In the 1970s the Coutts Bank building in central London was partly remodelled to a design by the architect Sir Frederick Gibberd. A new glass entrance was designed to replace the columned central section of the facade on the Strand. As work progressed Gibberd salvaged some of the redundant masonry to reuse at his Essex home. There he indulged in what the Architects’ Journal called ‘that virtuous activity’ of building follies.

Sir Frederick Gibberd (1908-1984) was the Master Planner of the new town created at Harlow, in Essex, from 1946. Needing to be close to the works, he bought a small cottage on Marsh Lane. He remodelled the house and developed the extensive garden, which had plenty of space for the sculpture and architectural salvage Gibberd collected with his second wife, Patricia (they married in 1972).

Gibberd decided to use some of the redundant masonry  from Coutts to create a ‘Roman’ Temple in the garden. His colleagues on site were apparently disgruntled by this decision, as removing the columns Gibberd had chosen was time consuming work – they would have preferred to smash the whole lot to bits.

The masonry was delivered the following year, and as Gibberd wrote ‘a huge lorry equipped with a crane drove down my lane, demolished three trees and dumped a pile of huge fragments in a ditch opposite my entrance gates’. The stone was dragged to the prepared site on a sledge with steel runners.

Three men with a crane and a digger were recruited to construct the folly. Two Portland stone columns and a section of frieze were to be erected in the form of a temple inspired by ancient Roman models. Steel rods were inserted in the columns to give support and one of the men sat in the bucket of the digger to guide the stones into place. The crane driver was asked to drop a third column, so that it would appear to have fallen and broken. The bewildered man exclaimed ‘They’ve come all the way from London and I’m to drop one of them?’, and apparently demanded the instruction in writing so that he couldn’t be held responsible for the damage.

It was, Gibberd concluded, a ‘very expensive folly’, but it brought him great pleasure. When passers-by paused at the gate and asked what the structure was, Gibberd enjoyed telling them it was a fragment from an ancient Roman temple discovered during the development of a nearby industrial estate.

Four urns from the Trafalgar Square facade of the bank, which Gibberd believed to be made of Coade Stone, were mounted on a plinth and placed at an angle to the temple to create a pleasing ensemble.

Although Gibberd claimed to have no masterplan for his garden, he did draw an exquisite plan and elevation of the temple and its garden setting. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1981 as ‘Roman’ Temple (Gibberd was elected RA in 1969).

The Architects’ Journal thought the whole of the bank’s facade should have been retained, or at least reused at another building, but as their reporter concluded, at least Gibberd had ‘tried to atone and Freddie’s folly promises to become a well-loved landmark in Freddie’s own New Town’.

Gibberd died in 1984 and left his house and garden to Harlow for the benefit of the people of the town, although initially it remained home to his widow and there were only occasional open days. Complications over his will left the garden vulnerable (a long story), but there was strong local support and in 1995 the Gibberd Garden Trust was formed to maintain the site and welcome visitors. Lady Gibberd remained closely involved until her death in 2006.

Gibberd said that the half a mile approached road gave his garden ‘a quality of remoteness’. Modern housing now stands close to the track, but is still an adventure to drive down the long lane, wondering if you have perhaps taken a wrong turn, only to suddenly spot the eagle-topped gateposts.

Gibberd’s comments on making the garden are from his lecture notes On Making Gardens and Landscapes which are in the Gibberd archive at the Garden Museum.  Sir Frederick and Lady Gibberd were early supporters of the museum where you can see a small display celebrating Gibberd’s work. The account of the bemused lorry driver is from oral histories collected by Annalise Taylor and published to mark 25 years of the Gibberd Garden Trust.

The Gibberd Garden reopens for the 2026 season on Wednesday 1 April. There’s more here.

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Moreton House, in Dorset, is the seat of the Frampton family. In the middle of the eighteenth century, it was home to James Frampton who remodelled the house and created new plantations and pleasure grounds. When he died in 1784 his friend Captain John Houlton erected an obelisk on the estate to ‘perpetuate a worthy and much-lamented character’.

The designer of the obelisk is known to be James Hamilton (1748-1829) of Weymouth. Little is known of his career in the years before the monument was erected, but he went on to be highly regarded in his home town. In the 1790s he described himself as ‘Builder and Stone Mason’ and, capitalising on Weymouth’s popularity as a healthy seaside retreat, he was also a ‘Proprietor of Bathing Machines’. He designed houses and a church in Weymouth, and his name is prominent on the 1809 monument to George III in the town.

