In October 1834 workmen discovered a dungeon, or cell, when digging for stone on Market Hill in Hedon, in that part of the East Riding of Yorkshire known as Holderness. It was ‘several yards square’ with stone walls, and ‘a few remnants of military trappings’. James Iveson, an antiquary of the town, took possession of stone from the chamber and removed it to his nearby home. There he already had a hoard of carved stone, salvaged from the remodelling or demolition of churches in Hedon and beyond, and he used these fragments to create a sham tomb in his garden.

To tell the tale the Flâneuse is delighted to be joined by Holderness historian and writer Lucy Brooke…

The mausoleum purports to be that of Albina, a fictional niece of William the Conqueror. The tale (succinct version) goes that in the eleventh century William rewarded Drogo de la Bevrière (there are variant spellings), a loyal follower, with the title of Earl of Holderness and the hand of his niece in marriage. His bride, Albina, was a ‘young lady of extraordinary beauty’, but Drogo was an insanely jealous man, and he accused Albina of infidelity. Although she was proved innocent, Drogo poisoned her and left her to die in a dungeon. When her ’emaciated remains’ were eventually discovered, and Drogo was found to have fled, the local populace razed his castle to the ground.

Not content with simply erecting a sham tomb, Iveson (1770-1850) even commissioned a play telling the story of the doomed Albina. His chosen playwright was the prolific writer John Galt (1779-1839), but the two men were not acquaintances, and it is not known why Iveson chose Galt. Iveson sent him a set of illustrated notes, and this document (a brilliant find by Lucy) gives a firm date of 1834 for the construction of the tomb. The notes were accompanied by ‘three beautiful illustrative sketches’: the tomb, Hedon’s church of St Augustine, and an imagined view of Drogo’s castle in Holderness.

Galt was bed-bound when Iveson’s proposal arrived, but having read the outline with ‘thrilling interest’, he completed The Demoniack of Holderness: an Historical Drama in Three Acts in six sittings, and sent it to Iveson in November 1836. Although largely true to Iveson’s outline, for dramatic effect Galt has Drogo murder Albina with his sword when she refuses to drink a cup of poison.

The document tells that the ‘pilasters, columns and the segments of the front of the arch’ of the folly had only travelled across the road from St Augustine’s church when it was renovated. The floor, front walls and wings were built of stones from the excavated dungeon on Market Hill.

Iveson’s notes record that the two figures of King Athelstan and St John the Bishop were taken from the east end of Beverley Minster when ‘two modern figures of these personages were substituted’. Modern carvings added to Albina’s tomb included ivy leaves, a pun on Iveson’s name.

Iveson died in 1850 and Ivy House (as it had became known during his period of residence) became home to another historian, Godfrey Richard Park (1818-1907). Park wrote of ‘the pleasure and interest attending visits to the abodes and sepulchres of our ancestors’, so Albina’s tomb was in safe hands, and it was probably Park who extended it into a considerable garden room, as shown below. Park was the author of a history of the town, published in 1895. The volume included a few lines of verse about the tomb which begin:

Within a cell a corpse was found
Which told to all the lady’s doom,
And now, upon that spot of ground
Is built an arch, ‘Albina’s Tomb’.

Park opened his garden for charity events and in 1894 ‘The Ruins’ were ‘utilised for the Vicar’s stall’ at the Hedon Bazaar. The local paper noted that the vicar shared the space with the ladies of the town’s Sewing Meeting, although sadly it is not recorded what wares he and the ladies were selling. Rather more exotic was the fortune teller who had set up stall near the re-erected ecclesiastical fragments called the arcade. This sage had travelled ‘all the way from Egypt’ or, as the reporter thought more likely, ‘somewhere else’.

The enlarged tomb was still standing in the 1980s, but by the time the present owner, Greg Butterworth, bought Ivy House in 2016 the upper section had collapsed, the tomb was completely hidden in a dense web of ivy and thorns, and the interior was filled with rubble.

With Lucy’s help this has since been cleared, and the collapsed masonry rescued for safekeeping, but the folly (grade II) remains fenced-off until funds are available for further consolidation. But the tomb does have regular visitors – the ghosts of Albina and Drogo are said to haunt the ruin.

The gardens were also home to a rustic tea-house (only the tiled floor survives) as well as the arcade mentioned above. This was a substantial structure built out of fragments of masonry from churches in the district. It too has been rescued from the brambles and awaits further research and restoration.

Ivy House (grade II), a handsome red-brick Georgian residence, is a private home but the garden is opened regularly for Heritage Open Days in September.

