard began to use the tower as a lookout.

This use continued until the 1970s, and the tower then stood empty until 2002 when the volunteer National Coastwatch Institution moved in. Read more about their excellent work here

The Boscastle Estate was sold by Avery’s heir in the 1880s, and in 1956 Boscastle Harbour and 146 acres of land, including the summerhouse, passed into the care of the National Trust

There are clifftop walks to the Lookout from the lovely little harbour at Boscastle.

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Cotehele stands just on the Cornwall side of the river Tamar that forms the boundary with Devon. The estate was the ancient seat of the Edgcumbes, but by the 18th century it was a secondary residence, with the family preferring nearby Mount Edgcumbe, overlooking Plymouth Sound. On high ground above the house at Cotehele stands this solitary three-sided tower, of which little seems to be known. No inscriptions give even a hint of its history.

To be precise, little seems to be factually known, for there are plenty of tales and taradiddles about the tower. All that Historic England has to say about the grade II* listed building is that it is ‘probably late 18th century’, which seems about right, but does rather destroy the first oft-told tale in which the ‘family watched the Armada sail up the channel’ from the top of the tower in 1588.

Rena Gardiner’s utterly charming guidebook to Cotehele, first published by the National Trust in 1973, describes the ‘Prospect Tower’ as looking like a church tower from a distance whereas, she continues, it is ‘nothing more than a folly’. Nothing more than a folly??? This casual comment can be forgiven when one sees her distinctive and delightful illustrations – she was clearly a fan of the landmark. Gardiner’s text describes another alleged function of the tower: that it was used to signal between Cotehele and Maker church on the Mount Edgcumbe estate (which is feasible – the two towers have sight of each other).

Elsewhere one will read that the tower was built to celebrate the visit of King George III in the summer of 1789, and Admiral Viscount George Edgcumbe’s (1720-1795) elevation to the earldom of Mount Edgcumbe only days earlier. This too seems perfectly possible, although it is curious that such occasions were not marked with a plaque. King George and Queen Charlotte dined at Mount Edgcumbe in August 1789, the dinner being ‘all that sumptuality and elegance united could produce’. The royal party were taken on a tour of the grounds and up to the Heights of Maker. Although a vast panorama of Plymouth dominates the view, the tower at Cotehele would also have been visible. The King and Queen did not just admire the view, they ‘beheld it in raptures‘, but there is no mention of the tower to confirm its presence. Queen Charlotte mentions their subsequent visit to ‘Cotehill’ in her diary, but sadly only describes the ancient house.

One of the earliest known views dates from 1814 when J.M.W. Turner included it in a sketch of Cotehele. Guidebooks throughout the 19th century refer to the tower (which doesn’t seem to have a name) and the ‘most extensive and finely varied view’ which could be obtained from the top. It is simply ‘tower’ on early Ordnance Survey maps, but is known today as the Prospect Tower.

Cotehele was the first property to be accepted in lieu of death duties by the newly-created National Land Fund in 1947, and was passed to the National Trust. The tower is just one of the many attractions of the Cotehele estate.

Another of Rena Gardiner’s exquisite books, Portrait of Dorset, has recently been republished by Design for Today. Only 30 copies were painstakingly handprinted by Gardiner in 1960, and Joe Pearson of Design for Today has now produced a collector’s edition. The book features two perfect portraits of follies: Clavell Tower and Creech Grange Arch (below). Read more here https://www.designfortoday.co.uk/shop/nvvw0vvaq6n1fqdmwrwarz7cq2yeoo

The tower’s internal steps were missing when the property passed to the National Trust, but a new wooden staircase was installed so you can climb up and enjoy the view for yourself. There’s more on Cothele here https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/cornwall/cotehele

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The Folly Flâneuse was recently introduced to a fascinating periodical called The Heaton Review. It was produced in Bradford from 1927-1934 and featured a miscellany of words and pictures: the 1934 edition included, amongst much more, writing by G.K. Chesterton, Kenneth Grahame and Dorothy Una Ratcliffe and illustrations by Jacob Kramer and Richard Eurich.

As is so often the case with vintage magazines, the advertisements are as interesting as the articles. With the new year imminent, the flâneuse spotted a page which suggested an excellent plan for 2023:The Folly Flâneuse wishes you good health, drowsy comfort and an occasional fancy cake in 2023. She herself will continue to climb as many hill tops, preferably ones topped with follies, as she possibly can.

Pictured here is the late 18th century Prospect Tower at Cotehele, in Cornwall, the object of a hill top climb in November 2022.

