Sawley (or Salley) Abbey was established by monks from Newminster Abbey in Northumberland at the beginning of the 12th century. It stood not far from the river Ribble in what was the West Riding of Yorkshire until the 20th century county boundary changes gave it to Lancashire. Little of the abbey remains today, but at the entrance to an adjoining field there is a curious gateway with a fascinating history.

Much of the village of Sawley, is built from stone plundered from the abbey ruins after it was abandoned in the 16th century. By the second half of the 18th century nothing remained ‘but a few old walls overgrown with Ivy’. Not far from the abbey stood what the historian Thomas Dunham Whittaker described in 1805 as a ‘gateway, a mean building’. Whittaker noted that the walls were dotted with carved masonry from the abbey, including a ‘richly ornamented tabernacle’ which contained a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus.

This is the building which was recorded by William Richardson and illustrated in his The Monastic Ruins of Yorkshire, published in 1843, shortly before major ‘improvements’ were to begin at the abbey.

At the time this view was published the abbey was owned by Earl de Grey, gentleman archaeologist and antiquarian. In the 1840s he began excavations at Sawley Abbey, having already worked on Fountains Abbey which just happened to stand in his back garden at Studley, near Ripon in Yorkshire. When work began the abbey site was described as a ‘great rubbish heap’, and in the fashion of the time Lord de Grey tidied up the site to create a pristine and aesthetically pleasing (if not necessarily historically accurate) ruin.

Lord de Grey pulled down the ‘old dilapidation’ known as the gateway and in its place erected two neat arches incorporating the carved fragments of masonry from the abbey. Although some believed that this was an ancient structure restored, others were more sceptical, and an 1882 guidebook called it a ‘modern construction’ built ‘without taste or judgment.’ The most distinguished fragment was the niche containing the statue of the headless Virgin and Child, carefully moved from the older building, and there were also shields bearing arms and other decorative enrichments (some of which were later criticised for being placed upside-down).

A century later, on Saturday 29 December 1951, a brewery wagon hit one of the arches and ‘a section of one of Ribblesdale’s most picturesque landmarks crashed in ruins’. The damaged arch was the one housing the statue, but this was already lost, having apparently ‘fallen to the ground’ and mysteriously disappeared in 1934.

Locals were keen to see the arch re-erected within the abbey grounds, and the Ministry of Works was approached for help, but the costs were prohibitive, and there was a further complication as no-one seemed to know exactly who owned the structures. A Mr Ingham declared he was going to remove the damaged arch to Bamber Bridge (sadly the newspapers provide no clue as to what he wanted to do with it there), but Bowland Council sternly declared he had ‘no authority’ to touch the ruin.

Nothing happened until the end of the 1950s, when the council became concerned that the arches, one standing and one in ruins, were a danger to public and road safety. Again there were discussions about pulling them down, and the Ministry of Works declared they had no objection to this, although the villagers remained keen to see the arches saved. In July 1960 there was a further accident when a van struck the surviving arch and a youth was later charged with driving without due care and attention. The arches were demolished in the autumn of that year.

But very happily that wasn’t the end of the story. After the Ministry of Works had collected the most important fragments of masonry, George Braithwaite, farmer and heritage hero, collected the residue and had the present arch built as a grand gateway to one of his fields.

Sawley Abbey is in the care of English Heritage and you can read more here https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/sawley-abbey/history/

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In January 1897, with the Diamond Jubilee of the reign of Queen Victoria approaching, the Darwen News featured a letter from a correspondent named only as ‘Landmark’, proposing that a tower be built on Darwen Moor to mark the occasion. There was a favourable response and the great and good of the town began to make plans.

A competition to design a tower 50 feet high was announced, with entry only open to residents of the borough. Such was the interest that the budget was increased and the proposed height changed to a maximum of 100 feet. It was stipulated that only students of engineering and design could submit ideas, and professional architects were not permitted to take part. The drawings were displayed in the council chamber under a title only, with the designer’s name concealed in an envelope. The Blackburn architect J.H. Herbert Stones FRIBA, awarded first place to the design called simply ‘Darwen’, which was the work of David Ellison who worked in the borough surveyor’s office, although his design was later tweaked by his boss: the tower’s Honorary Architect was Borough Surveyor Robert William Smith-Saville.