There are no records of The Demoniack of Holderness being performed in Iveson’s lifetime, but a manuscript copy survives in Hull History Centre should anyone wish to bring it to the stage. Thanks to Martin Craven, Greg Butterworth and the team at Hull History Centre for their help with this post.

Lucy writes about the history of Holderness at her new website theholdernesshistorian.com

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts are always welcome – scroll down to the comments box to get in touch. If you would like a complimentary folly story in your inbox on Saturday mornings please visit the ‘subscribe’ page.

In March 1863 Sir Tatton Sykes, 4th baronet, died at Sledmere, his seat in Yorkshire. Almost immediately there were calls for a monument to his memory, and a committee was formed to oversee the project and solicit subscriptions. Various sites were considered, and a competition launched to find the perfect design. Early in 1865 a site high on Garton Hill was decided upon, and the chosen architect, John Gibbs, visited Yorkshire to see the location before the foundation stone was laid.

Sykes (1772-1863) was a pioneering farmer, enriching the soil of the wolds with bone manure made to his own formula. His principal passions were horse racing and fox hunting and he was known as a great host, but also as something of an eccentric. He lived a spartan lifestyle, and expected his wife and children to do the same; he drove his own sheep to market (and as a talented boxer he could fight off any rowdies along the way) and as shown below he continued to wear the costume of an earlier generation throughout his life.

The Illustrated London News began its obituary of Sir Tatton with the story that a Yorkshireman was once asked what was worth seeing in his county. His response was ‘York Minster, Fountains Abbey and Sir Tatton’. Thousands are said to have attended his funeral at Sledmere in 1863.

The competition to design the monument attracted over 150 entries of ‘obelisks, columns, and towers in great variety of style and ornamentation’. The designs were all displayed in a Driffield school-room for two weeks, during which time the committee deliberated and ‘gratified spectators’ called in to peruse the works.

The favoured entry was by John Gibbs (1826-?), an Oxford born architect who had been lauded for his design for the famous Banbury Cross, erected in 1859 to mark the marriage of the Princess Royal, Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter.

The committee was particularly impressed that Gibbs had included a carving of Sykes in his natural habitat – the hunting field. The finished design was featured in The Builder magazine in April 1865, and reached a wider general audience in the pages of the Illustrated London News. As Barbara Jones wrote in Follies and Grottoes (1953) it is ‘so encrusted with detail that description is impossible’, so the editors of both of the contemporary magazines must have been delighted to be sent an illustration.

The foundation stone was laid by Lord Hotham in May 1865, using a ceremonial trowel made for the occasion by a Hull silversmith. The contractors were Messrs Simpson and Malone of Hull, and the ‘celebrated sculptor’ William Forsyth (1833-1915) of Worcester was commissioned to model the figures. Despite gales which threatened to blow down the scaffolding, the final stone was placed on 1 December 1865, although setbacks with the sculpture delayed the inauguration ceremony until November 1866.

The principal inscription remembers that the local populace ‘loved [Sykes] as a friend and honoured him as a landlord’.

The chosen site stood on top of ancient entrenchments, and as work came to a close in 1866 the workmen levelling the ground discovered a number of skeletons. A ‘zealous architect’ by the name of Mortimer hurried to the scene to record the find, and eventually found more than forty graves.

John Gibbs continued to work as an architect and published a number of books on the subject, as well as a novel. In the early 1870s he moved to Leamington Spa and his known history seems to come to a strange end in 1880. In that year the ‘travelling architect’ was in court in Warwick on a charge of entering a property without ‘reasonable excuse’. According to the press reports he was trying to escape a man to whom he owed money, but the newspapers featured two conflicting conclusions: one stated that he was fined 3 shillings, and the other that he was acquitted. Whatever the truth of the matter, after a distinguished career Gibbs seems to disappear without trace.

The monument (grade II) was was damaged by a gale in 1982 but was quickly restored. It stands alongside the B1252 between Garton on the Wolds and Sledmere, and the exterior can be viewed at anytime. The interior can be viewed by prior arrangement with the Sledmere estate office.

Sledmere village and the grounds of Sledmere House are home to a range of wonderful ornaments built in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For more on the house, gardens and park click here.

Your thoughts are very welcome. Scroll down to the foot of the page to find the comments box. Thanks for reading.

In the Victorian age, many churches were rebuilt or renovated in the very latest taste. One of these was St Augustine’s at Hedon, east of Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Here, the architect G.E. Street oversaw the work, part of which included the replacement of the window in the south transept. But the ancient traceried window removed during the works was to get a second and even a third life elsewhere…

The history of the window was far from transparent, but guest blogger the Garden Historian has gone to great pains to establish the facts and enlighten readers.

