On the wooded slopes overlooking the west bank of Windermere in Cumbria (formerly Lancashire) stand the truncated remains of Sowler’s Tower. Although no great beauty today, this curious structure has an absolutely fascinating history. According to one source it was the last resting place of its builders, the Sowlers of Sawrey Knotts, with Mrs Sowler apparently spending eternity within the tower in a glass-topped coffin. The tower is indeed a mausoleum, but its residents are not the Sowlers.

Robert Scarr Sowler (1815-1871) was the son of the editor and proprietor of the Manchester Courier, a role he later inherited. He also had a career in law as a Queen’s Counsel and was active in politics in the ‘Conservative Cause’. Like many other Manchester businessmen he decided upon a house in the Lake District where he could pass ‘such leisure time as he had at command’.

In 1861 he purchased some parcels of land on Sawrey Knotts, advertised as ‘very eligible building sites’ on land ‘tastefully interspersed with Ornamental Trees’. He had a new home built which he named after the location, Sawrey Knotts. The architect was Miles Thompson (1808-1868), who had trained with the well-known Websters of Kendal, and the house was described as ‘just about being completed’ in 1863 (although the datestone gives the year 1866). Immediately behind the house a tower was erected to take advantage of the view.

Business often took Sowler away, but with his wife Frances (1813-1879) he spent part of the year at Sawrey Knotts, enjoying the lakeland scenery. On the piece of land called Sawrey Knotts Brow, the highest spot on his estate, the Sowlers built another belvedere with an even greater panorama of Windermere and the surrounding hills. A stone plaque on the higher tower, named as ‘Sowler’s Tower’ on O.S. maps, confirms the date of 1865.

As well as being a spot for admiring the view and picnicking, the tower was probably also a landmark for the hunt. In 1867 the local paper noted that ‘Reynard’ had ‘swept over Sawrey Knotts past the Giant’s tower’: to date this is the only reference found calling it by this name. In that same year, the Union Jack was flown from the ‘lower tower’ to mark the first roof timber being fitted into place at the new village church, and flags were flown from both towers on high days and holidays. Sadly, readers will have to use their imagination, for no early views of the tower can be found.

The architect of the tower is not known, but was most likely Thompson, who was working on the main house. The story is told locally that Sowler liked to look across the lake to the landmark when he arrived back at Windermere station after business had taken him away (the station hotel was designed by Thompson and may have influenced his choice of architect).

In 1978 architect and follyphiliac Neville Hawkes was taken to see the exterior of the tower by Captain Cedric Dand, of the Sawrey Knotts Hotel and Trekking Centre, as Sowler’s former home had become by 1970. Frustratingly, the Lake District’s notoriously unsettled weather meant that he didn’t take any photographs. Hawkes was told that in the tower there was a structure which housed the coffins of the Sowlers – Robert and his ‘wife Frances who predeceased him and her coffin was glass topped’.

It’s a great story, but one that doesn’t add up. Robert Sowler died first, in 1871, and was buried in St Saviour’s in Ringley, Manchester. Frances was also buried there in 1879. Frances commissioned a memorial window in her husband’s memory which was installed in St Peter’s, Sawrey in 1873 (Sowler had instigated the erection of the church in the mid-1860s). A second window commemorates Frances, and was erected by her sisters.

Captain Dand is remembered as a ‘character’: the ex-Cavalry officer made the news in 1966 when he and a Mrs Elizabeth Braithwaite (‘a businessman’s wife’) claimed to be the first to have trekked to the top of Scafell Pike on horseback. Was Dand pulling Hawkes leg with the tale that the Sowlers were buried in the tower, or did Hawkes misremember the story? Happily, there is a more accurate history of the tower: the building did indeed become a mausoleum, but not for the Sowlers and not until more than a century after the tower was first built in 1865.

Sarah Hilda Edmondson (1892-1963), whose father Robert Holt Edmondson was a major landowner in Sawrey, married Victor Whitaker (1887-1971) in 1923. The couple lived at Howe End in Far Sawrey (their neighbour Beatrix Potter presented Sarah with a copy of the newly-published Tale of Little Pig Robinson at Christmas 1930).

In 1940 the Sawrey Knotts estate was offered for sale, with the ‘well known Sowlers Tower’ and some grazing land being made available separately, and it would seem that the Whitakers bought the tower and land at that date. In 1956 plans were drawn up for what was euphemistically described as a ‘store’ at Sowler’s Tower. The plan shows that Sowler’s Tower was to be lowered to around 10 feet (3m) in height and left roofless: within this fortress of a shell the mausoleum was to be erected. According to the plan it was to be an eight foot (2.5m) square building with walls a whopping two feet (60cm) thick under a Westmorland slate roof.

When Sarah Whitaker died in February 1963, her will requested that her funeral should be carried out and her body ‘disposed of’ in accordance with her wishes, which had been communicated to her Trustees. No further information is attached to the will, but we know that Sarah was interred in the tower as Victor Whitaker’s will included the instruction that he was to be buried alongside his wife ‘in the Vault at Sawrey Knotts’. It also stipulated that his executors should ‘make provision for the upkeep of my grave and my wife’s grave’.