Moreton is about 11 miles north-east of Weymouth. The obelisk stands at the junction of a network of rides in Fir Hill plantation, which had been laid out by James Frampton (1769-1854) as part of his ‘various and great Improvements’. The monument is 77 feet high (23.5m) and is topped with an elegant urn, which is itself almost 10 feet (3m) tall: this was carved from a block of Portland stone ‘near 4 tons in weight’ (4064 kg). A copper bar connects the urn and the shaft to provide stability, and a lightning conductor was in place from the very start to help avert damage by thunderbolt – an occupational hazard for obelisks.

Although the obelisk carries the date of Frampton’s death, 1784, work was not completed until the autumn of 1786. A full description of the obelisk was given in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1787, and was accompanied by ‘an accurate Engraving’.

The article also quoted in full the inscriptions on the pedestal. On the north side, facing the house, was an inscription in English:

This Obelisk was erected
In the year 1784,
By Captain JOHN HOULTON,
As a publick Teftimony
Of his Gratitude and Refpect
For the Memory
Of his much-efteemed
And lamented Friend
The late JAMES FRAMPTON Efq.
Of this Place.

On the opposite face was an inscription in Latin celebrating Frampton’s creation of the landscape and noting the site of the obelisk as one of his favourite spots on the estate.

Frampton’s children thought his estate improvements and charitable works were all the monument he needed, as detailed on the simple plaque to his memory in the church dedicated to St Nicholas. In building the obelisk Captain John Houlton clearly wished to make a more prominent statement of his admiration for his friend.

The obelisk could be seen from miles around, and was a landmark noted by tourists exploring Dorset. In the nineteenth century, like many prominent landscape ornaments, it was a meeting place for the local hunt. Although the woodland has matured, a vista to the obelisk from Moreton House is maintained.

The obelisk has been in a very poor condition for many years now, and it is listed on Historic England’s Register of Buildings at Risk (it is a scheduled monument rather than a listed building).

As the obelisk decayed, the inscribed plaques were moved to the gate of the village cemetery, a short walk from the church, to ensure their survival.

Moreton’s church, commissioned by James Frampton in the 1770s, is a delight both inside and out. After admiring the very attractive and unusual exterior one goes inside to be amazed by the extraordinary light that flows through the clear glass windows. The church was badly damaged by bombing in 1940 and during the restoration green glass panes were fitted.

These were not popular, so the enlightened congregation commissioned the glass artist Laurence Whistler (1912-2000) to design new panes of engraved glass. These were installed between 1955 and 1987, although, after some controversy about the design, the window featuring Judas was not actually installed until 2013.

James Hamilton created another landscape ornament of a very different kind. In 1808 he designed the chalk figure of George III on horseback that is a feature of the hillside at Osmington, near Weymouth.

The obelisk is on private land, but can be seen from the road into Moreton. The church is very welcoming. The Osmington horse can be seen from the A353 north-east of Weymouth (although at the time of writing it is easy to miss as the chalk has washed away and it is a grey shape on the hillside).

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It is not everyday that someone builds a seven-storey brick tower on the edge of one of the busiest and most rapidly-growing towns in Britain, especially in the middle of the eighteenth century, so one would assume that the construction of this folly would have been noticed. Birmingham was home to one of the earliest provincial newspapers – surely the curious structure made the pages? But no, the early history of the tower seems very hard to find. The building was originally referred to as the observatory, or as Perrott’s Monument, but soon became ‘vulgarly’ known as Perrott’s Folly because it was born of an ‘insane vanity’.

John Perrott (c.1704-1776) owned the Bell Hall estate at Belbroughton in Worcestershire, and also had a house in Edgbaston, then a village near Birmingham. Near his Edgbaston home, in rural Rotton Park, he built his tower.

The first history of Birmingham was written by William Hutton and published in 1781. Hutton mentions the ‘observatory’ in passing, but makes no mention of its builder or history. William Pye made an ‘excursion round the town in the summer of 1818’ and saw the ‘observatory’. He recorded that the ‘lofty’ tower was known as the Monument and had been erected by John Perrot [sic] in ‘around 1758’: all later accounts of the tower seem to be based on this account. It was certainly extant by February 1773 when a classified advertisement in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette notes a property near ‘Mr Perrott’s Observatory’. No records have yet been found to identify the architect and craftsmen who created the tower.