The story starts with William Thomas White (1822–1888), who, by 1857, was managing the family firm of fruit brokers in Hull (founded by his father in 1837) and had moved into a property in Hedon (pronounced head-on) that would later become Lambert House, so-called after his late mother’s maiden name. 

At some point White developed an interest for things antiquarian. When the historic Citadel at Hull went out of use and was subsequently demolished, many of the ‘Very Valuable Materials’ were sold at auction from January 1863. One of these was an entrance arch from the time of Charles II (the keystone has his cypher), which White acquired.

White was active in local and parochial concerns, and in 1866 a scheme was set in motion to restore the town’s only remaining medieval church. The initial phase of work, which involved fitting a new window in the south transept, took place between 1867 and 1869 and the old window made its way to White, no doubt helped by the fact that he was active on the church’s Restoration Committee.

By 1874, both the arch and the window had been re-erected in the garden of Lambert House, as noted by The Hull Packet and East Riding Times which reported on the parish church school festival that summer:

‘The procession wended its way to the beautiful grounds of Lambert House, and passing through the ruined arches into the croquet lawn, the children were seated on the raised terrace which surrounds it’.

Croquet hoops aside, other embellishments were added in the grounds, some from uncertain sources but all in keeping with White’s antiquarian leaning. When he enlarged the house, various stones and smaller architectural fragments that he had collected were incorporated into a room, ‘The Dungeon’, which remains today. 

Lambert House descended through the family until it was sold in 1931, but by that date the garden features had been removed by one of White’s grandsons, Joseph Dalton White (1881-1974). He had purchased Lea Hall, near Hatfield Heath in Essex, and it was there that he re-erected the two ‘arches’, plus another piece of salvage that may have come from Hedon (all listed Grade II).

And there they remain. When visited in 2023, Lea Hall looked like a building site, probably because that’s exactly what it was due to major restoration and renovation work taking place.

The grounds and its features are part of the Lea Hall refurbishment plan, and so are likely to delight and cause curiosity for many years to come.

Other salvaged windows have likewise become features in gardens across the country, and it has to be said that the town of Hedon has more than its fair share of architectural remnants used in such a way… but these are stories for another day.

Lambert House is now a guest house and function venue, but is usually open for Heritage Open Days in September.

Thanks to the Garden Historian, aka Dr Michael Cousins, for researching these garden ornaments and giving the Flâneuse a week off. And thank you for reading. Please scroll down to the comments box to share any thoughts.

Early in 1860 the Mayor of Hull, Zachariah Pearson, gave 27 acres of land to the Hull Corporation, on condition that they made an immediate start on laying it out as a public park. Initially known as the People’s Park, it was soon renamed Pearson Park in honour of the Mayor’s munificence. It was formally opened in September 1860, and quickly became a popular destination with all the usual attractions of lake, aviary, refreshment rooms and drinking fountain. But a couple of years after opening a less common feature joined the growing list of attractions in the park: a folly in the form of a sham ruin with a rather fascinating provenance.

To step back in time, the Ruins, as the folly in the park became known, had already been a feature in another Hull attraction. Much of the masonry had first been erected as an eye-catcher in Hull’s Zoological Gardens, a short-lived enterprise that operated for two decades before the money ran out. The Zoo opened in 1840 as a ‘place of resort for healthful exercise’ where the mind was to be stimulated by ‘the picturesque and tasteful arrangement of the grounds and architecture’.

In the early years ‘further architectural embellishments’ were added each season to encourage return visits: there was a Swiss chalet for the goats, a Moorish temple to house the elephants, and a ‘Heathen Temple’ which displayed what were then described as ‘curiosities associated with Buddhist mythology’. Supervising the layout was one of the Vice-presidents of the Zoological Gardens, the architect Henry Francis Lockwood. Lockwood (1811-1878) was then practicing in Hull, but would become famous for his later partnership with William Mawson, which produced buildings such as Bradford Town Hall and the mill, village and church in the model village of Saltaire, also in the West Riding.

Whilst the ruin in the Zoological Gardens was a sham, it was not intended to fool anyone, and was marked on the plan of the gardens as ‘Ruins (Artificial)’. But most of the masonry used was genuinely ancient, and had an excellent provenance, for it was purchased at the auction of surplus ‘reliques’ after the great fire at York Minster in May 1840. Material from the Minster was salvaged after the fire and made into small mementoes such as snuff boxes and candlesticks, but there was also also money to be made from the substantial pieces of timber and masonry that could not be reused when the damaged section of the church was rebuilt.