In a memorandum that accompanied his will, he also requested that a stone should be inserted at the vault to match ‘the existing one of Judge Sowler’s’. The simple stone was to carry the initials of he and his wife together with the dates of their death, and his notes include a sketch of how he wished it to look. He also asked that there be a ‘metal plate on outer door suitably inscribed’.

In 1978 Neville Hawkes was told that the vault was ‘in the corner’, so if the tomb designed in 1956 was erected, it must have been removed by that date. After Victor’s death in 1971 the door to the tower was blocked, and barbed wire and jagged glass was put up along the roofline, allowing no access to the interior. All we can be sure of is that Sowler’s Tower was lowered to become the strange, squat structure we see today (slate from the upper storeys scatters the hillside around the tower), and there are no memorial plaques to the Whitakers on the exterior of the building.

The family of the present owners of Sowler’s Tower added it, and the surrounding land, to their estate in 1984. The sale contract stipulated that the coffins were to ‘remain in their present positions without interference whatsoever’ in perpetuity. The Whitakers continue to requiescat in pace in their unusual mausoleum in this tranquil spot.

Sawrey Knotts and its outbuildings, including the belvedere behind the house, have been converted into a number of holiday homes and can be seen from a public footpath. There is no public access to the remains of Sowler’s Tower.

The Flâneuse is very grateful to the present owners of the tower for their help with this post.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts can be shared by scrolling down to the comments box at the foot of the page.

Driving into Kirkoswald from the south, the Flâneuse was convinced that she had discovered a charming hilltop folly. But she was wrong, and this building has a very particular purpose – it is the belfry to the church in the hollow below, and was built on higher ground so that the church bells could ring loud and clear across the district. As it was clearly also built as an ornament to the landscape, the Flâneuse concluded it was worthy of inclusion here.

Whilst detached belfries can be found in a number of locations, the one at Kirkoswald, which stands about 8 miles north of Penrith in the unitary authority of Westmorland and Furness (in the ceremonial county of Cumbria), is thought to be unique in that is stands at such a distance from the church. According to the Victoria County History, the tower was in existence by 1568, and it has been suggested that it was originally a simple timber structure. The weather vane carries the date 1743, so the pyramidal-roofed tower shown in old views may have been erected at that date.

Early descriptions give little detail on the style of the building: in 1794 the detached belfry was described simply as ‘peculiar and remarkable’, but we know that in 1814 the tower was whitewashed and a ‘very conspicuous object’, as shown below.

By 1890 the belfry was described as being ‘in a somewhat dilapidated condition’ and, as the inscription above the door notes, the tower was rebuilt in 1893 in memory of the late vicar John Henry Ransome (1877-1892). The parish raised funds of around £600 to fund the rebuilding, which was carried out by a local man, Mr A. Watson.

This must have been one of the smallest commissions in the career of the Carlisle architect C.J. Ferguson (1840-1904). Ferguson specialised in ecclesiastical buildings in Cumberland and Westmorland where he restored numerous churches, and was author of several new ones. Ferguson designed a new upper storey for the belfry, complete with a battlemented roof and corner turret, built in the vibrant pink sandstone common in the Eden Valley. The three ‘very ancient bells’ were rehung, with two first undergoing renovation work at the famous Taylor’s Bell Foundry in Loughborough (two are still in the tower and the third can now be seen in the church).

The church can be found at the end of an avenue known as the ‘church flags’. This pavement was laid by the Fetherstonhaughs of The College, the seat across the road from the church. It is just the prettiest of approaches, appreciated by visitors since the 1530s according to the notice board.

The Grade II* listed tower is easily seen from the road into the village. The church is usually open to visitors in the summer months and is full of interest.

Your observations are very welcome – scroll down to find the comments box if you have any thoughts to share. Thank you for reading.

Early in 1789 Samuel Lacy, a military man, bought Salkeld Lodge near the village of Little Salkeld and not far from a very beautiful stretch of the River Eden. In the 1830s he built a new home across the river, which he called Eden Lacy. On both banks of the river he created caves and seats, all carved out of solid rock – the lovely red sandstone so characteristic of the Eden valley.

Little is known about Lacy (1766-1847) other than that he was born in Northumberland to what must have been a family of some wealth, for he was admitted to Queens’ College Cambridge as a Fellow-Commoner in 1785. After Cambridge he joined the army, ending his career as Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Cumberland Militia.

Records don’t seem to survive to give an exact date for the creation of the caves on the bank of the river, of which there are five in total. They were described as ‘lately scooped out and formed’ in 1836 and a map of 1841 shows ‘The Grotto’ in ‘Grotto Plantation’. Across the river from the caves, and also on Lacy’s land, is another curiosity – a table, and seats all carved out of the solid rock and known in the 19th century as ‘Benson’s Chairs’. There is no explanation for this name, although the Benson family were quarrymen in the Salkeld area, and may have worked the stone for Lacy.