Although ostensibly celebrating the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne, the tower had, from the start, a secondary political motive. In the later 19th century the moorland, owned by the absentee Lord of the Manor, Reverend William Arthur Duckworth, was out of bounds to locals, with gamekeepers on patrol to deter trespassers. Many locals ignored this rule, believing that there were ancient rights of way over the land, and eventually a court case decided that this was the case. In 1896 the local authority acquired a vast tract of the moor, thus enabling ‘thousands of toiling operatives who spent the best part of their lives in the smoky valley below, to mount the hill and breathe the more exhilarating air’.

Duckworth later claimed that he had known little of the fight for access to the moors: he lived in Somerset and employed local agents. He was certainly a friend to the town once the court case was settled, and donated the stone for the construction of the tower, which was constructed under the supervision of local man Richard James Whalley. The first sod was cut on the hilltop on 22 June 1897, the day on which Queen Victoria’s jubilee was celebrated.

The Darwen Tower, 86 feet high, was officially opened on Saturday 24 September when 3000 people are reported to have climbed up onto the moor. The tower was an instant success, attracting large numbers of visitors and soon entrepreneurs were pushing for the rights to be the sole purveyors of refreshments on site. Although a few saw the tower as an ‘excresence’,  a ‘pimple’, and a ‘blot on God’s fair earth’, their thoughts were summarily dismissed in the local paper as those of the sort of ‘average man’ who is ‘dull of comprehension or lacks refinement’.

A dramatic view of the lofty tower is known to drivers on the M65 and local routes, with its buttresses giving it the air of a space rocket (although it has been missed of late when the white-clad scaffolding temporarily replaced the familiar silhouette). But this exposed position leaves it vulnerable to weather damage, and the top section has been blown off on three occasions – the current replica in stainless steel was donated by local firm WEC Ltd in 2010 and was flown in by helicopter.

In recent years a local campaign has secured around  £300,000 in funding to restore and weatherproof the tower for future generations. Sterling work by the town’s Rotary Club included building a Lego model of the tower in the Market Hall to encourage donations and raise awareness. Renovation began in June 2021 and was completed in the first days of June 2022.

At the opening ceremony in 1898 Reverend Duckworth gave a speech in which he said that the tower ‘would for many generations commemorate the most important, longest, and happiest reign in English history’. 124 years later the tower has been restored as Victoria’s great-great-grandaughter celebrates an even longer reign, and the tower continues to delight later generations.

The restored tower was officially unveiled on Thursday 2 June 2022 when a beacon was lit to mark the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and the tower was illuminated in red, white and blue.

It’s a steady and well-signposted climb up to the tower from the car park at the top of Earnsdale Road in Darwen.

You can follow the construction of the Lego tower here https://www.rotary-ribi.org/clubs/page.php?PgID=542732&ClubID=1154

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With St Valentine’s Day approaching, the Folly Flâneuse wondered which were the most romantic garden buildings. The most famous expression of love in an architectural form is surely the Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jahan as a tomb for his favourite wife. But closer to home are three equally enchanting buildings built as monuments to lost loves – two real, and one imaginary, and each likened to the marble mausoleum in India. 

Near Abergavenny in Wales is the Clytha estate. In 1787 William Jones retired there following the death of his wife, Elizabeth, who was buried in nearby Llanarth churchyard. A long inscription on her monument in the church was composed by her ‘most afflicted and grateful husband, as a feeble effort to do justice to the memory of the best of wives’.

A few years later Jones began work on another ‘memorial to my wife’, but this time on a monumental scale. Work began on the ‘Castle’ in 1790, with Jones project-managing the construction himself, and a plaque records that:

This Building was erected in the Year 1790 by
WILLIAM JONES of Clytha House Esq
Husband of ELIZABETH […]
It was undertaken for the purpose of relieving a mind
sincerely afflicted by the loss of a most excellent Wife
whose Remains were deposited
in Llanarth Church Yard A:D: 1787
and to the Memory of whose Virtues
this Tablet is dedicated.

Only a few years later Sarah Anne Wilmot, who was touring Wales in 1802, was shown around by the ‘pensive owner’. She wrote in her journal that the Castle was a ‘united mausoleum and gazebo to his late wife’. Having been taken on a complete tour of the grounds, her party was treated to fine fruit from the hothouse, but nothing could lift the ‘air of melancholy’ which Sarah Anne felt pervaded the house and garden.

The Monmouthshire historian William Coxe also visited soon after completion, and he too admired the ‘ornament’, and admitted that he could not ‘retire from the building without sympathising with the regret, and applauding the gratitude, affection, and taste of the owner’.