In 1844 the York auctioneer Mr Vaile informed ‘Antiquarians, Connossieurs [sic], Architects, Builders &c’ that he had been directed by the Restoration Committee of York Minster to sell the ‘Ancient and Valuable Reliques’. Present at the auction was Thomas Dalton Hammond, a Hull chemist and druggist and one of the Honorary Secretaries of the Zoological Society, and when bidding began for the masonry he was quick off the mark and snapped up the first lot. This was an ‘Ancient perforated Stone Parapet from the top of the North-West Tower’ at a cost of one guinea, and Hammond then went on to buy a total of 27 lots. His haul included keystones, quatrefoils, carved flowers and carved lion heads, mouldings, marble flooring and his most expensive purchase, at £1.12.0, was ‘Two Canopies, with Buttresses, Crockets, Springer and Finials complete’ which had been part of the South Side of the Nave. These fragments, as well as decorative masonry from other churches, then began the second phase of their lives as a folly in the Zoological Gardens, but sadly no view is known to survive.

Meanwhile, plans had been progressing for another recreational facility for the people of Hull, and Pearson Park, on the land donated by Pearson, had opened in 1860 to a design by Mr J.C. Niven, the Curator of the town’s Botanical Gardens (Kingston upon Hull did not gain city status in 1897). As the park was being developed the Zoological Gardens were struggling to survive, and eventually failed.

The animals were dispersed, and in 1862 the ‘costly and ornamental buildings’ were offered at auction. The Folly Flâneuse would love to know what happened to the ‘large and handsome’ Elephant House, or the ‘exceedingly beautiful’ Menagerie as well as the many other buildings and artefacts. But we do know that the ‘Ancient Church Architecture’ was bought by Alderman Moss of Hull. With civic funds at his disposal he expended £45 on portions of the ruins: according to the sale catalogue these comprised a ‘fine screen’ from York Minster, as well as fragments from Holy Trinity Church in Hull, and a church at Owthorne (possibly St Nicholas near Withernsea which had stood derelict before being restored in 1858). The fragments were then used for the third time as rather fine folly in Pearson Park.

In 1864 the local historian Sheahan wrote that the Ruins would soon mellow and ‘form a pretty feature’. Publishers agreed and the scene was soon featured on countless picture postcards.

By 1929 the once pristine area around the folly had become overgrown, and a letter to the editor of the Hull Daily Mail suggested that a ‘suitable inscription’ be placed near the Ruins to explain the forgotten history of the stones. But the folly continued to fall out of fashion and favour, and it was cleared when the park was ‘modernised’ in the 1950s to save money on maintenance and staffing. Sadly there was no auction this time, and the Folly Flâneuse has not (yet) discovered what happened to the ancient stones. Pearson Park remains an amenity for the people of Hull.

There’s an excellent history of the Zoological Gardens on the Hull History Centre website here https://www.hullhistorycentre.org.uk/whats-on/activities/The-Zoo-on-the-Avenue-Booklet.pdf

Thanks to Chris Hand for mentioning the Ruins and setting in motion a most enjoyable piece of research, and to the teams at Hull History Centre and York Minster Archives.

Please scroll down to the comments box if you would like to share any thoughts or further information. Thank you very much for reading.

‘An ill-treated folly’, wrote folly supremo Barbara Jones of the Carnaby Temple in 1953. The late 18th century landscape ornament, on high land above Boynton Hall, was by then disused and dilapidated, but remarkably intact considering the years of neglect. And so it remains.

The temple was built in the early 1770s by Sir George Strickland, 5th Bart (1729-1808) of Boynton Hall near Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The design is attributed to John Carr of York, who worked at Boynton in this period. Contemporary accounts note that it was called the Temple of Aeolus, or the temple of the winds, after the original in Athens, but Barbara Jones thought it had ‘absolutely no resemblance to it’. That’s perhaps a little harsh, as the tower is octagonal in form, and the lantern was originally topped with a weather-vane, but it does not carry the carved decoration so admired in Athens. The name may have been partly in homage to the antique, but was probably also an erudite family joke, as the site is exposed to the winds coming in off the North Sea. The name did not stick and the building became known as the Carnaby Temple, or just ‘the temple’.

The basement housed a kitchen, and the upper floor was a ‘beautiful Octagon room’ with extensive views of the Boynton estate and out to sea. The Strickland daughters decorated the room with Grecian figures after the antique. Transparent figures, painted onto tissue paper, decorated the windows, and the furniture featured figures cut from black paper or drawn in Indian ink. The walls were painted with trophies, foliage, and grotesque heads in oil paint, and one visitor in 1801 thought she had never seen a room ‘so completely pleasing’. Sadly, no trace remains today.

The pleasure house was used for picnics, and as a retreat for the ladies of the house. It was also a belvedere with an extensive vista across the Wolds and Bridlington Bay – the reverse view also became important and ‘Carnaby Temple’ soon became an official landmark for mariners.