Although we now think of an observatory as a building from which to regard the night skies, in this period it was synonymous with belvedere, literally somewhere from which to observe the view. The upper room is beautifully decorated with ornate plasterwork, suggesting a space where one enjoyed refined refreshments whilst admiring the surrounding countryside.

It seems likely that the tower was also used to view the chase, for the surrounding countryside was used by the hunt. More fanciful are the tales that Perrott built it to give his wife a view of her childhood home in Belbroughton in Worcestershire. Or, that it was erected so Perrott could see his wife’s grave, or the home of the daughter who had married against his wishes, both also in Belbroughton. Great as these stories are, they are pure local legend: as a plaque in Holy Trinity church in Belbroughton makes clear, Perrott’s wife outlived him for many years. But more importantly, the Clent Hills block any view of Belbroughton. His son-in-law was the beneficiary of his will, so it seems unlikely that Perrott disapproved of him. But a catalogue of tall tales is particularly appropriate for this towering folly.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the ‘lofty picturesque building known as The Monument’ was offered for sale. By that date it stood in the grounds of Monument House, a ‘commodious and gentlemanly residence’, but no further information about the tower was given in the sales particulars.

In 1907 the Birmingham Mail pondered the reasons for the erection of the tower and concluded that it was for ‘convivial gatherings’. By that date the views the folly had once enjoyed had been compromised by the growth of Birmingham, now a large city. The paper commented on the contrast between the ‘crisp clear country air on one side and the thick smoky acid-laden cloud which hangs like a pall over the city on the other side’. The paper also questioned the mental stability of folly builders, concluding that the tower was ‘erected to gratify an ill-balanced mind’.

The smog was clearly not an issue for meteorological types and from the late nineteenth century until 1979 the tower was used as an observatory to record weather conditions. Emergency repairs to save the tower from collapse were carried out by Birmingham Conservation Trust, with work completed in 2005.

The tower has since had a number of uses, including as an art gallery and a party venue. Today it is home to Re.Future Collective, an arts and architecture collective formed in 2012 to ‘deliver arts, health and heritage activities to connect communities and to help address disadvantage’. Current projects include an Art Youth Club, workshops for adults experiencing loneliness or isolation and working with asylum seekers to create a mosaic for Perrott’s Folly. The collective is also actively researching the history of the tower, and paint samples are currently being analysed to see what they reveal – these are vibrant and exciting times for the folly.

It is not possible to discuss the tower (grade II*) without mentioning J.R.R. Tolkien. The author grew up in Birmingham, and fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy believe that the folly, and the tower of the nearby waterworks, inspired The Two Towers, the second volume in the series.

Perrott’s Folly and the waterworks tower are easy to find – head to the helpfully named Waterworks Road, just off  Monument Road.

Thank you for reading. If you have any thoughts or further information you would like to share, please scroll down to find the comments box.

In the middle of the eighteenth century Ralph Allen, who had both a Bath townhouse and the Prior Park estate in a fine landscape just out of town, erected a gothic eye-catcher on high ground above Bath.  The folly took the form of a turreted and castellated screen, unadorned at the back and intended only to be viewed from the city. By the end of the eighteenth century the folly had become known as the ‘Sham Castle’, and it has attracted the gaze of artists ever since it was built.

In 1755 the architect Sanderson Miller, known for fashionable landscape ornaments, was mooted as the ideal candidate to design Allen’s proposed ‘considerable Gothic Object’. However the folly was claimed as his own by Allen’s Clerk of Works, Richard Jones. In an account of his life Jones, wrote ‘in 1762 began the Castle in the warren, and was built in a quarter of a year to my plan’. To further complicate matters, the folly appears on an engraved prospect of Bath published in 1757. Hence the Flâneuse settling for mid-century as a date, and hoping for further evidence to emerge in due course. What is certain is that Allen died in 1764, so he had little time to enjoy his new landscape ornament.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the folly ‘had been allowed to fall into decay’. The two end towers were crumbling and this was blamed on boys who used the castle as a ‘rendezvous for games’.

The estate was still owned by the Allen family at this date, but financial aid to save the folly came from a different source. In 1880 a local paper noted that restoration was underway thanks to help from an unnamed female benefactor. It was only on her death in 1891 that the identity of the philanthropist became widely known: Mary Downing Russell Elliott (née Scott) had quietly, and unbeknownst to even her closest friends, funded a number of civic projects over the years.