Writing about the grade I listed Clytha Castle in Follies: A Guide to Rogue Architecture (co-written with Wim Meulenkamp and published in 1986), Gwyn Headley memorably called Clytha the ‘Taj Mahal of Wales’, which set the Folly Flâneuse wondering if other British buildings had been given a similar epithet. Two notable examples came to mind…

James Williamson, 1st Baron Ashton (1842-1930), fabulously rich from the production of oilcloth and linoleum, built the Ashton Memorial in the early years of the 20th century. His architect was Sir John Belcher (1841-1913), who was president of the Royal Institute of British Architects at the time of the commission. Belcher was a prolific architect of domestic and municipal buildings in a flamboyant Edwardian Baroque style. His works included Colchester Town Hall and London’s elegant Mappin and Webb building, which was controversially demolished in the 1990s to enable the development of No.1 Poultry, but a hilltop palace for a client with very deep pockets is unsurprisingly unique in his oeuvre. As Pevsner wrote in the 1969 edition of his volume on Lancashire, Belcher was ‘put into the position of designing the most sumptuous building in all his career for no utilitarian purpose whatsoever.’

The building is said to commemorate Ashton’s 2nd wife, Jessy, who died in 1904. A plaque actually dedicates the building to all of his family, but the people of Lancaster have always maintained that the loss of his wife was the driving force behind construction on this mammoth scale, and it was quickly dubbed ‘The Taj Mahal of the North’ (although less romantic Lancastrians prefer to call it ‘The Structure’).

Opened in 1909, the monument stands in Williamson Park, the public space created by Lord Ashton, and his father before him, for the people of Lancaster. At around 50 metres high the memorial can be seen from miles around, and whilst Ashton himself was said to be shy and shun the limelight, the same can not be said of the Ashton Memorial.

Meanwhile overlooking the Stour estuary in Essex, there’s a much more recent cenotaph, but this time to a fictional lost love. In 2010 Living Architecture’s Creative Director Alan de Botton met artist Grayson Perry and the idea for A House for Essex was born. Perry worked with architect Charles Holland (then of FAT Architecture) to bring the project to fruition, and it was completed in 2014.

Essex-born Perry created Julie Cope, an ‘Essex every-woman’, whose story is told through a series of artworks in (and on) the House. In brief: Julie finds herself pregnant and marries when still young, she divorces, and when the children have grown she gets the qualifications she missed out on as a teenager. She meets new love Rob, and settles into a comfortable middle-class life. Her life ends abruptly in a tragic accident, and Rob builds the house at Wrabness as her memorial, or as Perry puts it ‘a Taj Mahal upon the Stour’.

You too can stay in the monuments to Elizabeth Jones and Julie Cope, as both properties are holiday homes. Clytha Castle was restored by the heritage charity The Landmark Trust, and The House for Essex is a property of Living Architecture, which exists to create thought-provoking houses which inspire discussion about modern architecture. The Ashton Memorial is open to the public, and to continue the theme of romance, is a popular wedding venue.

There’s more on Clytha Castle here https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/clytha-castle-6088/#History

And for A House for Essex see https://www.living-architecture.co.uk/the-houses/a-house-for-essex/overview/

The Ashton Memorial is freely accessible https://www.lancaster.gov.uk/sites/williamson-park/ashton-memorial

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High above the Gisburn to Barrowford road a simple castellated tower dominates the skyline. It was built by Jonathan Stansfield in the late 19th century, but no-one is quite sure why, although there are of course the stories…

A modern plaque on the tower records that it was built in 1890, and it first makes an appearance, as the ‘Stansfield Tower’, on the Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1891-92. Stansfield is said to have built it so he could see Blackpool tower under erection, or alternatively to give a view into the Ribble Valley. Working without plans, he was apparently gravely disappointed when he found his tower was not high enough to see far at all, for the view was blocked by the mighty mass of Pendle Hill.

Another theory has it that it was built as an observatory for his son William, who was ‘a great student of astronomy’. Or was it a tribute to Stansfield’s first love who jilted him? A final no-nonsense answer is supposed to have come from Stansfield himself: ‘I have never drank or smoked in my life so I am taking this as my hobby.’

One of Stansfield’s contemporaries, the Rev. Gough, composed some lines on the tower that were published in Jesse Blakey’s Annals of Barrowford in 1929. The poem begins:

Friend Stansfield pleased his fancies
With Blacko Tower so high,
That draws admiring glances
From every passer-by.
E’en if no other token
His lasting fame secures,
His name will be outspoken
Long as that tower endures.

Though, like the men of bible,
Whose tower came to a stand,
He found himself unable
To finish all he planned;
More grace to him was given
Than to have had the will
To build right up to heaven
From Blacko’s stately hill.