The tower was originally surrounded by a freestanding arcade, but this was gone by the middle of the 19th century when the temple was extended to form a dwelling for workers on the estate: the census returns show families living there until early in the 20th century. It was a popular attraction, and visitors walked across the fields to explore the curious structure visible from the road. In 1890 one group of ramblers were disappointed to find it had been converted into a labourer’s cottage and ‘with a sigh for its departed grandeur’ retraced their steps.

By the time Barbara Jones was researching the temple for the 2nd edition of Follies and Grottoes in 1972, the temple had been sold by the Boynton estate, and the new owner was said to be ‘not really interested in it’. Raymond Fieldhouse, a Scarborough historian and artist, wrote to Jones about the temple : ‘I think it will stand for years deteriorating only gradually’. He was spot on: the temple does indeed still stand strong, and creates a very picturesque backdrop to the nearby farm’s giant muck heap (bottom).

In 1975 a campaign began to get the temple restored. There was support from the Bridlington MP The Rt Hon Richard Wood, as well as from the Georgian Society for East Yorkshire and the Bridlington Civic Society. The owner, Mr Watts, was keen to see it restored, and offered to lease it to a charitable body for a ‘v small rent’, but he was understandably reluctant to meet the substantial costs of renovation himself. The Landmark Trust was approached in 1975, but it declined to take the building on.

Things dragged on, and in April 1978 the local authority, the Borough of North Wolds, served Watts with a Repairs Notice. By this stage the Bridlington-based architectural practise of Francis Johnson and Partners had been asked to help, and in 1977 Francis Johnson had drawn up plans to convert the temple into a holiday home. As he wrote ‘if they got the place in order they could get a good little rental for holiday use every summer. In any case it is far better to have the building in use than merely standing idle with consequent inevitable deterioration’. But Johnson remained sceptical, and ended the letter ‘We shall see’.

And as we can indeed see, only essential repairs to protect the building from vandals and the elements were carried out. There is still potential to restore the temple for residential use, and just think how fertile the garden would be…

The temple is on private land, but stands beside a public footpath.

Although the Carnaby Temple plans did not come to fruition, Francis Johnson & Partners has designed or restored many lovely garden buildings. You can see a selection here https://www.francisjohnson-architects.co.uk/projects/garden-buildings/

Please scroll down to the comments section if you would like to share any thoughts on the Carnaby Temple. Thank you for reading.

A view of the house at Sledmere, painted in 1795, shows a classical orangery west of the kitchen garden. No trace of this building survives today but, mysteriously, another 18th century orangery can be found between the house and the stables.

Little is known about Sledmere’s first orangery. It must have been built in the late 18th century, and is believed to have been pulled down by Sir Tatton Sykes, 5th baronet (1826-1913) after he succeeded to the estate in 1863. Family legend has it that he was a great eccentric who thought flowers ‘nasty untidy things’ and wore countless layers of clothes. Local children would look out for his discarded coats and jackets, knowing that they would be rewarded with a coin when they returned them to the mansion. It is said that on a train journey, when swaddled in clothes, Sir Tatton became overheated. Rather than remove an outer garment he took off his shoes and socks and stuck his feet out of the window. Not a man to do things by halves, he also financed the building or restoration of  17 churches in the Yorkshire Wolds.

200 miles from Sledmere is Fairford Park, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire. The fine mansion was remodelled by Sir John Soane in the late 18th century, and the park was laid out by William Eames, a designer who created landscapes in the natural fashion made famous by Capability Brown. In 1787 it was said that ‘many alterations and improvements’ were ongoing in the park and gardens, and the new Orangery, with a roundel of Flora in the pediment, and four Coade stone plaques showing putti representing the four seasons, probably dates from this period.

In 1945 Fairford was bought by Ernest Cook, a former partner in the pioneering travel company Thomas Cook & Son. He had used his wealth to acquire 17 country estates, and his original plan was to donate them to the National Trust. At Fairford there were complications as land on the estate was still occupied by a Polish Displaced Persons camp, and until that was legally de-requisitioned the gift could not be made. Later, Cook’s relationship with the National Trust soured (the trust’s James Lee-Milne found the park at Fairford ‘flat and dull’ and decided the property was ‘unacceptable’). Only a handful of the properties were donated, with the others, including Fairford, placed in the Ernest Cook Trust, founded in 1952 and continuing today.