The only early history of the caves discovered is anecdotal: the story is told that Lacy’s former batman was a deserter who came to Lacy for refuge. Instead of turning him in Lacy is said to have set him to work hollowing out the caves. More likely (but sadly without evidence) the projects might have provided work for men from Lacy’s regiment when they returned home from war, and were unable to find employment: such ‘job-creation’ schemes led to the Druid’s Temple on the Swinton estate, and the Three Stoops at Pateley Bridge, both in North Yorkshire. In 1883 it was admitted that no-one knew for ‘what purpose’ Lacy had the rock carved in such a way, and it was concluded that it must have been to ‘satisfy a mere whim’. Although marked on maps as the ‘Grotto’, the rocky chambers soon became know as the Lacy Caves, or Lacy’s Caves, after their creator.

The chambers are made all the more mysterious by the curious markings on the stone. These are apparently an ‘intense network of highly inclined veins of secondary silica in which the sand grains are bleached’ (thanks to the Cumbria GeoConservation website for that enlightenment).

Oh to have been by the Eden in March 1847 when the Kirkoswald Choir of Singers were rowed over to sing hymns in the sublime and sonorous setting of the caves. Colonel Lacy died only two months later, but hopefully he was present to hear the performance. Lacy’s heirs, his natural daughter Caroline Sanderson and later her son Samuel Lacy William Sanderson, continued to allow access to the estate on special occasions, although trespassers were not tolerated at other times. Throughout the 19th century Lacy Caves and Benson’s Chairs were the location of many a picnic party frequented by ‘young men and women with light hearts and smiling faces’. Brass bands played and there was dancing, refreshments and boating.

Also on Lacy’s land was the ancient stone circle called Long Meg and her Daughters, a site which in Lacy’s time was believed to be the work of Druids. A tale told in an 1857 guide to the county is that Lacy planned to blow up Long Meg, but just as the blast was about to be detonated ‘the slumbering powers of Druidism rose in arms against this violation of their sanctuary’ and a violent storm broke. The labourers fled for their lives and, as the story goes, Lacy never again meddled with Meg.

What makes this story seem unlikely is that Lacy appears to have had great respect for the ancient Druids. He incorporated acorns and a sprig of mistletoe into a reworked family crest, writing that he had chosen the design ‘from my being in possession of Long Meg’.

…and in 1832 he commissioned the artist Jacob Thompson (1806-1879) to paint a work called The Druids cutting down the Mistletoe, with Long Meg and her Daughters in the background.

Today Lacy’s Caves are a popular attraction and can be visited from the riverside path on walks from Little Salkeld or Long Meg (but see below). Benson’s Chairs are on private land and there is no public access.

The Eden valley is full of treats. Even the road signs were perfectly picturesque when the Folly Flâneuse visited in May 2023. At that date the footpath to Lacy’s Caves was closed because of flood damage, and the Flâneuse was unable to visit. Two years on, she decided to see what was happening: the footpath closed signs are still up, but the footpath closure notice has long since expired. Taking advice from the folly-spotter’s greatest resource – a friendly local walking their dog – the Flâneuse set off and the footpath is fine (in dry Spring conditions, at least) and there were plenty of walkers enjoying the route.

Thank you for reading. There’s a comments box at the foot of the page – the Flâneuse is always delighted to receive your thoughts and any further information.

This unassuming little garden arbour has provided shelter for some of the greats of the 19th century – although the name of only one will be widely recognised today. It was built as a retreat in the grounds of a ‘small Gentlemans House’ called Dove Nest, which ‘stands on a sweet Wooded eminence with a fine grass Knoll in front which commanded a noble view of great lake of Windermere and the fells beyond.

In 1810 Ellen Weeton was employed at Dove Nest as governess to the Pedder family. She described her new surroundings to a friend, writing that a pretty walk led from the house to the flower garden where there was an arbour. Miss Weeton was intrigued by an inscription in pencil recording that ‘Adam Walker was delighted here, June 24th 1807’. Presumably it was the view which had caused such a stir: before the planting on the shores matured the panorama was said to take in almost the whole length of the lake.

Adam Walker (c.1731-1821), author and inventor, is largely forgotten today, and possibly wasn’t known to all even in his lifetime: under the pencilled words Miss Weeton saw a footnote to explain that he was the ‘celebrated experimental philosopher’.

Two decades later another visitor to Dove Nest caused a bit of a stir, for she was then feted as one of the best known writers of the day: Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793-1835).

Mrs Hemans, as she was known, produced a large body of work, but she is best remembered today for The Stately Homes of England and for Casabianca: the latter tells the true story of a young man who refused to leave a sinking ship during the Battle of the Nile. If Casabianca doesn’t sound familiar, you will definitely recognise the opening line: ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’. The poem is perhaps best-known today for its countless parodies, most of which are far too rude to repeat here.