Jonathan Stansfield was a ‘manufacturer and grocer’ according to the 1871 census return, and lived with his wife, children and a boarder in Back David Street in nearby Barrowford, an ordinary street of terraced houses. Did he really save enough money to build a tower just by abstaining from cigarettes and alcohol? The poem suggests that Stansfield was unable to complete the tower, and legend has it that the building project foundered when he went bankrupt. But Stansfield went bankrupt owing £2,300 to his creditors in 1873, and he didn’t die until 1894.  So did he bounce back with great success in the last twenty years of his life, enabling the construction of the tower? The 1890 Ordnance Survey map shows ‘Stansfield House’ close to the tower – was this his new home and the tower an eye-catcher in his garden? This very prominent tower keeps some of its history well hidden.

By 1933 the tower was described as ‘somewhat decrepit’ and in 1948 ‘an enterprise for the restoration of Blacko Tower’, as it was now known, was launched by Mr Frank Barritt of Colne. Parts of the tower had collapsed, only one of the castellations remained intact, and the floor of the viewing platform had rotted away. Local craftsmen gave their time, and with the help of the Scouts the tower was renovated. A plaque was erected which reads:

BUILT BY
J. STANSFIELD
1890
RESTORED 1950
PS.127.v.1.

It’s not clear if the original tower also carried the building date and this biblical reference, or if it was added during the restoration (Barritt was active in the Methodist church). The text it refers to reads:

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain,
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

A close look at the Ordnance Survey map shows that when first constructed the tower was in Yorkshire (but only just), although the settlement of Blacko was in Lancashire. The county boundary changes of 1974 ensured it was united with the village in the county of the Red Rose.

The tower is clearly visible from the road and from public footpaths, but stands on private land and visitors are not welcome. The folly is as inaccessible as its full history, but it remains a dramatic eye-catcher from miles round.

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High above Ashton, and visible from miles around, is the curious tower called Hartshead Pike. It was built in the 1860s to commemorate the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, and to honour Queen Victoria on the occasion of her son’s marriage.

Going back in time, the hill is said to have been home to an ancient beacon, which was replaced in 1751 by a stone pinnacle bearing the legend ‘This Pike Was Re-built By Publick Contributions Anno Do 1751’. There was also a plaque bearing the polite instruction: ‘Look well at me Before You go, And See You nothing at me Throw’, a reminder that vandalism is nothing new.

By the time the writer John Aikin saw it at the end of the 18th century, the tower had become a ‘favourite and well-known object’ and was a popular resort for walkers. It was however already in a poor condition, with a ‘split from top to bottom near half a yard in width’. Aikin thought that ‘a few pounds laid out in repair’ would secure the structure for the century to come. But this was not to be, and the Pike continued to decline throughout the first half of the 19th century.

In autumn 1862 it was announced that the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, would be married to Princess Alexander of Denmark early the following year, and across the country committees were convened to decide how best to mark the occasion. Somewhat at the eleventh hour, the great and the good of Ashton met on 21 February (less than a month before the wedding), and the Mayor of the Manor, Samuel Lees, suggested that the ‘auspicious event’ be marked by the repair of Hartshead Pike. This idea was received with enthusiasm (hear hear), and plans were made to launch an appeal for funds.

First to subscribe was the Lord of the Manor, George Henry Grey, the 7th Earl of Stamford & Warrington, on whose land the tower was to be built. He also made a donation of twenty pounds and gave the stone for construction. The prominent civic figures and wealthier members of the community donated between 1 and 5 Guineas each, and those working men who could afford it gave 2/6d. It soon became apparent that rather than repairing the existing pike, which stood on poor foundations, a new tower was required and a number of designs were submitted. After careful consideration, the committee unanimously agreed to commission design number 3, by local architect John Eaton (1810-1876).

The foundation stone was laid on 17 September 1863 but progress was slow, and the funds inadequate. The committee met in April 1864 to discuss how to proceed, and Eaton was asked if it would be possible to modify the initial plans and finish the tower at the height it had then reached. Nothing was decided, and the tower was left unfinished. Letters to the local papers both attacked and defended Lees (party politics), and the situation dragged on until June 1868 when the Earl of Stamford & Warrington agreed that the land around the tower should become a recreational facility for the local area. He placed the ground in the hands of trustees, and gave the generous sum of 50 Guineas towards the project. The tower was eventually completed some time before the end of 1869.