The house at Fairford was demolished in the mid-1950s to make way for a new secondary school, and the orangery, by now in a poor condition, was dismantled soon after and the facade given to the National Trust for safekeeping. For reasons unknown, the trust decided not to re-erect it in one of its many parks as originally planned, but instead gave it to the Sykes family of Sledmere on the condition that once rebuilt there would be public access. The Bath stone front, including the Coade stone ornaments, remained in storage for some years before Sir Tatton Sykes, 8th bart, commissioned the highly-regarded architectural practice Francis Johnson and Partners of Bridlington to restore and reuse the stonework as the front of a new orangery built of local brick. A plaque on the rear (private) elevation, which overlooks a swimming pool, records that it was completed in 2005.

The original design of the orangery is attributed to Sir John Soane, and dated c.1790, although no firm evidence has been found. The new interior was therefore modelled on the Music Room at Earsham in Norfolk, a Soane garden building of a similar date. New plasterwork was commissioned from the master craftsmen at Stevensons of Norwich, including medallions with the Sykes heraldic triton, seen on many buildings on the estate. The building was awarded a commendation for a ‘New Building in a Georgian Context’ by the Georgian Group in 2012.

For Sledmere see https://www.sledmerehouse.com

For the Sykes churches see https://www.eychurches.org.uk/images/stories/leaflets/Sykes_Open_Churches_Leaflet.pdf

The Ernest Cook Trust continues today as the U.K.’s foremost providers and funders of outdoor learning, helping children and young people, particularly those who are disadvantaged, develop a love and understanding of the natural world. Their offices are in the grounds of Fairford Park https://ernestcooktrust.org.uk

If you would like to share any thoughts please scroll down to find the comments box. Thank you for reading.

In the first half of the 19th century the Airmyn estate, on a bend in the river Aire, was owned by George Percy, the 2nd earl of Beverley (1778-1867), a grandson of the 1st duke of Northumberland. He was admired as a benevolent landlord who took care of his tenants, and in 1834 he endowed the village with a Sunday School. In the mid 1860s the tenants ‘unanimously decided to erect a testimonial’ in honour of his ‘kindness and liberality’. This tribute took the form of a charming clocktower, far from folly, but an ornament to this tranquil and very pretty riverside village.

A public subscription raised £700, and the architect Henry Francis Lockwood (1811-1878) was commissioned to design the tower. The committee probably knew Lockwood’s work in nearby Hull, where he was based in the 1840s, but by the time the tower was erected he had entered into partnership with William Mawson in Bradford. The pair would later achieve fame as the architects of such great Victorian works as Bradford Town Hall and the model village of Saltaire in Yorkshire, designed for Sir Titus Salt.

In February 1865 the earl of Beverley succeeded his cousin to the dukedom of Northumberland. The committee must have decided to keep the tower as a memorial to the earl of Beverley, as he had been titled throughout his ownership of the Airmyn estate, so the tower bears the legend ‘GEORGE EARL OF BEVERLEY 1865’. When the foundation stone was laid on ‘a very gloomy day’ in October 1866, the new duke was in his late eighties and unable to attend the ceremony. He was represented by his nephew, Algernon Charles Heber Percy, who had by then taken control of the Airmyn estate. Heber Percy placed a time capsule within the masonry containing a copy of the Eastern Morning News (Hull’s first daily newspaper), some coins, and a parchment detailing the genesis of the memorial tower. He then laid the foundation stone and read a letter from his uncle thanking his former tenants for their kind remembrance of him. The Goole Volunteer Rifle Band played, and everyone sat down to a celebratory tea. The duke however probably never saw his memorial tower, for he died in August 1867, aged 89.

The Airmyn estate was broken up in an estate sale in 1919, but the Heber Percy family (whose principal seat is Hodnet Hall, Shropshire) retained ownership of the land on which the tower stands until 1951, when it was gifted to the Rural District Council of Goole. Airmyn is a very attractive village of red-brick houses, and the tower and the adjoining school built by the earl make a very handsome pair.

The river Aire is wide and fast as it flows through Airmyn to join the Ouse, which then meets the Humber to flow out to sea, and there are lovely walks along its banks. Airmyn proved to be a most  delightful discovery.

Thank you for reading, and if this post has prompted any thoughts or questions please scroll down to comment. If you would like to receive a folly story in your inbox each week then why not subscribe. 

William Constable, of Burton Constable in the East Riding of Yorkshire, died in 1791. A condition of his will was that his heir should rebuild the ‘family vault’, then found at nearby Halsham church. The new building was to be more than just a repository for the remains of generations of Constables, it was also intended as a bold statement of the importance of the ancient family, and an ornament to the estate.

Constable had died without issue and his estate passed to his nephew, Edward Sheldon. In July 1791, the King granted a royal licence for Sheldon to take the ‘surname and bear the arms of Constable pursuant to the will of his uncle.’

