Sir Richard Worsley inherited his father’s baronetcy, and the Appuldurcombe estate on the Isle of Wight, in 1768. The following year set off on the Grand Tour, and on his return in 1770 he turned his attention to remodelling the house and park. In the next few years he erected two eye-catchers to be seen from the mansion: an obelisk and a dramatic hilltop sham ruin called Cook’s Castle.
country house
Blaise Castle, Bristol.
In the first half of the 1760s Thomas Farr, a Bristol merchant, bought land at Henbury near Bristol, which included the prominent eminence called ‘Blaize Hill’. In 1766 he commissioned designs from the architect Robert Mylne for a sham castle eye-catcher to top the hill.
Black Dick’s Temple, Whitley Beaumont, West Yorkshire
Many follies have lurid tales attached telling of wicked acts and/or ghostly goings-on and a classical temple, high on the Whitley Beaumont estate near Kirkheaton, doesn’t disappoint. It is known locally as Black Dick’s Temple, after Whitley Beaumont’s owner in the early seventeenth century, Sir Richard Beaumont. Local legends tell that Sir Richard ran up such huge debts gambling that he had to live a double-life as a highwayman. He is said to haunt the site and, of course, there are whispers of a network of secret tunnels under the building.
The Dromana Gate, Co. Waterford, Ireland
Dromana House in County Waterford enjoys wonderful views over the mighty Blackwater river, but the approach to the house crosses a tributary, the Finnisk, and there’s a surprise for anyone visiting for the first time. The road curves, and suddenly there is the most perfect of scenes: a tranquil river crossed by a bridge leading to a lodge built in a magnificent melange of the gothic and the oriental.
The bridge was originally a wooden structure, with a central drawbridge allowing boats to pass in the days when the river was navigable. Old postcards show that the bridge originally had ogee-arched railings to match the lodge, but even by 1928 the bridge was becoming worn ‘under the strain of heavy traffic’, and strengthening and safety works in the later twentieth century saw the wooden bridge and railings replaced with concrete and steel.
In the early nineteenth century Dromana was the seat of Henry Villiers Stuart (1803-1874), created 1st Baron de Decies in 1839. The tale is told that a papier-mâché arch was erected, where the lodge stands today, to welcome Stuart when he returned to Dromana with his new bride in 1826. The arch was said to have been fashioned in an indo-gothic style to help the happy couple remember their honeymoon in Brighton, where they would have seen George IV’s Royal Pavilion. Stuart and his wife were apparently so taken with the design that they decided to recreate it in a more substantial fashion.
No records can be found to corroborate this story (although such ephemeral celebratory arches were certainly in vogue in this period). In fact, the whole story of Villiers Stuart’s marriage is rather mysterious. He is said to have married Theresia Pauline Ott (c.1802-1867), a Viennese-born widow, in a Catholic ceremony in London in 1826, and a son, Henry, was born in 1827. In 1839 the marriage was solemnised in Christ Church, Marylebone, when the curate noted in the register that the couple had been ‘heretofore married in the city of Dublin according to the Ritual Ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church’, but crucially no date is given. No records of an 1826 marriage could be found after Lord de Decie’s death in 1874, making his son illegitimate, and therefore unable to inherit the title. This was a ’cause celebre‘ of the day, and the ‘exceptionally interesting peerage case’, filled the courtroom and the newspapers for some weeks in 1876.
Surprisingly few accounts of the lovely lodge can be found, but we do know it was extant by 1835 when a Scottish tourist, Robert Graham, saw a ‘remarkable bridge’ with a building with a ‘pear-shaped cupola’ at the end of it.* The ‘costly fanciful structure’ was noted by another writer in 1844, and in 1848 John Bernard Burke (of ‘Peerage’ fame) described it as ‘singularly fanciful and striking’ and ‘looking like some romantic scene in the Arabian Nights’.