The inscription from the collapsed earlier pike was relocated to the new tower, along with further inscriptions recording its history, and a plaque with the Grey family crest and motto A Ma Puissance (To My Power). A hart’s head weather vane is known to have topped the earlier pike, and this was either salvaged, or a copy was commissioned for the new tower, as seen in the postcard view above.

Over the next century the tower, high on the exposed hillside, continued to be hammered by hurricanes and hooligans, and remedial action was taken on a number of occasions to ensure its survival. In 1911 it was announced that the tower would be restored to ‘commemorate the Coronation of King George’,  but it was not until 1914 that work was completed, and by 1928 vandalism and a storm meant that yet another restoration was required. In the years leading up to the Second World War the tower was open to the public, and a small shop sold refreshments, but the door and windows were bricked up in the war years.

In September 2019 metal fencing was erected around the tower as it was once again crumbling and falling masonry posed a risk to the public, and in May 2020 there was good news when Tameside Council announced that £61,000 was to be spent restoring Hartshead Pike..

Work was almost complete when The Folly Flâneuse visited in Autumn 2020. Sadly the local pub was closed because of local Covid19 restrictions, as it has the most wonderful and enticing sign…

There’s a circular walk, cleverly described as a ‘hike to the pike’ here https://www.tameside.gov.uk/countryside/walksandtrails/hiketothepike.pdf

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Holme Island is a small island in Morecambe Bay. It sits close to the coast, not far from Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria (formerly Lancashire). The island was connected to the mainland by a causeway in the 19th century, by which date it was home to a rather special small estate.

In 1828 Holme Island was offered for sale, with the particulars stressing its value as the site ‘for a Villa’. The small estate was bought by a Warrington lawyer called John Fitchett, and he had a summer residence built to the designs of the Kendal architect George Webster. After Fitchett’s death the estate was advertised for sale, with the 1839 sales particulars describing the ‘newly-erected Ornamental Residence’ surrounded by glades, lawns, ornamental shrubs, alcoves and terraces.

The new owner was John Thompson, and in 1845 he commissioned Messrs Seward, a Lancaster foundry company, to cast ‘sixteen noble pillars in the Corinthian order’ which would form a circular temple. This ‘very beautiful specimen’ of iron-casting was seen by the citizens of Lancaster to reflect not only Thompson’s impeccable taste, but also the civic pride at being home to such superior metalworkers. The local paper reported that ‘When the pieces are put together the effect will be very fine, and reflect the highest credit on the skill of the good old town’. George Webster’s practice was extending the house for Thompson around this date, and the design of the temple is also attributed to that office.

Local tradition has it that the temple was ‘executed by Italian craftsmen’. This may refer to the lovely painted studies of Roman goddesses that decorated the interior of the dome.

By the time the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map was published in 1848 (surveyed 1845), the island had formal gardens, lawns, plantations, walks and a scattering of ornamental buildings including a ‘pleasure house’ and grotto. At the southern tip of the island was the temple, the elegant edifice raised on a mound and surrounded by a moat crossed by a bridge. Holme Island was described in 1860 as ‘a perfect marine paradise’ and the temple as ‘perfectly modelled after the temple of Vesta’. Like the original outside Rome, the Corinthian columns supporting a frieze decorated with garlands and skulls, although it is not an exact copy.

Holme Island is strictly private, accessed only by a private drive from the coastal road. The grade II listed temple is now hidden by trees.

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On the edge of the town of Wigan stands Haigh Hall, described in 1745 as a ‘good old house and wood in a very pretty situation’. On rising ground above Haigh Hall (pronounced Hay) there once stood a substantial landscape feature which housed an observatory. A pair of paintings with an interesting history help tell the tale. 

Lady Bradshaigh (née Bellingham, 1705-1785) was a close friend of the popular author Samuel Richardson, whose Pamela was one of the bestsellers of the day. In 1750 she asked the artist Joseph Highmore to paint Richardson, but in tribute to their friendship the writer asked that Sir Roger and Lady Bradshaigh and their home also be included in the portrait.

The Bradshaighs had recently been painted by Edward Haytley (aka Heatly, Hatelely) as shown above, so they had a second version painted to be used by Highmore in his painting of Richardson. Curiously, it varies in significant detail: the couple have changed their outfits, Sir Roger (1699-1770) strikes a different pose, and Lady Bradshaigh is attended by her pet fawn instead of her dog. A constant in both paintings is the folly, top right.