Mrs Elliott’s investment allowed the two end towers of the Sham Castle to be rebuilt and the centre towers to be restored. She also funded the restoration of the obelisk and gardens in Orange Grove, next to Bath Abbey.

The Allen family sold the ‘remaining portion’ of their Bathampton estate at auction in March 1921. This included the Sham Castle and around an acre of ground. This parcel was bought by a Mr Candy, who purchased it with the farm he had tenanted, and from the start he was clear about his intentions of selling the folly soon after. That auction of the Sham Castle was held in June 1921, and various uses for the folly were suggested: a tea garden was a tempting proposition, but one rather alarming suggestion was that an ‘asbestos back’ might be added behind the facade to ‘convert the structure into a bungalow’.

Happily (in the latter instance) there was little interest, and the castle didn’t sell, but good news was soon to follow. In July the local paper reported that ‘Bathonians must have noted with much pleasure the announcement last Thursday that the Sham Castle has been purchased by two gentlemen for presentation to the City’. Mr Candy was given due credit for selling the folly at ‘preferential terms’.

Unlike Mrs Elliott, these donors were happy for their identities to be known, and a plaque was erected acknowledging their generous gift to the city. As the inscription records, some further restoration work was carried out in this period.

The Sham Castle has continued to catch the eye of artists. Richard Guyatt chose it as his subject when commissioned by Shell to produce an image for the ‘To Visit Britain’s Landmarks’ poster series, displayed on the sides of the company’s delivery lorries in the 1930s.

And completing four centuries of views of the landmark, Christopher Gee painted this view of the folly…

… and Ed Kluz depicted the folly in a vibrant collage.

If you are in Bath before 10 May, as well as climbing up to the folly for magnificent views (it is publicly accessible – just follow Sham Castle Lane) you can see Richard Guyatt’s view of the Sham Castle in Poster Power!, an excellent exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery.

Thank you for reading. Comments, as ever, are welcome – just scroll down to the foot of the page to get in touch. 

In 1840 the foundation stone was laid for a column on the Brocklesby estate which can be found near Grimsby, in Lincolnshire. Eventually reaching a height of 130 feet, it could soon be seen from miles around. The plantations surrounding it have long since matured, and today you have to look a little harder to find what became known as Pelham’s Pillar.

Charles Anderson (1749-1823) succeeded to the Brocklesby estate of his great uncle, Charles Pelham, in 1763, and added the Pelham name to his own. Pelham, created Baron Yarborough in 1794 greatly improved the vast estate, ornamentally and productively, with advice from Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.

Building work on his monument was begun by his son, Charles Anderson Pelham (1781-1846), created 1st Earl of Yarborough in 1837, and the column commemorates the 12,532,700 trees planted by his father between 1787 and his death in 1823. Construction was completed by his son, Charles (1809-1862), 2nd Earl of Yarborough, after he succeeded in 1846.

The architect was Edward James Willson (1787-1854) of Lincoln and the builder was Mr Tomlin of Grantham (probably John Tomlin, stonemason). Work was well underway by 1844 when ‘many workmen’ were reported to be on site. By 1845 it was rising above the trees and visible from boats on the Humber. The urn was fixed on the top in autumn 1847, and by 1848 it was said to be ‘now completed’. The lions that guard the entrance were carved by William Day Keyworth (1817-1897) of Hull.

The inscription on the column gives 1849 as the official opening date and one of the first to see the new column was Prince Albert, who was staying at Brocklesby in April 1849 when on official business in Grimsby (noting Albert’s visit to Lincolnshire in her diary, Queen Victoria wrote ‘I always miss him terribly when he leaves me’).

The Prince was driven around the park, where large groups gathered hoping to catch a glimpse of the royal visitor. Elizabeth Dixon, a local farmer’s wife, watched the procession from the Newsham Lodge and then followed the Prince to the pillar where she had ‘an excellent view of the whole party’.

Even before it was complete the pillar had become not just a landmark for travellers on the roads and river, but a prominent spot for the Earl of Yarborough’s hounds to assemble before the chase.

Brocklesby was already home to other ornaments, including a garden temple, a hermitage and an exquisite mausoleum of 1787. In 1844 it was noted that visitors were welcomed into the park. There they could ‘wander in extensive and beautiful plantations’ and take refreshments in a woodland cottage ‘built in the Swiss style’ which stood near the rising column. In 1885 the Brocklesby estate was described in a tourist guide as a ‘place of holiday resort’, with the pillar and the Swiss Cottage amongst the highlights.