In 1830 Mrs Hemans visited the Lake District to stay with fellow poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) at his home, Rydal Mount. After a fortnight there she decided to extend her stay by a few weeks and rented Dove Nest, a ‘lonely, but beautifully situated cottage’ which she had previously admired from the lake. Joined by two of her sons she enjoyed walking, exploring and boating on the lake.

Mrs Hemans described Dove Nest as having an ‘air of neglect’ which she rather liked. Nature was beginning to ‘reclaim’ the garden from art, and an ‘old-fashioned alcove’ was overgrown with ‘sweet-briar and moss rose-tree’. From the arbour there were views of ‘lovely Windermere’. Wordsworth frequently visited Dove Nest, and one evening he recited verse in the arbour. Mrs Hemans wrote that it was ‘quite a place in which to hear Mr. Wordsworth read poetry’.

Mrs Hemans had become a famous poet not just in Britain but in America too, and during her stay at Dove Nest word soon travelled that the literary lion(ess) was in town. She did her best to hide from the fans from both nations who turned up on her doorstep brandishing their autograph books, and hoping the celebrity would write a few lines (she called it ‘album persecution’). A friend of writer Harriet Martineau suggested she should just hang a bag of autographs on her door to avoid the nuisance callers, and fellow writer Charles Lamb (1775-1834) declared himself ‘no friend to Albums’. He despaired of the young ladies who turned up on his doorstep asking that he contribute to their books. He wrote a poem describing albums which begins:

‘Tis a Book kept by modern young ladies for show,
Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know.
‘Tis a medley of scraps, fine verse, & fine prose,
And some things not very like either, God knows.

Such was her fame that many years after her short stay at Dove Nest, postcards were still being issued captioned ‘Mrs Hemans’ Home’.

Dove Nest has been substantially enlarged since Mrs Hemans stayed there, and is now a smart hotel called The Samling. The garden arbour is listed at grade II.

For more on The Samling https://www.thesamlinghotel.co.uk

Eller How is a handsome villa, high above the town of Ambleside. In 1863 it was bought by the Boyle family, and soon after they added this curious prospect tower. Known as the Tower of Beauty and Friendship, thanks to a unique element of the design, it stands on a mound in the gardens.

Henry Boyle (1839-1901) was born in Staffordshire, where his family had played a prominent role in the pottery industry. Henry married Eleanor Hocking in 1862, and their extended honeymoon took in a trip to the Lakes. Enchanted by the scenery they decided to settle there.

Their new home was Eller How, a fairly recently built house which had previously been run as a school by Anne Jemima Clough (1820-1892), the great promoter of higher education for women, and the first Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge.

Henry Boyle’s interest was the natural world, and having bought more land around the house he began to extend the garden. By 1869 he had added steam-powered heating to his new ponds, allowing him to grow ‘exotic aquatics’ which were the envy of professional gardeners (to be precise they were said to be in ‘ecstasies’).

He created a grotto with coloured glass windows that was home to rare ferns, and in 1898 caused a stir locally when he acquired ‘a real life specimen of the Egyptian crocodile’. The local paper was quick to snap up the story, and reported that the creature ‘was obtained from the banks of the Nile […] where the finest and most carniverous specimens of this reptile are found’. In its native habitat, the story continued, the crocodile liked to ‘bask in the sun’. Sunbathing is not a year-round pastime in the Lake District, so it was probably for the best all round when Boyle decided it had become too big, and it was quietly disposed of.

Amongst the newly-planted trees and shrubs there were rustic bridges and winding walks, which gave the ‘impression that the garden covers a much greater space than it actually occupies.’

The spoil from digging out the lakes and ponds, and sculpting the garden, is thought to have been used to create the mound, on which sits the unique and delightful tower. This was constructed by Henry Boyle himself, and just grew whenever Boyle found himself with some time on his hands.

Boyle commemorated his guests at Eller How in a unique fashion: their names and the year of their visit were inscribed into damp cement laid on the face of bricks, which were then incorporated into the fabric of the tower. The ‘Tower of Beauty and Friendship’, as it became known, mainly recorded female visitors, and there are around 40 women’s names visible today. The Boyle’s social circle included the local gentry such as Mildred le Fleming of Rydal Hall as well as the daughters of the Vicar of Ambleside and the local magistrates.

Boyle’s daughter-in-law recalled that some of the ladies later regretted this move, as the dated stones made it impossible to lie about their age. She was presumably referring in particular to the stone marking the visit of ‘Rotha Clay’, dated 1894. Rotha Mary Clay (1878-1961) was born locally, and would later make a name for herself as a writer and historian – her works include a book on Hermits and Anchorites, published in 1914. Alongside her neatly lettered name is inscribed ‘Birthday 16’, so she must have visited in August 1894 just as she was celebrating her 16th birthday.

Two of the few men whose names feature are William Wordsworth (not the poet, but his son, or possibly grandson), and the writer and Inspector of Schools, Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) who was the son of Thomas, Headmaster of Rugby School.  The writer Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was at Eller How in 1864, and a stone was later added to the tower to commemorate her visit.