The painting above is now in the collection of the Museum of Wigan Life (the other is in a private collection) and it is possible to see the observatory in some detail. The folly looks to have been constructed as an eye-catcher in the form of a sham ruin and consists of a central pavilion, pierced with an arch, and flanking walls with arches. By the 1770s it was known as the Observatory, possibly after some rebuilding work in the 1760s, for which accounts survive. Haytley’s portrait, painted in 1746, shows Sir Roger with a telescope, giving further evidence of his interest in the firmament. As so often, there was a claim of countless counties being visible from the structure; 18th century accounts disagree as to whether it is 12 or 13.

A sketch dated 1826 shows this remodelling of the central pavilion to create a room with large windows, and this building is reminiscent of Robert Adam’s Ratcheugh Observatory for the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle. It is not known when the building disappeared, but by the late 19th century there was another observatory on the site, a simple wooden tower built for Lord Crawford (1871-1940)*, also a keen astronomer. A tiny fragment of this later structure survives but the 18th century observatory has literally disappeared: Wigan Archaeological Society has tried in vain to find its foundations.

In the 18th century visitors to Haigh Hall were fascinated by a material called cannel (or candle) coal which was mined on the estate. This was an extremely dense form of coal, used for the usual purposes of providing heat and light (it burned very brightly), but also as a decorative material that could be carved into ornaments and was often passed off as a rare black marble.

At Haigh Hall it was used for a much larger project: the building of a summerhouse for Lady Bradshaigh. What made the summerhouse such a novelty was that although made of coal, it was entirely clean to the touch, and much was made of the fact that young ladies could sit in it without leaving a mark on ‘their most delicate vestures’. It must have been built sometime between 1742, when Sir Roger took over the estate, and 1772 when it is described by a visitor. Sadly no trace remains, and one can’t help but wonder if it ended up on the fire once it became unfashionable.

The big question is whether the Observatory and Summerhouse were one and the same building; no early visitor mentions both. The 1796 estate map shows a structure in the location of the folly shown in the portraits, but with no detail. The building in the portraits shines golden, and certainly doesn’t appear to be coal black. The Crawford Muniments in the National Library of Scotland, currently uncatalogued, may reveal more in due course.

Haigh Hall is now a very popular country park http://www.haighwoodlandpark.co.uk

The handsome hall (remodelled in the 1820s) is currently empty and in need of a purpose after a failed hotel venture.

Examples of cannel coal and the painting of Sir Roger and Lady Bradshaigh can be seen in the Museum of Wigan Life https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Resident/Museums-archives/Museum-of-Wigan-Life/visiting-the-museum.aspx

* Sir Roger died without issue and the baronetcy became extinct. The estates passed, via a niece, to the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres.

When the great folly builders of the 17th and 18th centuries were erecting statement buildings on the high points of their estates, they can little have known how useful they would be to the Board of Ordnance. The ‘Principal Triangulation of Britain’ was a trigonometric survey, begun in the late 18th century, which by determining precise coordinates of significant landmarks would enable highly accurate mapping. The main landmarks used were church spires, but ‘other remarkable objects’ were picked, and in the first decade of the 19th century over 50 towers, temples, obelisks, summer houses and follies made it into this category.

Were a convenient church spire not available, the surveyors would occasionally have to make do. Thus two of the more unusual locations were ‘Chimney on the north side of Mr. Evered’s House’, and the rather vague sounding ‘Clump of Trees near the Flying Bull Inn’. They must therefore have been delighted to find an elevated folly from which to carry out their measuring. Of the many landscape ornaments used as ‘stations and intersected objects’, some are very familiar and would be obvious choices if asked to suggest lofty towers: King Alfred’s Tower at Stourhead, Sturt’s Folly in Dorset, and Leith Hill Tower in Surrey to name a few. Obelisks were also favoured: Bramham in Yorkshire, the Frampton Obelisk in Dorset, and the now truncated Norris’s Obelisk in Surrey, are just three that feature in the report. The word ‘obelisk’ was often applied to any tall, thin structure at this date, and so the ‘Earl’s Mount Obelisk’ is actually Robert Adam’s lovely Brizlee Tower at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland (as featured here last week https://thefollyflaneuse.com/brizlee-tower-alnwick-northumberland/).

Most intriguing to The Folly Flâneuse was a structure listed as ‘Justice Waller’s Pleasure House’. The context suggested it was in eastern Lancashire, and a little help from a friend* established that the coordinates led to Clerk Hill, between Whalley and Wiswell. This was the seat of James Whalley (1748-1805), one time High Sheriff of the county of Lancaster and a Justice of the Peace – hence ‘Justice Waller’. The incorrect spelling of his name may have something to do with local pronunciation: Whalley is pronounced Wall-ey. One of the earliest writers to mention the pleasure house made the same error; passing by in 1792 the Hon. John Byng grumbled that Mr Waller had ‘with miserable intention, built some strange ruins on a hill-top’. But then Byng, the most curmudgeonly of travellers, was seldom impressed.