Unfortunately some of these tourists were not on their best behaviour, and in 1849 the estate office offered an ultimatum: if the carving of names in trees and the disfiguring of seats did not stop, then access to the park would be limited. The announcement continued that in future access to Pelham’s Pillar and the mausoleum would be by ticket only, obtainable on application to the estate office. Once access to the column had been gained, the message was reiterated on a plaque requesting that persons visiting the pillar refrain from writing or cutting their names or ‘otherwise disfigure the walls’.

For generations the men of the Jackson family, who lived at Pelham Pillar Lodge, were both woodsmen for the adjacent plantations and custodians of the monument. Their address was often abbreviated, making it appear that the family inhabited the column itself:

Happily the behaviour of the visitors must have improved, and the estate continued to allow access. In 1889 the Primitive Methodists met at the pillar for a bank holiday gathering, perhaps tempted along by the ‘meat tea’ that was provided. In that same year, a local cycling club visited Pelham’s Pillar and the Swiss Cottage with their ‘wives, sisters, and lady friends’. Fear not any frail female readers alarmed at this exertion: the ladies were ‘conveyed in wagonettes’.

But sadly history repeats itself: in the late twentieth century the Brocklesby estate created a popular permissive path which took in a number of the monuments, many of which had been restored. In 2021 it was announced that the route was to be permanently closed after several incidents of ‘anti-social behaviour’. Pelham’s Pillar too is out of bounds, but it can be glimpsed through trees (in winter)  from the adjoining road.

The Flâneuse climbed the tower many years ago when public access was allowed, but has no decent photographs, so thanks to the Garden Historian for the photo of the lions, and to Mike Booth of M.A.B. Media for the title image and the view above. His excellent film showing the detail of the architecture and the landscape setting of the column is well worth a look and can be found by clicking here.

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In the early 1860s it was proposed that a monument should be erected to William Tyndale, the man who in 1526 produced the first printed edition of the New Testament in English. His aim was that it could be read by everyday people in their own tongue. This was forbidden by the Church, and Tyndale was executed for heresy in 1536. The foundation stone of his monument was laid in May 1863 and ever since the monument has been a landmark for travellers on Gloucestershire’s quiet byroads or, more recently, the swarming lanes of the M5 motorway.

The residents of North Nibley believed that Tyndale was born in their village in around 1484, and that the monument should be built on the hill called Nibley Knoll which overlooked the settlement. But others steadfastly maintained that Tyndale should be commemorated on nearby Stinchcombe Hill, which location also claimed links to the Tyndale family. Whilst the dispute continued, subscriptions to the fund to finance the tower were slow to arrive, with both sides encouraging their supporters not to contribute until the site was finalised in their favour.

In 1861 it was suggested that the ‘division of feeling’ might render the project ‘tame and impotent’. But eventually it was agreed that the monument would be built on Nibley Knoll, and the organisers were confident that subscriptions would then ‘flow in’. This wasn’t to be, and when the foundation stone was laid in May 1863 there was still only £800 of the required £1,500 in the bank.

The ceremony to lay the foundation stone was carried out with great pomp, with bands accompanying the dignitaries up to the tower and the local paper reckoning that a crowd of 10,000 was present. There were hymns, psalms, prayers, speeches and votes of thanks and the Hon. F.W.F. Berkeley M.P. laid the foundation stone with the obligatory commemorative silver trowel.

A ‘leaden box’ containing a bible and a scroll in a bottle was originally laid in a recesss below the foundation stone, but as the tower began to gain height the work was found to be unsatisfactory, and it was pulled down and rebuilt. The current whereabouts of that bible are unknown, but Wotton-under-Edge museum has copies of the bibles presented to the men who built the tower.

The architect appointed to design the monument, in the form of a prospect tower, was Samuel Sanders Teulon of London. This was presumably on Lord Ducie’s recommendation, as Teulon had designed his new home, Tortworth Court, a few years previously. The contractor was Mr Jackson of Uley, and Dr Antonio Salviati of Venice was commissioned to create a ‘large mosaic cross’ as the finial.

