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.

The exact early history of the arch is not known, but it is generally accepted to have been built for Jeremy Sambrooke (died 1754), who bought the estate in the first decade of the eighteenth century. It is attributed to the architect James Gibbs, who is known to have designed garden buildings for Gobions (also often referred to as Gubbins), but to date no documentary evidence has been found.

The arch straddled an entrance which led to a tree-lined drive down into the park, laid out to a design attributed to Charles Bridgeman, although Sambrooke himself probably made a significant contribution. By 1726 visitors could admire woods cut through with walks and ornamented with canals, statues and an ampitheatre.

Although a number of contemporary accounts describe the fine park in some detail, the arch is not mentioned and hence it remains something of a mystery, although it is clearly shown on a map thought to have been drawn before Bridgeman’s death in 1738 (above).

John Hunter, a wealthy merchant, bought the Gobions estate in 1777. It seems that he removed the formal gardens admired by earlier generations and naturalised the park, his principal interests being ’tillage and grazing’. Early editions of Ambulator: or, A pocket companion in a tour around London, describe the delightful formal pleasure grounds, but by the time the 6th edition appeared in 1793, Gobions was described as ‘once famous for its fine gardens in the ancient taste’. Happily, the arch survived under the new owner.

In 1786 the Brookmans estate, which stood adjacent to Gobions, was bought by Samuel Robert Gaussen. His descendant Robert William Gaussen added the Gobions estate to his land holdings after John Hunter’s death in 1827, and in 1842 the Gobions mansion was dismantled and sold for the materials after Gaussen decided to ‘throw Brookmans and Gobions parks into one’. By this date the tithe map shows that the arch was known as the ‘folly’ and the open meadows beyond as ‘Folly Park’.

A fire in 1891 destroyed the Brookmans house, and the Gaussens created a new home in the stable block. In 1911 the estate, now known as Brookmans Park, was home to Hubert Gaussen, and he gave permission for the Herts County Open Speed trials to take place in his grounds. This wonderful photograph captures Jack Holroyd, on his Motosacoche motorcycle (described in 1911 as ‘The Motorcycle that is Booming’), setting off over the starting line. Although Holroyd was not the fastest on the day, he did go on to have great success, and later manufactured his own models as well as running a motorcycle shop on Regent Street, London.

The Gaussen family offered the estate at auction in 1923 and it was bought by developers to create the ‘Brookmans Park Estate’ in the ‘gently undulating and well-wooded country on the borders of Middlesex and Hertfordshire’. The rural setting was always emphasised in advertisements, and a 1929 sales pitch made the rash promise that the ‘Home Farm will always supply Grade A milk, real new-laid eggs, and fresh butter to residents’ (today a trip to Sainsbury’s at Potters Bar is required). The Brookmans Park railway station opened in 1926, and a golf course in the former parkland in 1930. Meanwhile ‘Country Homes 35 Minutes from Town’ were snapped up by buyers keen to live in bucolic Brookmans Park, for as the sales brochure noted ‘under the strenuous conditions of modern city life, country surroundings are becoming not so much a luxury as a necessity’.

Happily the arch and its lodge were left in peace on the edge of the estate, although the lodge had fallen into disrepair. In the early 1990s the lodge, complete with folly arch, was offered for sale: although the Gobions Woodland Trust, already custodian of parts of the park, was keen to buy the arch, it went instead to a private buyer who built a new house to replace the derelict lodge.

Meanwhile the grade II* listed arch, patched up on a number of occasions over the centuries, had fallen into a very poor condition, with a huge crack above the arch, and the North Mymms Greenbelt Society appealed to English Heritage to take action and save the folly from collapse. The arch was propped up whilst discussions continued between English Heritage, the private owner of the lodge and arch, and local amenity societies. It took four years to resolve the situation and for work to begin. The restoration was completed in 2023.

The arch remains in private ownership, but can easily be seen at the junction of Swanley Bar Lane and Hawkshead Road: the pretty old sign in the postcard above has gone, but you can’t miss the mailbox at the lodge.

You can also walk in the former parkland (listed grade II) and enjoy views back to the arch. The woodland is now managed by the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust.

For lots more on Brookmans Park see the excellent North Mymms History Project website. You can read more about the nabob John Hunter here.