James Whalley (Sir James from 1797 when he inherited the baronetcy from his brother) probably built the gothic folly in the 1780s after he moved to the Clerk Hill estate. Set in its extensive deer park, the folly was comprised of a two storey octagonal central tower linked by walls to flanking towers, forming a symmetrical composition. The battlemented central tower had an upper room for picnics and for watching the hunt, and the outer towers could only be reached by walking along the connecting walls. The whole had panoramic views across the valley of the River Ribble to Pendle Hill. Local legend says that some of the stone was taken from old beacons that formerly stood on the site, and the elevated site would certainly seem appropriate.

The tower was still largely intact in 1944, although the roof and the floor of the upper room had collapsed. A few years later the folly disappeared in a rather dramatic fashion. Late in September 1948 the 510 Squadron of the Royal Engineers of the Territorial Army, with the permission off the landowner, blew up the structure because it had become ‘dangerous’. The local parish council was indignant, but the landowner was completely within his rights: the folly was not scheduled, and he argued that as it was not marked as an antiquity on the Ordnance Survey map, it could not be considered to be of historical importance. The 1st edition map shows the building as ‘Castle’ in a circular plantation called ‘Castle Wood’, and the central tower is shown as the triangulation point used by the surveyors some 50 years earlier. By the 20th century the sham castle had become known as the ‘Baby House Towers’, presumably because of its likeness to a toy fort.

There may be some good news. When follydom’s dapper duo Gwyn Headley and Wim Meulenkamp published Follies, Grottoes and Garden Buildings in 1999, they reported that the then owner of Castle Wood was slowly rebuilding the towers. Does anyone know if he finished?

UPDATE: thanks to the Whalley Local History Group for confirmation that the circular bases are extant on private land, but the towers were never completely rebuilt.

So the moral of this post is ‘never judge a book by its title’. Who would have thought that An Account Of The Trigonometrical Survey, carried on by Order of The Master General of His Majesty’s Ordnance, in the Years 1800, 1801, 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1808, and 1809 could provide so much fascinating material?

*thank you Harry Beamish

The images are from the wonderful resource that is Lancashire County Council’s Red Rose Collection, which contains images of Lancashire people, places and events https://redrosecollections.lancashire.gov.uk/

Built in the later 18th century, The Kennels were designed in the style of a sham castle, with a central room flanked by two squat towers. The building also served as an eye-catcher from the bridge over the River Ribble, although this latter function has been lost as trees now block the view. Sadly the castellations are also long gone, but the building appears to have a happier future ahead.

When The Kennels were constructed in the 1770s, Thomas Lister (1752-1826) was yet to reach his majority. His father had begun to remodel Gisburne Park* before his premature death in 1761, and his mother appears to have implemented his plans until Lister was of age. As well as housing Lister’s pack of hounds, the building also doubled as a dovecote with nesting holes in the south tower. The architect is not known, but Lister (created Baron Ribblesdale in 1797) was something of a gentleman architect and may have designed the kennels himself.

The Kennels formed a picturesque trio with the pretty arched bridge over the Ribble, and a summerhouse known as The Temple. Nestled in woodland high on the riverbank, the Temple was built on a mound and overlooked ‘a glorious stretch of river scenery, towards the wide flung arches of the bridge’. It formed the termination of a drive from the house which crossed an ornamental bridge by the Menagerie (later known as the Poultry House), another landscape ornament. The Temple was probably a little earlier than the Kennels, and is thought to have been built in the 1750s. It was dismantled in the second half of the 20th century, but although only its base survives today, much of the masonry is said to survive in storage. Again, the designer is not known, but a sketch in what seems to be an amateur hand survives in the Lister papers, and two early photographs show how lovely it once was.

By the early 20th century, Lord Ribblesdale’s pack had been housed elsewhere on the estate and The Kennels became redundant. Plans to restore ‘The Old Kennels’ as a private house were discussed in the 1990s and as recently as 2014, but the idea was abandoned.