In November 1866 Lord Ducie performed the inauguration of the monument, and there was a final appeal for donations to clear the remaining shortfall of £300. The finished tower stands 111 feet high, excluding the cross, and a roundel above the door carries the inscription:

ERECTED A.D. 1866
IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF
WILLIAM TYNDALE
TRANSLATOR OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE
WHO FIRST CAUSED THE NEW TESTAMENT
TO BE PRINTED IN THE MOTHER TONGUE
OF HIS COUNTRYMEN
BORN NEAR THIS SPOT HE SUFFERED
MARTYRDOM AT VILVORDE IN
FLANDERS ON OCT 6TH 1536

The monument became a popular destination for ramblers and picknickers who could admire the vast panorama over the Bristol Channel into Wales. In the 1930s one visitor wrote that the garage proprietor in North Nibley kept the ‘great nine-inch key to this stone column, and for threepence he will let you have the loan of it’. Although not impressed by the design, the writer Malachi Whitaker walked up to the ‘grim-looking monument, commemorating Tyndale, the man who did something to the Bible, which I have ungratefully forgotten’ and admired the prospect of hills and valleys and a ‘perfect evening sky’.

Barbara Jones, never one to repress her true thoughts, called the monument ‘an unspeakably ugly sleazily tapering stone tower’ (Follies & Grottoes, 1974). The Flâneuse rather likes it, and it was worth the steep and muddy climb to the plateau on which the tower stands on a wild and windy day.

There’s not space here to go into the life and work of William Tyndale, but there’s an excellent account on the North Nibley website if you would like to know more. The website also has directions to the monument, which is only accessible on foot. The door is open and you can climb to the top to appreciate the view.

If you visit the tower (grade II*) don’t miss the opportunity to visit the lovely little Wotton-under-Edge Heritage Centre. As well as a fascinating local history collection there are currently displays featuring Isaac Pitman (1813-1897), who invented shorthand in the town, and poet and writer Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1872-1925), who lived in the town for a few years from 1916.

As it was a dull January day when the Flâneuse visited the monument, here is Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska’s Landscape with Houses and Sun to bring a little cheer.

There are plans to celebrate the quincentenary of Tyndale’s achievement (1526-2026) and you can read more on the Tyndale Society website.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts are always welcome – simply scroll down to the foot of the page to find the comments box.

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

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In 1836 General Loft, a committed church-crawler, visited Fotherby, near Louth in Lincolnshire, and found the ancient fabric of the church of St Mary’s ‘now terribly mutilated’. In the later 1850s a major rebuild was proposed, and the Bishop of Lincoln threw his weight behind the appeal with a donation of £20. James Robson, tenant and later owner of Brackenborough Hall, an attractive moated Georgian house about a mile from the church, was also a donor. As work got underway, he salvaged some of the stone from the old church and used it to build a sham ruin on a mound in the corner of his garden.

James Fowler of Louth was chosen as architect for the new church at Fotherby, and with funds in place it was agreed that work could begin in 1861. The crumbling old church was pulled down and, after a period of worshipping in nearby barns and meeting rooms, the congregation assembled in the new church in May 1863. Fowler was congratulated on the ‘imposing appearance of the edifice’.

At Brackenborough the folly was built on a mound in the corner of the moated enclosure that surrounds the garden. It was probably built contemporaneously with the new church at Fotherby, in the first years of the 1860s, but no records seem to survive to confirm an exact date. Robson (1820-1899) was a churchwarden and contributed to the cost of the new church, but no records of him acquiring the stone have yet been found. The folly no doubt functioned as a belvedere, summerhouse and eye-catcher, and in what was described in 1887 as ‘fine hunting country’ it may also have been a landmark for the hunt. When first built the south elevation was higher than the other sides and incorporated further recycled masonry, as seen in this 1907 view. No architect is associated with the folly: Fowler may have given advice, or it may have been Robson’s own design.

Brackenborough stands in an elevated position (relatively, in the flatlands of Lincolnshire), and before the plantations matured the view from the folly would have taken in local churches: there is still a vista to the elegant parish church of St James in Louth, with its spire said to be the highest of any parish church in Britain (the church was restored by Fowler in the 1760s).

Robson was declared bankrupt in 1887, after a collapse in the prices of agricultural produce, and the estate was put up for sale. Frustratingly, the sales particulars for the auction of the estate that year make no mention of the folly, although it was certainly extant a year later when the 25″ Ordnance Survey map was surveyed (published 1889) and the square tower is shown on its mound. The earliest written description found to date is in the sales particulars when the estate was again put up for auction in 1907. The folly was then noted as a ‘picturesque keep erected from stones from an old Ecclesiastical house’ (with house used in the sense of a church, or house of god). The estate was purchased by Frederick W. Bennett, whose family remain at Brackenborough today.