The Flâneuse must conclude with the story that a farthing was placed between each pair of bricks when the arch was constructed. No evidence of this extravagance has yet been found.

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Just outside Little Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire stands a lofty circular brick tower which sits on an octagonal base. It was built towards the end of the eighteenth century by the Stratton family and has, appropriately, a tall tale attached. The eye-catcher was a popular subject with artists, and a number of very pretty views survive.

Barbara Jones described the tower in Follies and Grottoes (1953) as the creation of one Admiral Stratton who wished to see the ships on the Thames: a story which had been told in print since at least 1888 (a variant story has the builder as a wealthy ship owner). As there is no possibility of seeing the Thames from the top of the tower, Jones concluded that this part of the story might be fanciful. In fact little of the tale was true, and there never was an Admiral Stratton.

In 1790 the house called Gays (sometimes The Gaze, but now The Gage) was home to John Stratton (c.1751-1811) who is said to have built the tower in 1789. He was the son of a wealthy merchant and although he was apprenticed to a London attorney in 1787, he later seems to have enjoyed life as a gentleman of independent means. Little is known about Stratton’s life. He was living in ‘Little Berkhamstead’ when he married Charlotte Lucadon in a Church of England ceremony in 1794, but he died in Bromley, Kent, in April 1811 and was buried in the nonconformist cemetery at Bunhill Fields in London.

The tower was built using bricks recycled from an earlier building which stood on the site, and in 1890 it was reported that the building cost was £3,000. Information on the date and cost seems to have been supplied by Col. John Heathfield Stratton (1837-1925), who lived at The Gage at the turn of the nineteenth century and presumably had family papers in his possession. Sadly no designer or architect’s name is ever mentioned.

A drawing in Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies (above), executed some time before 1805, is annotated with a description of the tower. It tells that it was built ‘for a pleasure house, and has several apartments in the different stages of altitude’. The Strattons and their guests could admire the ‘fine prospects’ from the ‘flat lead roof’ behind the battlements.

Although marked on the 1856 1st series Ordnance Survey map as ‘Observatory’, at some point early in its existence the tower was given the alternative name of ‘The Monument’, and it is marked as such on the 1838 tithe map and on later Ordnance Survey maps. In 1830 there was a steeplechase to ‘the monument in Little Berkhamstead’ and the name was also used on early picture postcards. There is no explanation for the name or what the tower might commemorate.

The tower was maintained until the middle of the nineteenth century. The key was held locally and visitors were permitted to climb the tower (except on Sundays). We know there was a library on the second floor because one George Shepherd was caught stealing books from the tower in 1868. In court he confessed, admitting he planned to sell the books to ‘buy myself some bread, because I was hungry’.

By 1888 the tower was described as dilapidated. The decaying tower stayed in Stratton family ownership until the middle of the last century, and in the 1960s the then owner, architect William Tatton Brown (1910-1977), tried to get planning permission to convert the tower for residential use and save it from further decay. After a battle with Hertford Rural Council he eventually got the go-ahead, but not before one particular aspect of the case had been enjoyed by the press. In 1968 Sir Ian Orr-Ewing, Member of Parliament for Hendon North (Conservative), objected to the application stating that he sometimes sunbathed naked in his garden and did not wish to be overlooked.

A further extension has since been added to the base of the tower (listed grade II*) and it remains a private residence. The top of the tower can be seen from roads and footpaths within the village, which is understandably proud of the grade II* listed folly.

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In the grounds of Benington Lordship, an early 18th century mansion near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, is a sham ruin on a grand scale. Constructed in the 1830s it combined the roles of eye-catcher, gateway, smoking room and banqueting hall in one rambling structure.

George Proctor had bought the estate in the 1820s, by which date most of the mediaeval castle that once stood on the site had been gone for six centuries. A charming manor house had been erected in its place around the beginning of the 18th century. The spectacular sham was executed in 1835-1838 by the inchoate Hertfordshire family firm of Pulham, which grew to specialise in building garden features in artificial stone – although seldom on the scale of this range which features a sham Norman arch and gatehouse and a separate summerhouse.

The designer is thought to have been the Hertford architect, Thomas Smith (1798-1875). Documentary evidence doesn’t seem to survive, but the work is attributed to him on the basis that he was active locally, and also because he had built a ‘tower and fine archway in the Norman style of architecture’ in his own garden.