In 2015 Historic England advised immediate remedial work to save the grade II listed structure, and the current owner, Gisburne Park Estate, began the process of finding a new use for the building. After some negotiation Listed Building Consent was granted to carry out ‘reinstatement works’ to stabilise the grade II listed structure and hopefully (present circumstances allowing) work will begin very soon. The estate plans to consolidate the folly without changing its current appearance. On a limited number of days per annum a marquee will be erected at the rear for marriage ceremonies, and The Kennels will become ‘a backdrop folly’ for wedding photographs.

For Lister’s proposed folly tower on his Malham estate see https://thefollyflaneuse.com/octagon-tower-malham-north-yorkshire-spot-the-folly/

Lancashire County Council’s Red Rose Collections is a fabulous resource for images and documents. Explore it here https://redrosecollections.lancashire.gov.uk

* The village is Gisburn and the park has been called Gisburn or Gisburne over time. The present owner uses Gisburne Park.

In the first half of the 19th century villages and hamlets on the Lancashire coast, overlooking Morecambe Bay, grew rapidly as holiday destinations. The prosperous middle class of Manchester, and the surrounding manufacturing towns, was keen to escape the noise and dirt of urban life and took houses on the coast where the air was clear. Henry Paul Fleetwood, a prosperous Preston banker, saw the potential of Silverdale, north of Carnforth, and erected this tower on his estate there as a belvedere and summerhouse.

The 1817 Warton with Lindeth Enclosure Act allocated most of the land at Lindeth to John Jackson, a yeoman farmer. In 1829 he sold a substantial portion to Fleetwood, who set about improving the estate. By 1836 Fleetwood was offering his seaside property to let for the ‘summer season’. As well as the ancient farmhouse there was a ‘large and commodious house for Visitors’ which was ‘much resorted to’ for its ‘commanding views of Morecambe Bay’ and for the fashionable sea bathing.

The Lindeth Tower, aka The Gibraltar Tower, is variously described as dating from 1826 or 1842. The first date can be discounted as the folly is not shown on an 1829 plan, but it is marked as ‘Tower’ on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map which was surveyed in 1845. The date of 1842 is given on a plaque above the door, although some caution is needed as the plaque is modern, added when the tower was restored in the 1960s.

Even more confusing is a description of the tower by one of its most famous residents, the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who spent many summers in Silverdale in the 1840s and 1850s.

Mrs Gaskell is known to have spent a month at Gibraltar Farm in July 1843 so the tower was at most little over a decade old, or if built in 1842, the mortar was barely dry. It is often noted that she described Lindeth Tower as an ‘old square tower or Peel – a remnant of the Border towers’. She can’t possibly have believed that, so perhaps Mrs Gaskell’s comments have been misconstrued, and she was not referring to the folly tower at all, but to the building called the ‘ancient farmhouse’. This stood alongside the modern house where Mrs Gaskell stayed. Lindeth Tower was the name confusingly given to both the new house and the folly; an 1869 guide to Grange over Sands mentions the folly as ‘Lindeth Tower, belonging to the farm of the same name.’

Or perhaps the imaginative Mrs Gaskell was just in romantic mood as she wrote her latest novel in the parlour on the upper floor, and created a fictional history for the simple tower?

Enough conjecture! Sometimes The Folly Flâneuse’s mind wanders as much as her legs. The facts are that the folly known as The Lindeth Tower is three stories high with a rooftop viewing platform and a very pretty studded door. The house is now known as Tower House.

H.P. Fleetwood, whose principal seat was Woodfold Park, near Blackburn, offered the Gibraltar estate for sale in 1849. The ‘romantically situated Marine Residence’ was to be sold by auction and the sales particulars, as full of hyperbole then as they are today, suggested that the view of ‘Mountain, Vale and Sea’ from the ‘Prospect Tower’ would ‘alone repay the fatigues of a long pilgrimage.’ Fleetwood retired to Brighton around that date and died at his house there in 1855.

The tower is in pristine condition thanks to the efforts of Anne Margaret Horsley, who restored it in 1966, and later owners. It was once a landmark but is now somewhat lost in trees. These at least offer some privacy from the visiting Gaskell groupies and Brontë buffs (for much of Mrs Gaskell’s research for her life of Charlotte Brontë took place in Silverdale), as well as the odd flâneuse keen to see the tower. Happily you can see the folly from the passing road without needing to intrude on the modern-day tourists who are lucky enough to be staying, as Lindeth Tower is still much resorted to as a holiday home https://www.lindethtower.co.uk

UPDATE October 2023 The tower has been for sale for some time. The agents are https://www.ashdownjones.co.uk/property/tower-house-silverdale-carnforth-la5-0ua/?doing_wp_cron=1698419480.9453530311584472656250