In the first edition of the Buildings of England: Lincolnshire, published in 1964, John Harris described the garden ornament as a ‘felicitous folly concocted from the remains of Fotherby church’ (for the Lincolnshire volume Nikolaus Pevsner concentrated mainly on churches and left secular buildings to Harris). Harris identified the fragments incorporated into the little tower as a thirteenth century arch, a three light Perpendicular window and a Decorated window ‘all built into a rugged ruin’. Photographs taken by Harris in 1959 during his research (Historic England collection) are similar to that shown above, and show that the south elevation was largely intact at that date.

The folly was ‘toppling precariously’ by the time Barbara Jones saw it in around 1970. The building was listed at grade II in 1986, by which time the upper section of the south elevation must have collapsed and it is not mentioned in the description. For years afterwards the folly was smothered in ivy and brambles and a large sycamore had taken root within the structure: it had become what Jones called a ‘ruinous sham ruin’ (Follies & Grottoes, 1974).

In 2015 Paul and Flora Bennett commissioned a structural survey from Capstone Consulting Engineers which concluded that the options were to repair and consolidate the folly as a ruin, or to repair and restore the folly creating a more ‘robust structure’. In 2020, after discussions at local and national levels, the Bennetts were given listed building consent to dismantle and reconstruct the badly listing folly under the supervision of Historic Building Consultant Liz Mayle.

The folly was dismantled, the stones numbered, and the folly rebuilt on secure foundations with new oak lintels and steel ties to support the structure. Flora even trawled the moat in search of stones that had toppled from the folly. In 2023 the restoration was recognised by a Pride of Place award from Louth Civic Trust.

Brackenborough Hall is a private residence, but the folly can be seen from a public footpath through the park. Or you could celebrate your wedding there, with the folly as a backdrop to your photographs, or stay in one of the holiday lets on the estate (which include an apartment featuring both the workings of the Coach House clock and a grain winch). To find out more visit brackenboroughhall.com.

Thanks to Steffie S. for alerting the Flâneuse to the restored folly, and to Paul, Flora and Poppy the exuberant labrador for a tour and a welcome coffee on a frosty morning.

Thank you for reading. To share any thoughts please scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page. If you would like a complimentary folly story in your inbox each Saturday morning please click on the ‘subscribe’ tab.

Hockley Abbey was built in around 1779 by Richard Ford, an ‘ingenious mechanic’, out of the waste or dross from a nearby furnace. Built in the form of a semi-ruinous monastic edifice, Ford had the date of 1473 picked out in pebbles on the front ‘as a false suggestion of antiquity’, although this was soon covered over by the ivy which he encouraged to creep all over his new home. The house was demolished in the second half of the nineteenth century, but is remembered in paintings, prose and poetry.

Mentioned in 1788 as the ‘Cynder House at Hockley’, the earliest comprehensive reference is in rhyme. In 1800 James Bisset, the custodian of Birmingham’s Museum, published a curious hybrid, which was part poem and part who’s who of Birmingham, under the snappy title of A poetic survey round Birmingham; with a brief description of the different curiosities and manufactories of the place. Intended as a guide to strangers. […] Accompanied by a magnificent directory; with the names, professions, &c. superbly engraved in emblematic plates. Bisset invited the reader to join him on a tour of the town, and there was a pause to admire Hockley Abbey and its curious construction:

Close by the LAKE’S pellucid stream, behold
A GOTHIC PILE, which seems some cent’ries old,
VULCANIC FANCY there display’d her taste,
And rear’d the fabric on the barren waste;
The FORGE materials for the work provides,
Rude cinders clothe the front – compose the sides.

The ‘abbey’ was described in detail in by Charles Pye in his Description of Modern Birmingham. According to Pye, who toured Birmingham in 1818, Ford noticed that the workers at his manufactory spent several shillings each week in the pub. Not a drinker, Ford decided to put aside two shillings each day until he had enough money to build the house. With the funds in place, his workforce were sent to collect the ‘large masses of scoriæ’ from the Aston furnace and cart it to the building site. By the time Pye saw the abbey it was covered with ivy and he wrote that the uninformed visitor would be ‘at a loss to know what substance the walls were built with’.

Ford told Pye that Hockley Abbey was built ‘without advancing any other money than the fourteen shillings a week’. This all seems a little fanciful, and it is likely that Ford had to dip into his savings to fund the improvements on his new estate.  As well as the house, with its ‘feign’d time-shook walls’, he also laid out ‘beautiful grounds and walks, interspersed with fanciful curiosities’. These included a grot decorated with spar and shells, the ‘beauteous spoils of Neptune’s realms’.