The Boyles had one son, Harry (1863-1937), and on his birthday in 1869 he planted a maple sapling in the middle of the tower. As the structure continued to rise the tree grew within it until, eventually, it spread ‘its branches above the uppermost platform of the tower, thus forming a natural green roof over the seat where one can sit and dream, unobserved, like a bird in its nest.’ Red squirrels became quite tame in the garden, and would come to the foot of the tower to be fed.

Unfortunately the Boyle family’s fortunes waxed and waned, and the house was occasionally let whilst they lived elsewhere for reasons of economy. In 1886 the ‘charming detached Villa Residence’ was advertised as available to lease at a ‘moderate’ rent. The advertisement described the ‘tastefully laid out’ grounds and the ‘Observatory’ which gave a ‘magnificent view’ of the vast expanse of Windermere.

After the death of Henry and Eleanor Eller How passed to their son Harry and his wife Clara, née Asch. Harry continued to care for the grounds until his death in 1937, his wife despairing of his ancient patched clothes, which led to visitors mistaking him for the gardener. The Boyles had no children and the house was sold after Clara’s death in 1966.

The gardens at Eller How, which also feature a rustic summerhouse, were ‘rediscovered’ as part of the Channel 4 series Lost Gardens in 1999, when the then owners, Frances and Jim Philbrook, were restoring the gardens. The current owners keep the beautiful gardens and grounds in the best of order.

Eller How is a private residence but you can see the tower from Sweden Bridge Lane: it’s a bracing uphill walk from Ambleside, but you can then turn and appreciate the magnificent panorama of town and lake that Boyle and his guests would have enjoyed from the top of the tower.

Some of the information here is taken from Clara Boyle’s book about her husband’s life, A Servant of Empire: A Memoir of Harry Boyle, published in 1938. Clara deserves her own biography: she was a Jew from close to the Polish-German border who worked to bring refugees out of Germany in the 1930s. In Britain she was active in numerous local charities, and worked to ensure folk dance traditions did not die out. As well as writing a book about her husband’s life, she also wrote German Days […] by a Polish Girl, an account of the customs and traditions of her childhood, published in 1919, and she frequently corresponded with the Editor of the Manchester Guardian.

Finally, a brief detour back to Anne Jemima Clough (also commemorated on the tower) who lived at Eller How before the Boyles. This wonderful ceramic plaque marks her birthplace in Liverpool – a serendipitous find when flâneusing in that city.

Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), whose inscribed brick is dated in the 1890s (it is today partially obscured by ivy) was a pioneer in the field of home education whose methods are still practised today. Visit this exhibition at the lovely Armitt museum in Ambleside to learn more about her. It is on show until December 2023 https://www.armitt.com/learning-through-the-natural-world/

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High above the village of Yealand Conyers in Lancashire could once be found this pretty little summerhouse. It was built to take advantage of the ‘extensive and picturesque views of the adjacent bay of Morecambe, and the bold and much admired Mountain Scenery of Cumberland and Westmorland’.

A tower or summerhouse first appears on a 1786 map of the County Palatine of Lancaster, but nothing else seems to be known of the early history of the building, or indeed if the tower on the map is the same as that which stood in living history.

As the map shows, the view took in the house and parkland of Leighton Hall, seat of the Gillow family (of furniture fame), but the summerhouse was part of the adjacent Morecambe Lodge estate, later renamed Yealand Manor. Morecambe Lodge itself is not named on the 1786 map, but it probably started life as a small country retreat which developed into something much more substantial over the years. At the time the map was published it was the summer retreat of the Ford family of Lancaster, who possibly built the summerhouse, although no evidence has been found. John Ford’s wife Mary died in 1789, and this may have been the catalyst for the sale of the estate two years later.

In 1791 Morecambe Lodge became the summer residence of Thomas Rawlinson (1751-1802), a merchant involved in the Slave Trade. His principal home was an elegant Georgian townhouse in Lancaster, where he was also a prominent member of the Society of Friends (he was  disowned for a period for arming his ships, although the Lancaster Monthly Meeting did not censure his ownership of plantations and slaves)*.

Soon after purchasing the estate Rawlinson began to improve the surrounding landscape: in the six months from November 1791 to April 1792 alone he planted 62,191 trees. He continued to plant in subsequent years and his work was recognised by an award from the Royal Society of Arts. The summerhouse would have been an elegant object in Rawlinson’s pleasure grounds.

Rawlinson died suddenly in October 1802 after a carriage accident. Morecambe Lodge was offered to let in 1805 when it was described as ‘well-calculated for the residence of a genteel family’, and in 1815 it was sold to John Ford, a fellow Quaker. In 1911 Helen Cordelia Ford of Yealand Manor (as Morecambe Lodge had been renamed) wrote a series of articles about Yealand for the Lancaster Guardian. By that date the origins of the summerhouse were long forgotten, and Mrs Ford could learn nothing of its early days. She did however record local memories of its more recent history, and was told that it had served as the village reading room before being vandalised. It was then used as a store until a sporting use was found early in the 20th century: the summerhouse became a mini-grandstand/tea-room when the plateau in front of it was used as the village cricket pitch.