Thank you for reading. The Folly Flâneuse will be back in action next week. 

In the early years of the 18th century Sir James Tillie updated his will and included a rather mysterious instruction about his last resting place. He was to be interred ‘in such a place at Pentillie Castle as I have acquainted my dearest Wife the Lady Elizabeth Tillie with.’

Shortly before his death Sir James (1645-1713) added a codicil to his will (it is not attached to the proven will in the National Archives, but is with the copy in Cornwall Record Office). He stated that he wished to be placed in a ‘Timber oake Chaire’, lined with crepe or flannel, in which he could ‘sit exactly fit Tight and Close’. He was then to be placed in a room in Pentillie Castle until a ‘Repository’ could be built to house his remains. He specified two spots on the estate: ‘Either on that Eminence called Mount Arraret or Pisgah’, with the former (nothing is known of the latter), a ‘finely wooded hill’, being chosen by his widow. Lady Tillie had also been instructed by her husband to erect a monument and inscription.

The earliest account to discuss the burial seems to be a manuscript history by the Cornish antiquarian William Hals, written sometime before 1737 and published posthumously in parts from 1750. Hals painted Tillie as a rogue and an atheist, and claimed to have it on very good authority that Tillie was buried in a seated position, finely dressed, and with his papers and pen set out before him, all encased in a wooden box or coffin. From Hals also came the story that Sir James was so sure of resurrection that he claimed he would be back at the castle within 2 years, and before long the story was also circulating that Tillie had instructed his servants to continue to bring meals to him after his death. All of this seems to be embellishment, and there is no mention of grand vestments, writing materials or daily dinners in Tillie’s comprehensive codicil.

William Gilpin, clergyman and promoter of the picturesque, perpetuated the story told by Hals in his Observations on the Western Parts of England, published in 1798. Gilpin’s text was then repeated, often verbatim, in a number of other publications in the next decades.

In fact Tillie’s burial was really only unconventional in that he was interred ‘by making an Arm’d chair and closeing up his body in it’, as a visitor in 1764 was told, rather than in the more usual prone position in a casket (although it was also still quite rare to build a mausoleum on a private estate rather than in the consecrated ground of a churchyard).

In 1810 the landscape gardener Humphry Repton created one of his famed Red Books for Pentillie. In it he proposed that the ‘small building’ on Mount Ararat be remodelled so that it might be appear to be an ‘isolated Tower of a ruined Castle’. Repton expert John Phibbs has suggested that the battlemented upper storey and the walled terrace were added at this date. This idea is backed up by earlier watercolours, which appear to show the mausoleum as a simple square tower.

The whole ensemble is shown in an engraving dated 1823:

For many years the mausoleum was in a neglected condition. The doorway was blocked up and only glimpses of the rather decayed and bramble-bound statue of Sir James were possible.

In 2013 a restoration was begun with the Pentillie Estate (seat of the Coryton family) receiving funding from Natural England and the Country Houses Foundation. As part of the project the Jessop Consultancy was commissioned to investigate the mausoleum, alongside Building Surveyor Richard Glover. Few records for the building of the mausoleum seem to have survived, although the (not always reliable) Cornish historian Sabine Baring-Gould wrote in his Cornish Characters & Strange Events that accounts for the construction survived, dated after Sir James had died and thus proving that the building was erected after his death. The site investigation however led the team to conclude that the mausoleum was a remodelling of an earlier tower or summerhouse.

Within the vault human remains were discovered along with pieces of wood with metal studs that spelled out Tillie’s initials and date of death. Enough remained of the decaying coffin for the specialists to confirm that he was indeed ‘placed in a wooden box […] but with a raised back section to imitate a chair’. Sir James’s remains were not disturbed, and the vault was resealed, but his statue was sent away for specialist restoration and then returned to the mausoleum, from where he continues to survey his domain.

Thanks to the team at Pentillie for welcoming the Folly Flâneuse and for the loan of the canine companions who guided us up the Lime Walk to the grade II* listed mausoleum.

Pentillie is now an events venue and there are holiday properties in the grounds. There are seasonal garden open days – check the website for 2023 dates in due course https://www.pentillie.co.uk

For more on Tillie see Stephen Tyrell Sir James Tillie: his Life, Houses and Eccentric Burial, Pasticcio (2016).

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Overlooking the sea at Bude, in Cornwall, stands an elegant little tower. It was first built in the 1830s, but after being battered by the elements it was rebuilt a little inland fifty years later. The erosion of the cliffs on which it stands means that the Storm Tower is again under threat, and it must once more be dismantled and moved to safety.