For centuries the Constable family had been interred in the Church of All Saints at Halsham, which was the family seat before the family made Burton Constable their principal home. Initially, as stipulated in his will, William Constable would also be laid to rest at Halsham. It fell to Edward Constable to meet the further demands made in the codicil which his uncle added to his will in December 1790. His final wishes were that he be buried in a new family vault, built with a plain exterior, but decorated inside with black marble walls and floor. This very specific design detail may have been inspired by a building William had seen on the Grand Tour, but he can’t have known quite how much trouble it would cause his heir, or that it would leave him in Halsham church for around a decade until his tomb was eventually complete.

Edward Constable commissioned the York architect Thomas Atkinson (1729-1798) to design the mausoleum. Atkinson had already worked for William at Burton Constable where he remodelled some interiors and, in the late 1780s, designed the orangery. The builder chosen to execute the works was John Platt of Rotherham (1728-1810), who was a respected architect himself. He knew Atkinson well, and may have been chosen because he also owned the Derbyshire quarries from where the black marble, chosen by William, would be sourced. Work began in 1792, after a price of £3,300 had been agreed, and Atkinson had given his word that the mausoleum would be complete by January 1796.

From the start progress was slow and tensions arose between Constable and his architect. Working with Atkinson was his stonemason son John, who wrote to  Constable to say how low-spirited his father was upon realising he could not fulfil his promise and complete the building on time.

The main problem seems to have been in working the hard black marble. Found only in a small area around Ashford, in Derbyshire, the stone is actually a form of limestone, but it was famed for its ability to be polished to a mirror-like sheen. It had been used for many years, but became more widely available – and fashionable – from the 1740s after Henry Watson developed water-powered technology to cut and polish the stone. This was the business that the Platt family had taken over by the 1760s. As the Halsham project progressed, the masonry for the interiors of the mausoleum proved too much for the ‘Marble Machine’, more used to turning obelisks and fancy goods, and the masons had to revert to working by hand, with inevitable delays.

By 1797 Constable was increasingly frustrated with the Atkinsons, but they continued with the project until 1798 when Atkinson senior died very suddenly, leaving his family penniless ‘beggars’. By this date accounts show that the mausoleum was almost complete, but it was not until 1802 that ‘the Bones of the Ancestors of the Family of Constable’ were removed from the church and reinterred in the new vault.

In accordance with the terms of the will, the outside is austere. The interior too is quite simple, focussing on a central stone urn mounted on a column inscribed ‘Gulielmus de Constable’. Around the walls Edward Constable hung 72 painted heraldic shields, each representing branches of the extended family and emphasising his lineage. In the basement are niches for coffins with tablets bearing the names and dates of the deceased, another instruction from William. The building is lit by a central skylight filled with coloured glass which ‘throws a chastened light throughout the whole of the interior’.

Although William Constable was very specific about the construction of the new vault, he makes no mention of a location, although he may have discussed this before his death. Usually, a family mausoleum would be constructed within the churchyard, but instead the Constable mausoleum was built on a new site, a short distance from the church and on higher ground. Once complete, a ‘plantation of beautiful trees and shrubs’ was established on the gently rising ground around the building. By 1816 it was admired as a ‘superb mausoleum’ and the ‘unadorned, but elegant style of its architecture […] at once appears striking to the eye, and appropriate to the use for which the structure is designed.’

In the 1870s the Constable family sold the Halsham estate, leaving little other than the mausoleum in their possession. The building remains a very striking landscape feature but has faced the usual challenges of damage both natural (the elements) and deliberate (vandals and thieves). Having spent some time on the Buildings at Risk register at the end of the 20th century, it has now been restored. It is possible to see the exterior but understandably the interior is strictly private.

East Riding Archives has a fascinating collection of images. Buy prints and learn more here https://picturearchives.org/eastridingphotos/constable-mausoleum-halsham-1900s-tinted/

And click here to find out about their innovative WhatWasHere app https://www.eastridingarchives.co.uk/archives-online/

Buxton Museum & Art Gallery has a fine collection of decorative pieces made of Ashford Black Marble https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/buxton-museum/permanent-collections/tomlinson-collection/ashford-black-marble.aspx
Artist John Piper photographed the mausoleum in the mid-20th century https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/items/tga-8728-1-40-74/piper-photograph-of-the-constable-mausoleum-in-halsham-yorkshire

For Burton Constable https://www.burtonconstable.com

In 1829 William Bettison Esq. purchased a country retreat on Newbegin in Hornsea, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. From here, he commuted by phaeton to Hull, where during his career he was owner of the Humber Street Brewery and proprietor of the Hull Advertiser. The house came with ‘extensive Pleasure Grounds’ and some time around 1844 he constructed this curious tower built of what are called treacle bricks, over-baked rejects from the kiln.