By the 1950s it was in a poor condition, and it continued to decay before the upper section disappeared completely. The rustic base of local limestone and a few courses of masonry are all that remain today, but the building is remembered in the name by which the eminence is known today: Summerhouse Hill.

On the same plateau as the summerhouse are a number of limestone boulders. An investigation by North & Spence in 1936 concluded that these were the remnants of a great stone circle some 460 feet (140m) in diameter. The authors surmised that ‘probably the missing stones of the circle were broken up to form the plinth when the summerhouse was constructed’. Others dispute the circle theory and believe the stones are just randomly placed. Whilst the archaeologists argue, the Folly Flâneuse will just conclude that whatever their origins they add greatly to the charm of the hilltop.

The remains of the summerhouse, and the outstanding views, are easy to find. Just follow the sign from the lovely hamlet of Yealand Conyers.

After a period of institutional use Yealand Manor is once more a family home and can be viewed from the footpath to Summerhouse Hill.

* This failure to disown Rawlinson, and other Lancaster merchants involved in the Slave Trade, went against the London Yearly Meeting, the central decision making body of Quakers in Britain. The Lancaster Friends of today describe this as ‘a cause of great discomfort’, and they ‘acknowledge this history and seek to address the impact its legacy has today’.

You can read all of Mrs Ford’s Sketches of Yealand and much more on the excellent Mourholme Local History Society website http://www.mourholme.co.uk/?Publications:Books

Further information or general comment is always welcome – scroll down to the foot of the page to get in touch. Thank you for reading.

High on the fell above the town of Penrith stands a square stone turret which marks the site of the town’s ancient beacon. For centuries the beacon network provided an early warning system: fires burning on high ground announced the approach of the enemy. In less troubled times the little tower became a summerhouse, eye-catcher, and belvedere for the Lonsdale family of nearby Lowther Castle. Today it is a popular destination for walkers, and a symbol of the town.

The building seen today is said to have been built in 1719. The early history is a little vague, but the Beacon was certainly in its present form by the middle of the 18th century when the tower with its pyramidal roof is shown on maps. The land came into the ownership of the Lonsdale family early in the 19th century, and soon after they planted the bare fell and began to manage the hillside as a forest.

The 1st Earl and Countess of Lonsdale (2nd creation) built an ornamental cottage at the foot of the hill. This served as the residence of the estate wood-warden, whose role included managing access to the beacon on public open days. It was also a place where the family could take refreshments when visiting the Beacon, and was named Caroline Cottage in honour of Lord and Lady Lonsdale’s youngest daughter. In the 1820s the Countess added an ‘elegant tea and ball-room’ to the cottage; this she made available to the people of Penrith, and great parties and picnics were held there in the following decades.

In 1841 a local poet ‘The Muse’, contributed sonnets on local themes to the Westmorland Gazette. His lines on Caroline Cottage begin:

Lone cottage! clasped around with ivies green,
Snugly thou stand’st beneath the “Beacon Hill,”
A mute spectator – of lake, stream, and rill,
And mountains far in the encircling scene!

The Beacon is a landmark for miles around, and will be familiar to motorists heading to and from Scotland on the M6. From the little tower there are views to Lowther Castle, Blencathra and Ullswater, as well as into Scotland. Those views were best appreciated when the hillside was bare of trees, as it was in 1918 when an article in the local paper bemoaned the wholesale clearing of the trees by the Lowther estate.

The fell was however replanted, and a century later people began to complain of the opposite problem: the slope was again covered in trees but those on the summit were blocking views of the hilltop eye-catcher. Early in 2018 Lowther Estates organised the clearance of the trees around the beacon, and reopened key vistas. The work was funded by Eden District Council and a number of local charitable organisations.

In recent years the Beacon (the word is used locally to refer to both the turret and the hill) has been threatened with development. The Friends of Penrith Beacon is a community group that was formed in 2018 to protect the site, and you can read about their campaigns here http://www.friendsofpenrithbeacon.co.uk

You can catch a glimpse of Caroline Cottage on Beacon Edge, before following the nearby public footpath uphill to the turret. It is a steep climb, but as a guidebook noted in 1826 the view ‘compensates by its extent and variety of prospect for the labour in ascending to procure it.’

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On a knoll in the former park of Conishead Priory, near Ulverston in Cumbria, (formerly Lancashire) stands this solitary tower. It was once part of a much larger folly, known as the Old Castle, which many took for a genuine ancient monument. Thomas Braddyll (1730-1776) erected it as an ornament to be seen from his seat at Conishead Priory.

Sadly, no early images of the folly are known to survive, but it was extant by 1770 when a visitor admired the folly and described it in a poem:

That ruin has an aspect richly grand!
The Gothic battlements assume the air
Of antient castles’

In 1777 it was taken for ‘an old castle’, but a visitor in 1817 was more astute, and recognised it as a ‘modern ruin on a beautiful knowl [sic] above the house’.