In the first decades of the 19th century Bude was developed as a resort, thanks largely to investment by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Bart (1787-1871) of Killerton, who owned much of the land in the area. His favoured architect was George Wightwick (1802-1872), who would design a number of new buildings in the town, and by 1836 Bude was able to style itself the ‘fashionable Watering Place of the West’.

In 1835, when he was working on a new church at Bude Haven, Wightwick was asked to draw up plans for a more modest structure. The Storm Tower, known locally as the Pepperpot, was intended to fulfil three purposes. The principal of these was shipping safety, as vessels were all too frequently wrecked or endangered close to Bude. The tower provided a base for the coastguard, with one window directly aligned on the nearby Coastguard Station, and it also acted as a landmark for ships: when vessels were in danger, a flag was hoisted and tar barrels were set alight as a warning signal.

The tower also offered a haven to anyone caught in bad weather on the clifftop, and was a picturesque ornament to the coastal walks in the developing resort.

As is acknowledged on the design above, Wightwick drew his inspiration from the Tower of the Winds in Athens, and the octagonal tower had the eight principal points of the compass engraved into the appropriate faces. The cliff on which it stands was already known as Compass Point, which presumably inspired the architect’s design.

By 1881 the tower had to be ‘demolished in consequence of its dangerous condition’: frosts had caused the cliff to crumble and there were cracks in the tower. Sir Thomas came to the rescue and paid to have the tower rebuilt ‘on a spot as near as circumstances will permit to the original site’.

At this stage the tower ceased to be precisely orientated to the points of the compass, but instead it was positioned to maintain the important sightline to the Coastguard Station.

The Storm Tower became a well-known landmark, and even featured in fiction. The now largely forgotten novelist George MacDonald holidayed in Cornwall, and inspired by the dramatic coast he set his 1868 novel The Seaboard Parish (first serialised in the Sunday Magazine) in Bude. The Storm Tower is accurately described as ‘a small building standing square to the points of the compass, with little windows from which the coastguard could see along the coast’. In 1890 the tower appeared in a story by H. Fell in All the Year Round, the weekly journal ‘conducted’ by Charles Dickens. In the melodramatic His Little Maid, Olive, our young heroine (‘a fine lady’), gazes into the eyes of her lover (predictably, a ‘rough sailor chap’) as a storm obligingly rages around the tower.

In 2021 local newspapers reported that the Storm Tower was in grave danger, and that it was ‘to be moved inland before it vanishes into the sea’.

Funding was secured from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the local councils, but the strength of local pride in the tower is most apparent in the success of a crowdfunding campaign which raised around £60,000 in 56 days. Work to move the tower was scheduled to begin in March 2022, with Historic England and Historic Environment Planning satisfied with the proposals outlined in the planning application for ‘listed building consent to dismantle, relocate and rebuild a grade II listed structure’. Natural England, however, has asked for further information as, in their words, it is not currently ‘possible to ascertain that the proposal will not result in adverse effects on the integrity of the site in question’. Permission for work to begin can not be granted until Natural England are satisfied so, regretfully, Bude-Stratton Town Council has announced that work will be delayed until March 2023.

Update summer 2023: work has begun to move the tower. You can see a film of the start of the ongoing work here https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2023-05-09/historic-storm-tower-to-be-moved-brick-by-brick-to-stop-it-collapsing-into-sea

Update October 2024. The Flâneuse was delighted to return to lovely Bude and see the completed tower. The inscriptions have been restored and the pebble pavement around the tower replicated. A fabulous rebuilding project and congratulations to all involved.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts are always welcome: please scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page to get in touch.

The fact that a building in the Albano hills above Rome has been known since the 18th century as the ‘so called’ mausoleum of the Horatii and Curiatii speaks volumes: it was in fact constructed on the Appian Way centuries after the legendary rival Horatii and Curiatii triplets are said to have battled for their pride and people. But the legend and the sham sepulchre must have made an impression: back home in England it inspired at least three monuments in landscape gardens.

To quickly summarise the story told by the Roman historian Livy: the Horatii (from Rome) and Curiatti (from Alba Longa) families each had triplets. With their respective cities at war it was decided that rather than lose whole armies, the two sets of boys would instead settle the two communities differences with a fight to the death. Rome were the victors, with only one brother surviving the battle. It’s not clear when this monument became associated with the triplets, but the legend was certainly told to the many Grand Tourists who passed along the Appian Way in the 18th century. The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos saw it in the early 19th century and noted that there ‘seems great reason to doubt it being rightly called’, but felt that nonetheless it had an ‘imposing air’.