Bettison left Hornsea about a decade later but his name would live on. The story told locally is that a local lad/sailor climbed the tower and hung a placard from the top emblazoned with the words ‘Bettison’s Folly’, and thus it got its name. The legend also has it that Bettison built the tower so that his son/a servant could clamber up, spot him returning from Hull in his carriage, and give the order to cook to get the supper on the table.

In 1882 the estate was purchased by Mr. C. Shaw, and in 1901 he hosted a garden party in aid of the Wesleyan Society. The Hull Daily Mail sent a reporter who was fascinated by the tower (which could be climbed for twopence) and enquired into its history. A local man, Mr Roxby, remembered the tower being constructed and named the builder as John Russell, a Hornsea bricklayer – although other accounts say that it was built by a Hull builder who was never paid as Bettison went bankrupt.

Whoever the builder was, it must have been an unusual commission given the curious use of Flemish bond with projecting headers. Roxby could even give the source of the bricks as the Hornsea Burton Brickyard (Hornsea Burton was a nearby hamlet now lost to the encroaching sea). These bricks are usually said to have been ‘rejects’, over-baked in the kiln, but our anonymous journalist was told they were a ‘special make’. Whatever their origins, they are extremely unusual and extremely effective, catching the light (on a good day) and making the tower shimmer. The designer was quite a pioneer of recycling: as well as using the waste from the kiln the tower also has beer bottle windows*, presumably from Bettison’s brewery.

The newspaper article didn’t mention any of the tales associated with the tower, but concluded that Bettison ‘simply built it as a fad in order to have an opportunity of admiring the surrounding scenery’. The view would have taken in a local beauty spot, the large freshwater lake called Hornsea Mere.

When Barbara Jones was researching for the second edition of Follies and Grottoes she missed the tower on a 1971 recce and appealed to local contacts for information. By that date the Tower House (as it had become known) had been demolished and in 1966 a care home “The Willows’ was built on the site. Happily Jones must eventually have managed to see the tower, and in the revised book she describes it as ‘enchantingly pretty’.

The key source who helped Jones with information was Raymond Fieldhouse, a Scarborough schoolmaster who had served with Jones’s husband Clifford Barry in India during the Second World War, and later became friends with the couple. His initial response was that he didn’t know the structure, but intrigued he set off to Hornsea to investigate. He admired the tower, especially the bricks which he described as ‘a beautiful dark purplish-red’, but he drew the line at entering after the gardener advised “I wouldn’t if I were you, everything’s a foot deep in pigeon muck’. Fieldhouse also learned that the Hornsea Town Band used to climb the tower and perform on May Day. This must, he wrote, have been quite an achievement in a narrow tower, and he concluded that the ‘trombonist would be a positive menace’.

Fieldhouse (1913-1979) was well known in Scarborough where he contributed a column to the Scarborough Evening News and Mercury, and in 1973 co-wrote and illustrated The Streets of Scarborough, a guide to the town’s architecture. He was a talented artist, almost entirely self-taught, and Fieldhouses’s pen and ink sketch of Bettison’s Tower (above) appeared in the revised 1974 edition of Follies and Grottoes, one of only a handful of contemporary sketches by an artist other than Jones herself.

The nursing home has gone and the tower is now surrounded by housing. It is well-maintained and whilst currently there is no public access to the interior, the exterior is easily seen and there is an information board showing the series of stairs and platforms that lead to the roof.

The Folly Flâneuse is rather susceptible to being sidetracked… In the course of finding out more about Raymond Fieldhouse she discovered that he had designed the cover for the programme for the Northern Command Tattoo, held in Roundhay Park, Leeds, in June 1954. This was quite a spectacle (see film clips below) and Princess Margaret was one of the guests of honour. Fieldhouse’s illustrations are lovely, but equally fascinating is that the schedule of events which accompanied the programme could ‘be seen in the dark’. It was printed on special paper and ‘when held against the searchlights each item can be clearly seen’.

And the wonderful cover too has a luminosity which would make it stand out on a darkening evening.

There are clips from Pathé News showing the Roundhay Park Tattoo here https://www.britishpathe.com/video/princess-margaret-at-military-tattoo-reel-1

Fieldhouse’s drawing of the tower was still in Barbara Jones’s studio at the time of her death. It is currently with Neil Jennings Fine Art. Contact neiljennings20@gmail.com for more information.

Thanks to John Fieldhouse for helping with information about his late father. In another of those curious coincidences which The Folly Flâneuse so loves, John studied at the Royal College of Art in the early 1970s where he would often spend time with Barbara and Clifford.

* Predating Barney and Stig by over a century.