The Benington Lordship folly, inspired by the genuine fragments that remained on site, was erected in the form of a substantial ruined Norman castle. Built of flint and artificial stone, it was pictured in the Pulham company’s c.1877 account of their work to date: ‘Picturesque Ferneries and Rock Garden Scenery’. No doubt some antiquarians were horrified at Proctor’s ‘alterations’, but as a visitor in 1897 wrote ‘it cannot be denied that the work is most artistically carried out’.

Elsewhere in the garden remnants of the ancient castle were ‘improved’ as ornamental features. In her research notes Barbara Jones makes clear that she did not think this work as successful as the folly. She described the remains of the keep as a ‘formless lump’ with a ‘fake’ doorway which led to a walk to another ‘lump of stuff’.

Sadly George Proctor did not enjoy his new garden ornament for long: he died in 1840 and was succeeded by his son Leonard. The estate was bought by the Bott family in 1905, and it remains their family home today. Barbara Jones featured the ‘very fine large folly’ in the 1st edition of Follies & Grottoes in 1953, and when working on the revised edition in 1972 (it would be published in 1974) the Bott family were happy to confirm to Jones that the folly was ‘still safely standing’. Fifty years on the same is still emphatically correct, and today’s visitors can even enjoy a cup of coffee and very tasty cake in the structure.

Benington Lordship has been the location for a number of television and film productions, and looks stunning in One Day, the new (2024) Netflix adaptation of the 2009 novel by David Nicholls (episode 9).

The house and grounds also appeared in Late Flowering Lust, the 1993 BBC tribute to Sir John Betjeman starring Nigel Hawthorne and with the dance company Adventures in Motion Pictures (now New Adventures) choreographed by Matthew Bourne. You can see it here, with a great view of the folly about 28 minutes in https://new-adventures.net/news/late-flowering-lust

The castle folly is listed with the house at grade II*, the summerhouse and attached curtain wall are listed at grade II, the remains of the ancient keep are grade I and the gardens are registered as grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

The Bott family open the gardens at Benington Lordship regularly. The snowdrop season has just finished, but things hot up with a chilli festival in August. See the website for details of further open days this year https://beningtonlordship.co.uk. 

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Lady Amabel Yorke was the elder daughter of Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, and his wife Jemima Campbell, 2nd Marchioness Grey, 4th Baroness Lucas. Their family seats were Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, and Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, both of which had parks that were remodelled by Capability Brown with Amabel being privy to the design decisions. She was, then, rather well-informed on matters of landscape gardening, and her 37 volumes of diaries contain countless accounts of visits to the seats of her friends and family, where she sometimes notes follies and garden ornaments.

Amabel (1751-1833) married Alexander Hume Campbell, Lord Polwarth, in 1772, much to the chagrin of the Dowager Duchess of Gower, who complained to her friend that too many of England’s eligible (for which read rich) brides were being ‘transplanted to Scotland’. After Polwarth’s early death in 1781 Amabel settled in England and, mourning period over, enjoyed a busy social life amongst the upper echelons of society (N.B. through marriage and inheritance she used a number of titles during her life, so for clarity she is simply referred to here as Amabel.)

Where Amabel’s journals are of most value to garden history is when she makes return visits to the same landscape, recording new developments and enabling precise dating, although she seldom gives elaborate descriptions. One such example is The Grove, near Watford in Hertfordshire, the seat of Thomas Villiers (1709-1786), created Lord Hyde in 1756, and his wife Charlotte (1721-1790), a daughter of the Earl of Essex. Lord Hyde bought The Grove in 1753, conveniently next-door to his father-in-law, whose Cassiobury seat was contiguous, and began remodelling the house and grounds. Amabel visited the Villiers family on a number of occasions: first with her family and then with her husband. Her earliest mention of The Grove in her diaries is in 1770, when she writes simply that the grounds were ‘very pleasant’.

In June 1776 Amabel went to The Grove to stay with Lord Hyde (although within days of her visit he would be raised to the peerage as the Earl of Clarendon). On this occasion her hosts took her to see the Temple of Pan, which Amabel records in her diary as a ‘pretty new building’. The Temple has long ago disappeared, but happily a drawing by Thomas Baskerfield survives, and from various accounts we can piece together that it was a brick building with rustic decoration: the drawing suggests that the columns are tree trunks, rather than stone pillars. It was ‘used occasionally by the family of the Earl of Clarendon for tea-drinking’. We know little of the interior other than it contained lead statues of ‘pagan deities’.