The abbey became an object of interest for tourists visiting the area (Hockley Abbey was contiguous with Mathew Boulton’s much-admired Soho estate, where a grand manufactory stood alongside his mansion with pleasure grounds). The artificial ruins built out of ‘cinders and vitrifications’ were considered by one visitor in 1799 to be in such good taste that it would be ‘illiberal to pass by without notice’.

This 1868 photograph shows Hockley Abbey shortly before it was pulled down and the site redeveloped. Hockley Abbey is best remembered today as the trademark of John Rabone & Sons of Hockley Abbey Works, Birmingham. The measuring tools that they manufactured, and in particular spirit levels, brass rulers and tape measures, are now collectors’ items.

For more follies built out of furnace waste see this post about Morris Castle, near Swansea

The Flâneuse sends best wishes to all readers for the year ahead. Thank you for your continued support. As ever, comments are very welcome via the box at the foot of the page.

In the 1980s follies played a part in promoting a new breakfast cereal: special packs of Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain contained picture cards featuring ‘Gardens to Visit’. The twenty cards were illustrated with views of gardens in Britain and Ireland, all of them open to the public, and five follies or quirky garden ornaments were among the cards to be collected. As the blurb on the box announced ‘Most of us are enchanted by the magic of a beautiful garden’.

Nutri-Grain was launched in 1987 and, as well as publishing the collectable cards, the marketing team promoted it via recipe leaflets: a ‘cosy supper dish’ of trout stuffed with Nutri-Grain was one suggestion. But the Flâneuse digresses…

Once you had the full set of cards you could send off for a folder in which to display your collection…

The album had an introduction by Clay Jones, then chairman of Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time and co-presenter of Gardeners’ World on BBC2. He wrote that ‘no matter where you live in Britain, there is sure to be a magnificent garden not far away’ (although the cards didn’t actually reflect this – only one was in Scotland, one in Wales and two in Ireland and the majority were in southern England). Acclaimed writer and photographer Heather Angel provided most of the photographs, including all of those featured here, and wrote that she hoped ‘this series will stimulate a greater interest in our gardens’.

The cards are small, only 58cm x 75cm, and the print quality is not the finest, but the Flâneuse would still have been very happy to discover these wonderful photographs in her cereal box…

Card three featured the Pagoda Fountain at Alton Towers in Staffordshire. The autumnal view was accompanied by text describing the ‘magical sight and sound’ of the water falling onto the tiered copper roofs and cascading down causing the copper bells to tinkle.

Number five in the series showed the Gothic Temple at Painshill in Surrey, which had been returned to its former elegance after a major restoration only a couple of years earlier. The card explained that work continued to bring Painshill back to life, and that the park deserved to be better known. Work has continued at Painshill since 1987, and the magnificent grotto, described on the card as damaged during the Second World War, once again sparkles and surprises.

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal in North Yorkshire was the focus of card eight, and in particular the Temple of Piety complete with its much-photographed reflection in the Moon Pond. The card encouraged collectors to visit and find the ‘spectacular’ surprise view of the ruins of Fountains Abbey.

Card seventeen in the set had a view of the Chinese House and Bridge at Shugborough, in Staffordshire. The card praised the ‘Chinese shrubs’ planted to complement the garden building, and recommended seeing the other ‘notable monuments’ in the park.

The only Irish garden was Mount Stewart in County Down in Northern Ireland. The card didn’t feature the famous Temple of the Winds, but instead showed the Dodo Terrace, where quirky concrete sculptures were placed in the early twentieth century.

All of the gardens remain open to the public, although if visiting the follies at Alton Towers you might be distracted by a different kind of folly – the screams of those riding the Toxicator (‘take hold and brace yourself’) or Nemesis Reborn (‘more uncontrollable than ever before’).

Thanks to Cherrill S for introducing the Flâneuse to the cards, and thanks to you for reading. As ever your thoughts and comments are welcome via the box at the foot of the page.

As with all good serials, there will be a wait until the next episode, but the Flâneuse will be back with a snap, a crackle and a pop in 2026. Until then, wishing everyone happiness whatever your plans for the festive season. Goodbye for now, or should that be Cheerios? (Apologies, but it is the season of the corny Christmas cracker joke).