The earliest pictorial evidence is a map of 1822, which suggests that the folly took the form of two pairs of towers, all linked by walls or arches. In that same year the Lonsdale Magazine wrote of the Conishead Priory landscape:

‘The Priory is surrounded by a Park, laid out in the most tasteful manner, bordering the sands for some miles, and sweetly diversified by swelling hills and luxuriant vales. Every improvement which the most cultivated taste could suggest has been adopted: but none has so striking an effect, as the fort on a hill above the house…’

Bradyll’s descendant Thomas Richmond Braddyll (1776-1862) was forced to sell the Consihead estate after making bad investments, and having spent heavily on the lavish gothic house that stands today. The 1848 sales particulars noted the ‘remains of a castle and a circular tower embosomed in ivy’, as shown in this photograph from later in the century.

Three towers are shown, but not named, on the first edition Ordnance Survey map published in 1850, but by the time the map was revised in the 1890s they are recorded as ‘Towers (Remains of)’. Their role as a garden ornament has been forgotten, and the word ‘Towers’ is in gothic script: evidently the surveyors believed that it was an ancient monument. A report in the local newspaper in 1900 described the remnants as ‘the ruins of an ancient castle […] apparently of great age’, but a Field Investigator inspecting the castle in 1958 was not fooled, finding ‘no traces of antiquity’.

The Conishead estate has changed hands a number of times since the 1848 sale, and has operated as a hotel and then a Miners’ convalescent home. It was last sold in 1972 when the portion of the park containing the ruins was separated from the rest of the estate. It is now known as the Great Head House Estate. The owners restored the remaining tower as a summerhouse and eye-catcher a few years later, but following recent storm damage it is awaiting repairs.

The grade II listed tower stands on private land, but can be seen from the A5087, close to the entrance to Conishead Priory, and from within the priory grounds.

Since 1972 Conishead Priory has been home to the Manjushri Kadampa Buddhist Centre, and visitors can enjoy the gardens and walks to the beach, as well as the magnificent modern temple. There’s also a great cafe https://manjushri.org/day-visits

The Folly Flâneuse visited the tower in the company of members of the Folly Fellowship. If you would like the opportunity to see follies, both public and private, in convivial company you should become a member http://follies.org.uk

Susan Benson, Archivist, Barrow Archive Centre, and Dan Elsworth of Greenlane Archaeology, Ulverston are thanked for their help with this post. Most of this research was completed back in the lonely days of lockdown, and their enthusiastic assistance was greatly appreciated.

See the links below for two more landscape features on the former Conishead Priory Estate.

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High above Cartmel in Cumbria (formerly Lancashire) Reverend Thomas Remington of nearby Aynsome built a small stone shelter. Remington was apparently in the habit of walking on the fell each morning, setting off early so he could watch the sun rise, and above the east-facing door he placed a Greek inscription, taken from Homer’s Odyssey, which translates as ‘Rosy-fingered Dawn’. It became known as the hospice, from the archaic definition of the word: a shelter to travellers.

Remington (1802-1855) was appointed Perpetual Curate of Cartmel Priory in 1834, the living being in the gift of the Earl of Burlington, to whom Remington was domestic chaplain. He had however been officiating at services before this date, having inherited the Aynsome estate (Aynsome Manor is now a hotel) from his uncle in 1826, the year he was ordained.

The real novelty of the Hospice is the series of black-painted boards which were inscribed with poems and instructions in white lettering. According to an early 20th century postcard (above) the first of these was once dated 1834, so if correct the tower must have been extant at that date.

The verse was later joined by an appreciative ‘answer’, thanking Remington for his kindness in providing shelter on the open fell.

The first known description of the hospice is in 1848, when it was described in the Kendal Mercury. On the ground floor was a simple room with stone seats and a primitive fireplace, which the paper called a space for ‘the tea kettle and its worshippers’. This remains in use today.

Steps lead up the outside of the building to a rooftop viewing platform with extensive views across Morecambe Bay and inland to the lakeland hills. The author of ‘The Answer’ had pointed out in 1846 that the exterior steps were a hazard, as initially they had no handrail. The Folly Flâneuse is happy to report that one was soon added to the steps, for the ascent would indeed have been precarious without it.

A later generation added a viewfinder to the rooftop, and a board highlighting the landmarks that pepper the vast panorama: natural features can be seen as well as later additions to the landscape including Blackpool Tower and Heysham Power Station.

Sadly the polite request at the end of the welcoming verse failed to stop graffiti, and an ingenious innovation was introduced into the shelter. A board headed ‘Visitors’ Names’ joined the others, and those tempted to incise their names into the structure were instead encouraged to record their details on the panel: a rather novel solution to the age-old problem. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to have done the trick, and Remington’s descendants later added another stern message to discourage ‘wanton mischief’:

Whilst a welcome sight for many walkers, not everyone was impressed. In 1864 a letter to the local paper complained that the shelter was untidy and suggested that a ‘female’ be ‘sent up two or three times in the summer season’ to sweep away the spiderwebs and dirt. Continuing the tradition of referring to the hospice in verse, the fastidious writer declared that:

… seats with loads of dust oppress’d,
Forbid the weary here to rest.