This was the most famous of the buildings at the Grove, particularly in the first decade of the 19th century when the 2nd Earl of Clarendon hosted a series of Fête Champêtres in and around the Temple of Pan. Clarendon and his friend the Hon. Mr Capel, son of the Earl of Essex, hosted parties for hundreds of guests. Dinner was served, a band played and guests could dance in the temple or in the glade. There were fireworks, and the earl graciously allowed the ‘peasantry’ to pay a small fee to watch the proceedings ‘from the recesses of the wood’. A contemporary satire of the fête champêtres at The Grove ridicules this largesse, and has the gamekeepers under orders to ‘shoot all Plebeians passing through the park’.

Amabel returned to the The Grove a year later in 1777, and saw two recently completed landscape ornaments: the ‘new building called the Arcadian Mausoleum’, and the ‘Scotch Seat’. Amabel doesn’t elaborate on the former, but other contemporary sources tell that the ‘shady Tomb’ purported to be the burial place of Pan, and was intended to be seen in conjunction with Pan’s temple, which was not far away. Drawings by Baskerfield suggest it was a sham classical ruin, circular in form, with niches in the interior walls for funerary caskets. Above the door was a plaque declaring it to be an ‘Arcadian Mausoleum repair’d’.

The Scotch Seat was a decidedly quirky structure, painted with ‘Highland Arms and Plaids’.  We know more about this building because only a few years later, in 1799, a satirical poem was published called The Scotch Hut. Dedicated to ‘The Earl of the Grove’, the anonymous verses mention a number of the garden buildings. The annotations describe the Scotch Hut as a ‘low, wooden Building, covered in Thatch’, with an interior painted with ‘the Insignia of Scotland: Dirk and Broadsword, Pistol and Target, Bonnet and Bagpipes’. It was hung with curtains in tartan fabric, and the exterior was also ‘plaid’, which must have been quite a challenge for the estate’s painters. A later visitor confidently declared it had ‘a good resemblance to the residence of a highlander’, but sadly, no views are known to survive.

At The Grove again in 1782, Amabel revisited the ‘Temple of Pan and the ruin’d Mausoleum’. She also walked to see the ‘new Ionic Building’, a classical temple she had not seen before. This elegant building topped with a dome was called the Ionic Temple, but became known colloquially as the Eggshell.

As well as keeping a diary Amabel also recorded many of the scenes she saw on her travels in sketches and watercolours. She was a talented amateur artist, some of whose works were used on Catherine the Great’s ‘Frog Service’, produced by Wedgwood, but sadly no views of The Grove in her hand have been found.

The Temple of Pan was still in use in the middle of the 19th century, when the children of the family held tea-parties there and had the novelty of cooking their own food. The Eggshell stood until the 1960s, but sadly none of the fanciful structures (there were many others which Amabel didn’t mention) survive today. The Grove became a school in the 1920s, and was then in institutional use for many decades. It is now a rather smart hotel with all the bells and whistles, including a golf course, of which more in a moment.

In 1801, writing in her 20th notebook, Amabel wrote that ‘Volumes follow Volumes & crowd my Drawers with little Use to myself and still less to other People’. She might be surprised to find how important her diaries have proved to be: over 200 years later, social and garden historians can find much fascinating detail in the diaries, which are now available to all thanks to an excellent ongoing project by the West Yorkshire Archives Service.

The pleasure grounds at The Grove are now home to a golf course. The Folly Flâneuse is not a golfer, but were she ever tempted her first stop would be The Grove, for each of the 18 holes is named after a landscape feature that once adorned the grounds: what fun to tee-off at the Scotch Hut, Temple of Pan, Eggshell or Mausoleum. 

You can find out more about the hotel here https://www.thegrove.co.uk

Amabel’s diaries have all been digitised and are now online. A number have been transcribed so that they are fully searchable by keyword, and this work will continue when funding allows. Thanks to Vicky Grindrod and Harriet Harmer of the West Yorkshire Archive Service (Leeds) for their help with this post. This link will take you to the catalogue to start exploring https://www.catalogue.wyjs.org.uk/CalmView/TreeBrowse.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=LC00997%2f7%2f6%2f9%2f90

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