These visitors brought home sketches, watercolours (professional and amateur) and engravings which circulated amongst their friends and family on their return.

Three people in particular took notice: Sir William Morice at Werrington in Cornwall, Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt at Stoke Park near Bristol, and William Aislabie at Studley in Yorkshire. Each of these men built structures on their estates that took inspiration from the monument, and contemporary visitors recognised the tomb of the Horatii and Curiatti as the source of the design.

The earliest ‘copy’ of the monument was that at Werrington Park, near Launceston in Cornwall. It was probably built after Sir William Morice of Werrington returned from his Grand Tour, which had included a stay in Rome, in 1730. It is shown in this undated portrait of Morice, but as he died in 1750 it was clearly extant at that date. The itinerant Bishop Pococke confirmed that it was based on the monument in Rome: he described it as a ‘model of what is called the Tomb of the Horatii’, although he gives no further information. The forward-thinking Victorians were less-impressed with such ‘pseudo-antiquities of the type of which the 18th century was fond’, but after this dismissal Sir Alfred Robbins’s history of the Launceston area does at least confirm that by 1888 the building was known as the ‘Sugar Loaves’ on account of the three conical pinnacles. When Barbara Jones saw it in the middle of the 20th century it was still in pretty good condition, but what was once both eye-catcher and viewpoint is now lost in undergrowth, and little survives today.

Dating the version of the tomb at Studley Royal in North Yorkshire, is more problematic, and The Folly Flâneuse is grateful to National Trust archaeologist Mark Newman for his help in assessing the available information. John Aislabie (1670-1742), and his son William (c1700-1781) both ornamented the landscape at Studley, but there are no accounts relating to the monument to confirm which man was the builder. A visitor in the late 1750s is the first to mention the monument, and notes that it was based on a plate in Montfaucon’s L’antiquité expliquée, which had been published in 1719 (with an English translation appearing in 1722). That has been taken to suggest that the building was a recent addition and therefore William was the builder. But Mark Newman believes that stylistically the Roman Monument, as it was called, belongs to the earlier period when John was laying out the landscape. Research continues…

It is however certain that the inspiration was ‘the remains of the Monument erected to the memory of the Horatii’, although the Aislabie version was known simply as the ‘Roman Monument’. Being a pragmatic Yorkshireman, Aislabie (senior or junior) built the base as a summerhouse for refreshments and for admiring the view to his Octagon Temple across the valley. The 5 rooftop pinnacles survived until at least the middle of the 19th century, but there is no trace of them on site today, and without them the little building has lost its meaning and impact.

In the first years of the 1760s Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt, who had been in Rome in the 1730s, erected a version of the monument at Stoke Park, near Bristol. The design was drawn up by his polymath friend Thomas Wright. This too was recognised by Bishop Pococke: he visited in 1764 and saw a ‘model of the Monument of the Horati, at Albano’. Pococke’s description of an arched building with four pediments and a frieze topped with four obelisks sounds considerably more elaborate than the original, probably because it also functioned as an eye-catcher from the mansion.

The building was already a ruin a century ago, before collapsing completely, and until recently was largely forgotten. Bristol City Council, current owner of the park, hopes to fully restore the building when funds allow, and some work has been completed. But for now one needs to use one’s imagination.

P.S. The Folly Flâneuse has been indulging in a little armchair travel this week. In her mind she has been transported to Brussels, where an exhibition on Belgian Follies has just opened. Featuring architectural drawings, plans of landscape parks, watercolours, engravings, and photographs, the show encourages the visitor to escape for a moment from the ‘turpitudes of the world’ and immerse oneself in follies. The Folly Flâneuse was happy to oblige, albeit virtually, and thanks to curator Michel Mathy can give a sneak preview here.

Of the many works in the exhibition, this view of the picturesque Vignou Tower in the grounds of the château d’Attre, in the Belgian province of Hainaut, really appealed. It was beautifully painted by Marie-Thérèse du Toict, whose family seat the château was in the early 19th century. Two further views of the estate by Marie-Thérèse are also in the show, as are this 18th century design for a garden pavilion and photograph of a charming Chinoiserie kiosk:

If you are lucky enough to be able to visit, please report back. If not, you can read more about the exhibition, and watch a folly-filled film (in French, with Flemish subtitles, but visually lovely even if you don’t know the languages) here https://civa.brussels/fr/expos-events/belgian-follies

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