architecture, Banqueting House, Buckinghamshire, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, landscape, Summerhouse

A Musical Interlude

The Folly Flâneuse is away (in search of follies of course), so until next week here is a brief look at the very pretty Music Temple at West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, the seat of the Dashwood family.

John Donowell, active 1753–1786, East View of West Wycombe House, Buckinghamshire, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1975.4.1884.

The temple, also known as the Theatre, was designed by Nicholas Revett in the late 1770s, and sits on the largest of the three islands on the lake. Sir Francis Dashwood’s guests would have been rowed over to the island for fêtes champêtres of food, wine and music.

West Wycombe looking rather fine in June 2021.

The Music Temple is just one of the many garden features added to the West Wycombe landscape in the eighteenth century. Some are lost, but others have been restored, or indeed rebuilt, by later generations of the family.

The Temple of the Winds, erected in the late 1750s.

In 1943 Sir John Dashwood gifted West Wycombe to the National Trust, but the house remains home to the Dashwood family. The house and grounds reopen in the spring https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/west-wycombe-park-village-and-hill

There will be no lounging around for the Folly Flâneuse, who will be back next week.

APOLOGIES that there has been a glitch in the system and regular readers will receive two posts this week. If you have missed the other it is here https://thefollyflaneuse.com/bonds-folly-or-creech-grange-arch-dorset/

 

architecture, country house, garden history, landscape, Monument, Northumberland, Obelisk

Obelisk to Nelson, Swarland, Northumberland

Alexander Davison (1750-1829) of Swarland Park, near Felton in Northumberland, erected this obelisk to Nelson in 1807. A closer look at the inscription reveals that he was not only celebrating the admiral’s victory at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, but more particularly their personal friendship. Davison had made a fortune supplying the government during the wars with America and France, but he was later charged with ‘public peculation’ – in other words the court believed he had his hand in the till.

architecture, Banqueting House, country house, Folly, Hertfordshire, landscape, Summerhouse, Temple

Lady Amabel and Landscape Ornament at The Grove, Hertfordshire

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.

architecture, Argyll & Bute, belvedere, eyecatcher, Folly, garden, landscape, Scotland, Tower

East and West Towers, Islay House, Islay, Scotland

Islay House was known as Kilarrow House until the middle of the eighteenth century. It was given its new name by Donald Campbell the Younger after he remodelled the house in the 1760s. Four lookout towers were built on the island, and the two known simply as the East and West towers, survive today in the park.

architecture, belvedere, Cumbria, eyecatcher, Folly, landscape, Summerhouse, Tower

Penrith Beacon, Penrith, Cumbria

High on the fell above the town of Penrith stands a square stone turret which marks the site of the town’s ancient beacon. For centuries the beacon network provided an early warning system: fires burning on high ground announced the approach of the enemy. In less troubled times the little tower became a summerhouse, eye-catcher, and belvedere for the Lonsdale family of nearby Lowther Castle. Today it is a popular destination for walkers, and a symbol of the town.

architecture, belvedere, country house, Cumbria, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, landscape, sham castle, Summerhouse

The Old Castle, Conishead Priory, Cumbria

On a knoll in the former park of Conishead Priory, near Ulverston in Cumbria, (formerly Lancashire) stands this solitary tower. It was once part of a much larger folly, known as the Old Castle, which many took for a genuine ancient monument. Thomas Braddyll (1730-1776) erected it as an ornament to be seen from his seat at Conishead Priory.

architecture, Banqueting House, belvedere, boathouse, country house, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, landscape, Monument, Shropshire, Temple, Tower

The Tong Knoll Monument & Tower, Shropshire.

On high ground in Weston Park, ancestral seat of the earls of Bradford, stands this prospect tower. Although Weston Park is in Staffordshire, the knoll on which the tower stands is just over the border into Shropshire, and it was formerly home to another monument, allegedly built for the most repulsive of reasons.