In August 2018 the Folly Flâneuse took her first tentative steps into the world of blogging. Six years later, this is the 300th post to appear. To celebrate here are some favourite follies from all four corners of the British Isles.
A trip to the northern tip of Scotland for Hogmanay led to a popular early post featuring the most northerly folly in mainland Britain, Harold’s Tower, which the Flâneuse visited on New Year’s Eve in 2018.
One of the most southerly follies to appear is the Storm Tower in Bude, Cornwall, which featured in February 2022. The tower was at that date about to be taken down and moved inland because of coastal erosion (work is now complete). This led to the Flâneuse’s history of the tower being quoted in newspaper articles about climate change, and a polite explanation that this was not her area of expertise when an interview was requested.
Sadly not all of the follies featured in the last six years are extant, but the Flâneuse hopes to keep their memories alive by recording their histories. Randall’s Folly once stood at Salthouse on the Norfolk coast, and the Flâneuse visited its site in 2021. Its rather doleful expression in this old image suggests it knew its days were numbered.
And heading west brings us to Ireland, where the Flâneuse recently spent a very happy ten days of follying. Pictured top is the tower on the Ballyfin demesne in Co. Laois and below is the tower at Belvedere, Co. Westmeath.
By far the most uplifting aspect of writing about follies, apart from the joy of the buildings themselves, is all the new friends met along the way, whether this be via exchanges of emails, or chats over a glass of wine, or encounters at a garden festival.
The Temple of Friendship at Stowe – unlike Lord Cobham the Flâneuse is sadly not in a position to build such a monument to friends old and new.
The Flâneuse is also of course hugely grateful for the support of the many old friends who have helped along the way, and especial thanks to the Uncouth Companion, the very best folly factotum.
Thank you for your kind comments over the years, and for your suggestions for future jaunts (please keep them coming). Above all thanks for taking the time to read these weekly ramblings and making it all feel worthwhile.
Cheers! Visiting Carton House in Ireland the Flâneuse was ridiculously excited to find that the folly tower in the grounds was pictured on the wine glasses.
In 1828 Henry Nevill, 2nd Earl of Abergavenny, built a tower on high ground at Eridge Castle, on the extensive Nevill Estate in East Sussex, close to the border with Kent. The elegant tapering tower was both belvedere with ‘magnificent’ prospect and eye-catcher. It echoed the architecture of the multi-turreted mansion begun in about 1787 with work continuing well into the nineteenth century. After falling into decay the tower found a new purpose in the last years of the twentieth century.
In 1837 George Jones opened a pleasure garden by the Thames at Gravesend. It was a great success, and new features were quickly added to tempt visitors. By 1849 it was said that the gardens were ‘sweet, safe, shady and salubrious’ and the ‘prettiest thing’ between the Thames and the Tiber.
Searching for an image of the Egyptian Spring, a garden ornament at Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire, the Folly Flâneuse found a picture postcard from the early years of the 20th century. But instead of the usual cheery message to a friend, the back of the card promised palatable prizes. So why was a folly being used to promote foodstuffs?
In January 1739 (1740 new style) Katherine Conolly sat in her Dublin town house writing to her sister. Although close by the fire she complained she was still freezing, and she despaired of the severe weather. She wrote of her efforts to feed the poor which included sending ‘4 score loves of breed every wick’ (spelling was not her strong point) to the labourers and needy on her country estate at Castletown. A few years later she commissioned this superlative silo to conserve grain for times of need, although cannily it doubled as a fanciful eye-catcher from the house at Castletown.
In 1138 Newminster Abbey was established close to the River Wansbeck on the edge of Morpeth, Northumberland. The first inhabitants were Cistercian monks from Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, who remained until the abbey’s dissolution in 1537. By the 19th century little could be seen apart from scattered masonry and bumps in the ground. Early in the 20th century parts were rebuilt as a grand garden ornament and tourist attraction, with perhaps not quite the academic rigour one might expect today.
In February 1992 the North Wales Weekly News carried its usual list of planning applications. Among them was an announcement that Bodysgallen Hall Hotel wished to convert a barn and stable into accommodation, and to erect a new ‘leisure building, tower folly and obelisk’. No objections were received, and permission was granted by Aberconwy Council.
Bodysgallen Hall from the gardens.
In 1980 Bodysgallen Hall, former seat of the Mostyn and Wynn families, had become part of the small Historic House Hotels group, established by Richard Broyd. The house, gardens and estate buildings were restored, and Broyd wished to erect an obelisk as a ‘decorative asset to the landscape’. Plans were drawn up by his architect Eric Throssell, and both the stone and the stonemason, Henry Wilson, were local.