Hampsfell remains a popular destination for walkers, and the grade II listed hospice continues as both belvedere and shelter, although some of the signs are now modern replicas and the graffiti-thwarting board is long gone. It’s a steady climb to the summit, but worth the effort to reach the top. Alfred Wainwright, in his The Outlying Fells of Lakeland, described the spot as ‘a hill small and unpretentious yet endowed with an air of freedom and space’. There are walks to the hospice from Cartmel and from Grange over Sands.

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At Rydal Hall in Cumbria is an unassuming little garden building. It was built by Sir Daniel Fleming, in the last years of the 1680s, as a summerhouse from which to view of one of the series of cascades on the Rydal Beck that flowed though his estate.

Sir Daniel’s accounts show that the summerhouse was built in 1668-9, and it was described only a few years later as ‘a little grotto [for] retirement’. But its big secret was the ‘very surprising’ view of a tumbling cascade, framed by the window of the ‘Grot-house’. The interior did not have the expected decoration of shells and minerals usually associated with grottoes, but was expensively fitted out with wooden panelling, sadly now lost. Just upstream Sir Daniel added a rustic arched bridge, which gave a view down onto the cascade and to the grotto.

Many descriptions of the grotto were written in the 18th and 19th centuries, when travellers and writers arrived first in pursuit of the picturesque, when Rydal was a ‘must’ on the tourists’ itinerary, and then in reverence of the romantic after William Wordsworth made his home at nearby Rydal Mount, generating another tourism boom (the cascade is mentioned in the poet’s An Evening Walk).

Visitors record being led along a shady walk by a guide who then opened the doors to the simple ‘Rugged House’ to reveal the cataract. In 1812 the guide was ‘a woman bent nearly double with age, who with astonishing alacrity stumped up the hill in a pair of wooden shoes’. (It is a curious characteristic of ‘tourist attractions’ in the 18th century, that the guides were elderly ladies – examples are recorded at the Claife Station and the Bowder Stone in the Lakes, where a blunt tourist found his guide ‘rather deficient in understanding’. At Roslin Chapel in Scotland,  it was noted in 1788 that the ‘old woman who shows it […] is as great a curiosity as the chapel’.)

William Gilpin, famed for his pontificating on the picturesque, found the scene enchanting, and described the beautiful view from the summerhouse window as ‘like a picture in a frame’. A visitor in 1791 appreciated the carefully composed effect seen through the window: ‘over the head of the cascade is an old bridge, and over that a thicket of tall trees – and over that a dark mountain – and over that perhaps a dark cloud’. To the holidaying Londoner this was all very striking, and filled his mind ‘with terror and amazement’. After all this excitement guests could relax and dine in the little room: in 1795 Harriet Clarke recorded in her journal ‘in this grotto we ate, with much pleasure, our morning’s repast’.

Many artists delineated the scene. As well as the views shown here, other works include a John Constable sketch (Abbott Hall, Kendal) and an oil painting by Julius Caesar Ibbetson (Liverpool Museums). But as the keen-eyed will have spotted, they mainly painted the view from inside the grotto, so views of the building itself are scarce.

Many gardens and landscapes would go on to use the concept of the ‘surprise view’. For example at Studley Royal in Yorkshire doors were flung open for the grand reveal of the ruins of Fountains Abbey, and in Scotland the hermitages at Acharn and Dunkeld were both designed to allow a first sighting of waterfalls, but Sir Daniel Fleming’s predates these curiosities by almost a century, and was a ‘picturesque’ viewing station way ahead of its time.

In 1980 the grade II* listed grotto was described as ‘forlorn and neglected’, with the roof falling in and only a fragment of the wainscot surviving. Happily, it was restored in 2005-2007 as part of a major project to renovate the Rydal Hall gardens and park.

The falls are best seen after heavy rain. The Folly Flâneuse, with her usual impeccable timing, chose to first visit in autumn of 2021 during heavy rain, but it was worth getting soaked to see the cascade in full flow. This is the view from a bridge just downstream, not extant when the grotto was built, which enables the grotto and cascade to be seen in one view. Happily a return visit in spring was a brighter experience.

And of course if one visits Wordsworth country in April, one can’t miss the last of the …

Rydal Hall is now owned by the Diocese of Carlisle and is a conference and retreat centre. The grounds are open to visitors throughout the year, and you can continue the more than 300 year old tradition of viewing the cascade from the grotto window. As a visitor wrote in 1799, the ‘lower cascade must ever delight’. https://www.rydalhall.org

For the full history of the construction of the grotto see Blake Tyson’s article in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, Vol 24, 1980.

For Wordsworth Grasmere see https://wordsworth.org.uk

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