Late in the eighteenth century, the Grant family lost their livelihood in their native Scotland and set out to find work in the rapidly developing industries of Lancashire. Pausing to rest on their journey they admired the ‘beautiful valley’ of the River Irwell, which reminded them of Speyside. Decades later they bought the ground, and erected this tower to commemorate that moment.
Folly
The Temple, Bandrum, near Saline, Fife
When Archibald Hogg of Bandrum House built this tower as an observatory and summerhouse in the 1840s, Saline had the ‘well-merited reputation of being the Paradise of Fife’. The village, built along the valley of the Saline Burn, is surrounded by hills and from the eminence called Bandrum this tower enjoyed a prospect of the undulating landscape to the Firth of Forth and beyond.
The Temple, Blagdon Hall, Northumberland.
Blagdon Hall stands close to the former Great North Road, a few miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne. At the end of the lake stands a circle of Doric columns known as The Temple. The columns were first erected as part of a rotunda ,with an unusual domed roof, at Heaton Hall, on the edge of Newcastle. Part of the grounds of Heaton Hall later became a public park, but when it looked as if the Temple was going to be a drain on corporation funds, it was removed to Blagdon in around 1937.
Architectural “Follies”: a Victorian view.
In 1857 an anonymous article appeared in The Builder magazine under the title Architectural “Follies”. The author used the word ‘architectural’ to distinguish from examples of folly in literature and art: he thought there were far too many books with an eccentric choice of subject, and that there were many follies ‘perpetuated on canvas’. Sadly, he failed to develop this theme, and the reader is left wondering what exactly he had in mind (the Flâneuse is making the assumption that at this date a journalist writing for a building trade magazine was almost certainly male). Happily, he was a little more forthcoming when he moved on to follies of the built variety.
Sowler’s Tower, Far Sawrey, Cumbria
On the wooded slopes overlooking the west bank of Windermere in Cumbria (formerly Lancashire) stand the truncated remains of Sowler’s Tower. Although no great beauty today, this curious structure has an absolutely fascinating history. According to one source it was the last resting place of its builders, the Sowlers of Sawrey Knotts, with Mrs Sowler apparently spending eternity within the tower in a glass-topped coffin. The tower is indeed a mausoleum, but its residents are not the Sowlers.
Crumbles Castle, Islington, London
This folly, both urban and modern, may come as something of a surprise after the elegant edifices of earlier centuries that usually grace these pages. It was built by volunteers to a plan drawn up by architectural students in the early 1970s, and today it provides a safe space for local children to play.
The Gothic Temple, Painshill, Surrey
Painshill, or Pains Hill, near Cobham in Surrey, was the creation of the Hon. Charles Hamilton. From 1738 he landscaped the valley of the river Mole and decorated his estate with an enchanting array of garden buildings, including this pavilion which is known as the Gothic Temple. In 1953 Barbara Jones wrote that she feared the park was ‘beyond help’, but thanks to an amazing restoration project, which began in the 1980s and continues today, it has been returned to its former beauty and elegance.
The Folly, Pontypool, Monmouthshire.
Pontypool House, in the ancient Welsh county of Monmouthshire, was a seat of the Hanbury family and stood in a park that was described in 1801 as ‘pleasing, wild and diversified’. The writer of this description was taken on a ‘pleasant ride’ up to a ‘summer house’ called ‘the folly’, from which there was an extensive panorama. It was, he concluded, a ‘singular and almost boundless prospect’ which no visitor to Monmouthshire should miss.
Freddie’s Folly, The Gibberd Garden, Harlow, Essex
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.
Perrott’s Folly, Birmingham, West Midlands.
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’.