But as work got underway in autumn 1992 locals claimed that they hadn’t been properly informed of the plans, and a vociferous campaign was launched demanding that the Obelisk be demolished. There were genuine concerns, including that the planning officers had not realised that Ffrith Hill was a Site of Specific Scientific Interest.
Cowslips and orchid near the obelisk. Note the droplets and please applaud the Flâneuse for climbing up to the obelisk in wild wind and rain.
But among the odder complaints was the fact that the Obelisk ‘dominated the landscape’ – a strange criticism as obelisks are not usually shy and retiring types, and generally prefer to hog the limelight on an eminence. Even more bizarre was the opponent who suggested that placing the Obelisk near the edge of a former quarry encouraged men to ‘urinate over the cliff into the garden of a house 150 feet below’. Reporting this in the local paper, a journalist suggested that such a feat would merit entry in the Guinness Book of Records requiring as it did a ‘jet of some 25 feet’.
Meanwhile Richard Broyd was adamant that the correct procedures had been followed and he was prepared to fight, telling the Daily Telegraph that ‘he who builds an obelisk has to defend it’.
A view from the obelisk. Unfortunately it was very dull day, enlivened only by the golden glow of the cowslips.
In brief, the council began to get cold feet after the anti-obelisk campaigners made a complaint of maladministration, claiming the council should never have granted planning permission. Despite a barrister assuring the councillors that their decision was robust, and that Mr Broyd had followed the correct procedures, the Planning Committee voted to demolish the Obelisk. The matter then went to the full council and the proposal was defeated by just one vote. On 16 September 1993 the local paper ran the story under the succinct headline of ‘Obelisk is staying’.
There had been support for the Obelisk too, and some who had been concerned later admitted admiration for the completed structure, which stands 19.5 metres high. But some resentment remained, and there are locals who will tell you dark tales of a plot to blow the obelisk to pieces. Even now, some 30 years on, the structure seems destined never to be mentioned as anything but the ‘controversial obelisk’.
The miniature obelisk produced as a souvenir by the hotel when the obelisk was first constructed. Normally an ornament to the desk of the Flâneuse, it enjoyed a brief foray into the sunshine for this photo opportunity.
The Folly Flâneuse took the Uncouth Companion to Bodysgallen Hall as a birthday treat soon after the obelisk was completed (he having long since learned that such jaunts had one, or more, ulterior motives) and walked up to the Obelisk. The photo’s from that pre-digital age have long since faded away, but this little model of the Obelisk, bought at the hotel, sits in the study as a memento of the trip. And of course a return visit was required in order to snap the shots needed for this post.
The Gothic Tower, built of pink rubble sandstone, seen from the woodland walk.
In all of the fuss about the Obelisk the little Gothic Tower, designed in the same period, has been overlooked. A sham ruin sits on raised ground in the woodland, and a climb up to the rooftop viewing platform reveals why this site was chosen. There’s lovely vista to the obelisk – the only spot in the gardens from where it can be seen.
View from the top of the Gothic Tower to the Obelisk.
Richard Broyd had always intended that his hotel group would pass to the National Trust, and for all profits to benefit the charity. The three properties (the others being Middlethorpe Hall near York and Hartwell House near Aylesbury) were handed over in 2008.
Looking up to the Obelisk from the grounds of Pabo Bach.
Pabo Bach, once home to one of the most vocal objectors to the obelisk, is now a holiday cottage where you can enjoy dramatic views of the former quarry with the obelisk perched on the precipice.
A distant view of the obelisk from the marina at Conwy.
The Obelisk can be seen from the A55 and the Royal Welsh Way leading into Llandudno, as well as from across the estuary in Conwy, and there is public access. The Gothic Tower may only be seen by guests at Bodysgallen Hall Hotel.
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Eighty years ago this month Sir Osbert Sitwell and his good friend Rex Whistler were discussing how materials such as papier-mâché, much used in theatrical set construction, could be used in the ‘arts of landscaping and garden design’. Once the war was over they planned to erect a dramatic eye-catcher at Sir Osbert’s Renishaw home. But two months after their meeting came tragic news: in July 1944 Whistler was killed in action in France.
When Barbara Jones published Follies and Grottoes in 1953, she made no mention of the coastal village that architect Clough Williams-Ellis had been creating at Portmeirion since 1925. Reviewing the book for the Times Literary Supplement, Laurence Whistler thought this was a ‘curious’ omission as he believed the whole conception could be described as folly.
In the little village of Barsby stands a most unexpected delight – a house with a rather fancy pinnacled gothic tower attached. It started life in the late 19th century as a village meeting place – a philanthropic endeavour by the local vicar.
