This fine brick arch is one of the few surviving eighteenth century features of the designed landscape of Gobions in Hertfordshire. The mansion is long gone, and much of the park has been developed for housing and a golf course, but the arch still stands – although it has come very close to collapse.
eyecatcher
The Tower, Rookesbury, Hampshire
In 1826 Charles Heathcote Tatham exhibited a view of a ‘tower now erecting’ at the Royal Academy. The tower was a belvedere, eye-catcher and summerhouse on the Rookesbury estate, near Wickham, where a substantial new house, also designed by Tatham, was under construction.
Rookesbury (often Rooksbury) was the seat of Reverend William Garnier (1771-1835) and his wife Lady Harriett, née North (1771-1847). As well as replacing the existing house with one on higher ground, the couple remodelled the pleasure grounds. A series of views of Hampshire mansions, published in 1825, describes the new landscaping and notes that the ‘elevated Tower’ was under construction. Presumably it was nearing completion, as the author could admire the views to Portsmouth Harbour, the Isle of Wight and the Channel.
From the house a stroll though the flower gardens led to a ‘romantically wooded glen’ from where a winding path meandered to the ‘considerable open eminence’ on which the tower stood. The building was called ‘Summer House’ on the 1839 tithe map, and noted in 1833 as the ‘Observatory’, but later in the century it became known simply as ‘the Tower’. It stood on high ground east of the house.
The views from the top of the tower could still be appreciated in the 1930s, but by 1972 the ‘curious tower’ was in an ‘advanced state of decay’. Barbara Jones saw the building as she was researching the revised edition of Follies & Grottoes in the 1970s (the photograph at the top of the page is from her collection). She admired the ‘impressive tower’ but felt its prospects of survival were ‘nil’. As she put the finishing touches to her text a friend wrote with news of the tower’s demise, and she concluded her account of the ‘spectacular’ folly with the depressing phrase ‘Demolished May 1973’.
What makes this particularly sad is that the Rookesbury estate has had the misfortune to lose two fine towers. The view from an earlier tower was admired by the theatrical impresario Tate Wilkinson in 1759 when he visted the Garnier family at Rookesbury. He found David Garrick there and the actor, being younger than his host, gave Wilkinson a tour of the house and gardens, skipping around like a ‘lad of twenty’.
Wilkinson wrote that Garnier had built the tower for ‘study, curiosity, and prospect’ and, as he compares the prospect favourably to one he had seen nearby, we know the view took in the Isle of Wight, the ‘ocean’ and shipping. This tower is shown on an estate map of 1756 and on Taylor’s County map of 1759 as ‘Temple’ (above) and it too stood east of the house. The Flâneuse has been unable to conclude if the belvederes stood on the same site, and sadly no trace remains of either tower.
Rookesbury was a school for many years but is now a wedding and events venue. There’s more information here.
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Curiosities of Town and Countryside
In 1941 Batsford published a new title by Edmund Vale called Curiosities of Town and Countryside. With a striking cover by Brian Cook, featuring the triumphal arch at Shugborough Hall, Staffordshire, the jacket blurb promised the reader ‘freaks, eccentricities and follies.’
Sir Tatton Sykes Monument, Garton Hill, East Riding of Yorkshire
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.
The Tower, Tan-y-Coed, Old Colwyn, Clwyd
This little sham castle, once on an open hillside but now surrounded by trees, was erected in the grounds of a house called Tan-y-Coed (Foot of the Woods) in Old Colwyn. It was the home of Charles Frederick Woodall, a retired woollen draper from Manchester, who settled on the North Wales coast in the 1880s for the benefit of his health. He created pretty gardens around his house, with the sham castle the most prominent feature. The tower is a prime example of a folly where the tales told about it don’t bear close scrutiny…
The Tower, Penistone Hill, Haworth, West Yorkshire
As part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture a new landscape ornament has appeared on an elevated spot above the little town of Haworth, best known as the home of the Brontë sisters. Creative Director Shanaz Gulzar commissioned four artists to create site-specific works for Penistone Hill Country Park. The project is called Wild Uplands as the artworks are sited on a lofty and lonely common (the wily, windy moors of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights) that is only ten miles or so from busy Bradford.
The Folly, Belchamp Walter, Essex.
Belchamp Walter, in Essex (but very close to the Suffolk border) is the quintessential English village with a manor house and church at its heart. But on a field boundary behind the hall stands a less common feature – a curious, and very clever, folly facade.
The Summerhouse, or Lookout Tower, Boscastle, Cornwall
On a promontory overlooking the harbour at Boscastle stands a squat white building bedecked with flags and antennas. It started life in the middle of the 18th century when it was erected as a summerhouse and eye-catcher by Cotton Amy, whose Botreaux Castle estate included the harbour and lands around it. In 1821 the land was purchased by Thomas Rickard Avery, a local merchant and, depending on who you believe, a ‘notorious wrecker’.
Browne’s Folly, Monkton Farleigh, Wiltshire
In 1848 a brief note in local newspapers announced that a ‘lofty tower’ had been erected on Farleigh Down. Commanding the ‘most extensive and magnificent prospects’, the tower was built by Wade Browne, who had recently settled at Monkton Farleigh. The tower stands in Wiltshire – although very close to the border with Somerset.
The Jungle, Swinethorpe, Lincolnshire
Early in the nineteenth century, Samuel Russell Collett moved to a farming estate at Swinethorpe in Lincolnshire. There he constructed a ‘romantic seat’, in the form of a sham castle, which by 1824 was known by the curious name of ‘The Jungle’.