The architect is thought to be Martin Day (?1797-?1860), who is known to have worked at Dromana in the correct period. Surviving drawings of the lodge by Day are dated 1849, suggesting that it was perhaps remodelled or renovated at that date. The inspiration behind the lodge remains a mystery – is the Brighton honeymoon story true (probably not – the court case suggests they went straight to Scotland after the wedding)? Had Villiers Stuart or his architect seen Oriental Scenery, the volumes of views of India produced by the Daniell brothers in 1795-1807 (above)? Were they aware of Sezincote, the Mughal palace in the Cotswolds built by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with the assistance of Thomas Daniell, for his brother Charles in the first years of the nineteenth century? Wherever the idea came from, we should be grateful it did, and that this joyful structure survives today.
The Irish Georgian Society restored the decrepit lodge in 1968, and further repairs were made in the 1990s, but the lodge is once again in need of some care. In 2023 the IGS gave a grant to support the preparation of a building report to investigate how to ‘reinstate this structure to its former glory’.
The bridge and lodge are freely accessible. The house at Dromana was reduced to a more manageable size in the twentieth century and remains the home of the Villiers Stuart family. You can read more about the history and visiting here https://dromanahouse.com
That’s the last folly (for now, at least) from the Flâneuse’s recent Irish jaunt. If all goes to plan next week’s post will go off at a tasty tangent. Thank you for reading, and as ever you can share thoughts and comments at the foot of the page.
*This information is from J.A.K. Dean’s impressive gazetteer of the gate lodges of Ireland, and in particular the volume for the province of Munster.
Ireland of the Follies
In 1972 Mariga Guinness, or Mrs Desmond Guinness as she was known in more formal times, wrote an article on follies for Ireland of the Welcomes, a publication produced by the Irish Tourist Board to promote Ireland as a holiday destination. Launched in 1952, it is still published today and describes itself as ‘the largest and longest-running Irish interest magazine in the world’. Hermione Maria-Gabrielle von Urach (1932-1989), known as Mariga, married Desmond Guinness in 1954 and they moved to Ireland the following year. Mrs Guinness loved Ireland, and threw herself into preserving the architectural heritage – she and her husband co-founded the Irish Georgian Society in 1958. The couple first rented the Georgian mansion Carton House, and later bought Leixlip Castle, both home to garden ornaments, so Mrs Guinness was well-placed to write in praise of follies.
The Pigeon Cote, Kirkleatham, North Yorkshire
In 1934 a local paper published a ‘Cleveland Ramble’ featuring a walk around Kirkleatham village. The author looked across the park to the ‘elaborate castellated pigeon-cote’ which was described as a ‘startling example’ of the extravagant ‘pseudo Gothic craze’ of the later 18th century. Only a couple of decades after this account was published the castellations were gone, and the pigeon cote was cracked and crumbling, and soon to disappear.
Leicester Tower and Obelisk, Evesham, Worcestershire
The Battle of Evesham took place on a site near the town in 1265, but it was several centuries later that two memorials to the hero of the hour, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, were erected. In 1842 Edward Rudge, a civic figure, botanist and antiquary built a tower and obelisk in the grounds of his home, and dedicated them to the battle and the earl.
Cranbrook Castle, or Raymond’s Folly, Ilford, Essex
Card posted in 1910. Courtesy of a private collection.
In 1765 Charles Raymond built a tower on his estate at Valentines in Ilford, Essex. Money was not an issue, for Raymond had grown wealthy in business, and in particular shipping, having started his career in the employ of the East India Company. The prominently-placed sham fortification was an eye-catcher that announced his status to all who passed by. It was intended as his family mausoleum, but things didn’t quite go to plan.
Hume Castle, Borders
Hume Castle stands on a prominent site, visible for miles round. Initially, this gave it great defensive strengths, but by the later 18th century the ‘considerable eminence’ was thought the perfect site for an eye-catcher. The ruins of the ancient fortification were pulled down and the stone reused to create a curiously crenellated sham castle.
The Folly, Benington Lordship, Hertfordshire
In the grounds of Benington Lordship, an early 18th century mansion near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, is a sham ruin on a grand scale. Constructed in the 1830s it combined the roles of eye-catcher, gateway, smoking room and banqueting hall in one rambling structure.