Dromana House in County Waterford enjoys wonderful views over the mighty Blackwater river, but the approach to the house crosses a tributary, the Finnisk, and there’s a surprise for anyone visiting for the first time. The road curves, and suddenly there is the most perfect of scenes: a tranquil river crossed by a bridge leading to a lodge built in a magnificent melange of the gothic and the oriental.

The bridge was originally a wooden structure, with a central drawbridge allowing boats to pass in the days when the river was navigable. Old postcards show that the bridge originally had ogee-arched railings to match the lodge, but even by 1928 the bridge was becoming worn ‘under the strain of heavy traffic’, and strengthening and safety works in the later twentieth century saw the wooden bridge and railings replaced with concrete and steel.

In the early nineteenth century Dromana was the seat of Henry Villiers Stuart (1803-1874), created 1st Baron de Decies in 1839. The tale is told that a papier-mâché arch was erected, where the lodge stands today, to welcome Stuart when he returned to Dromana with his new bride in 1826. The arch was said to have been fashioned in an indo-gothic style to help the happy couple remember their honeymoon in Brighton, where they would have seen George IV’s Royal Pavilion. Stuart and his wife were apparently so taken with the design that they decided to recreate it in a more substantial fashion.

No records can be found to corroborate this story (although such ephemeral celebratory arches were certainly in vogue in this period). In fact, the whole story of Villiers Stuart’s marriage is rather mysterious. He is said to have married Theresia Pauline Ott (c.1802-1867), a Viennese-born widow, in a Catholic ceremony in London in 1826, and a son, Henry, was born in 1827. In 1839 the marriage was solemnised in Christ Church, Marylebone, when the curate noted in the register that the couple had been ‘heretofore married in the city of Dublin according to the Ritual Ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church’, but crucially no date is given. No records of an 1826 marriage could be found after Lord de Decie’s death in 1874, making his son illegitimate, and therefore unable to inherit the title. This was a ’cause celebre‘ of the day, and the ‘exceptionally interesting peerage case’, filled the courtroom and the newspapers for some weeks in 1876.

Surprisingly few accounts of the lovely lodge can be found, but we do know it was extant by 1835 when a Scottish tourist, Robert Graham, saw a ‘remarkable bridge’ with a building with a ‘pear-shaped cupola’ at the end of it.* The ‘costly fanciful structure’ was noted by another writer in 1844, and in 1848 John Bernard Burke (of ‘Peerage’ fame) described it as ‘singularly fanciful and striking’ and ‘looking like some romantic scene in the Arabian Nights’.

The architect is thought to be Martin Day (?1797-?1860), who is known to have worked at Dromana in the correct period. Surviving drawings of the lodge by Day are dated 1849, suggesting that it was perhaps remodelled or renovated at that date. The inspiration behind the lodge remains a mystery – is the Brighton honeymoon story true (probably not – the court case suggests they went straight to Scotland after the wedding)? Had Villiers Stuart or his architect seen Oriental Scenery, the volumes of views of India produced by the Daniell brothers in 1795-1807 (above)? Were they aware of Sezincote, the Mughal palace in the Cotswolds built by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with the assistance of Thomas Daniell, for his brother Charles in the first years of the nineteenth century? Wherever the idea came from, we should be grateful it did, and that this joyful structure survives today.

The Irish Georgian Society restored the decrepit lodge in 1968, and further repairs were made in the 1990s, but the lodge is once again in need of some care. In 2023 the IGS gave a grant to support the preparation of a building report to investigate how to ‘reinstate this structure to its former glory’.

The bridge and lodge are freely accessible. The house at Dromana was reduced to a more manageable size in the twentieth century and remains the home of the Villiers Stuart family. You can read more about the history and visiting here https://dromanahouse.com

That’s the last folly (for now, at least) from the Flâneuse’s recent Irish jaunt. If all goes to plan next week’s post will go off at a tasty tangent. Thank you for reading, and as ever you can share thoughts and comments at the foot of the page.

*This information is from J.A.K. Dean’s impressive gazetteer of the gate lodges of Ireland, and in particular the volume for the province of Munster.

Spottiswoode House, was described in 1846 as a ‘stately and elegant edifice in the old English style of architecture’. The estate had been ‘possessed, time out of mind, by the Spotiswoodes’ and was the childhood home of Alicia Anne Spottiswoode. It became her retreat in widowhood and the place where she was remembered for having ‘a weakness for erecting curious stone archways and other little monuments here and there’.

Alicia Anne (1810-1900) was one of the children of the Laird, John Spottiswoode, who built the new house to designs drawn up by William Burn in 1832. Alicia Anne lived a life typical of the age and was educated at home in the arts of literature, drawing, singing and conversational French. But she was also passionate about botany, geology, history and archaeology, and loved to be outdoors.

In 1836 she married Lord John Douglas Montagu Scott, second son of the 4th Duke of Buccleuch. After his death in 1860, Lady John, as she was known, seems to have developed what were generally described as eccentricities, although one article suggests she was seriously disturbed by her husband’s death, and continued to live as if he were alive – writing him letters and having a place laid for him at the dinner table.

In her widowhood Lady John lived mainly at Spottiswoode, and the property became hers for her lifetime following the death of her mother in 1870. She then became known as Lady John Scott Spottiswoode to meet the terms of her father’s settlement. Her motto was Haud Fast to the Past and she had a passion for local history, and supervised a number of archaeological investigations on the estate.

Best remembered today for the song Annie Laurie the ‘most popular of Scottish melodies’, Lady John deserves to be better known for the curious works in architecture with which she bedizened the estate. These included two curious arches which, by map evidence, were constructed between 1857 and 1897. One stands in the tiny hamlet called Pyatshaw (named for the burn, or stream, that passes by).

It has inscribed stones built into the base, of which only one is even vaguely legible today. That which can be read (with difficulty) can be identified as one of the riddles, or ‘ænigmas’ put to Zadig and others in Voltaire’s 1747 novel of the same name. Zadig is asked:

‘What is this thing we receive without being thankful for it, which we enjoy without knowing how we came by it, which we give away without knowing where it is to be found, and which we lose without being conscious of our misfortune’.

Zadig is the only one who can solve the philosophical conundrum – the answer is ‘Life’. A second riddle solved by Zadig describes ‘Time’, and perhaps this was the inscription now eroded from the other stone? Sadly no local historians seem to have transcribed the plaques, although in 1912 a Mr Bradley wrote that one of the estate lodges had ‘a stone bearing a Latin description’. But to the Folly Flâneuse’s great disappointment he continued that it was ‘not worth recording’.

The second arch is close to the Bruntaburn (again named for a watercourse) Lodge, but is easy to miss as it is almost totally engulfed in ivy.

Sadly Lady John’s motive in erecting the arches is not known, but she is remembered as a great philanthropist and they may have been built to create employment locally. If they commemorate individuals or events then that association has long been forgotten.

At one of the entrances to the park stand two matching buildings known as the Eagle Lodges, or the Clock Lodges. The eagles which gave the lodges their name (seen in the postcard below) are no longer in situ, but the ‘clocks’ remain.

Although the lodges are thought to be late 18th century in origin, Alicia Anne is credited with giving them the embellishments which make them so fascinating today. Each lodge has a crenellated gable wall which carries a dummy clock – one always gives the time as 1.53 and the other 11.11 and the story is told that these were the times that the mail coach arrived at Spottiswoode. Each cottage carries two boards giving the distances to postal towns as near as Edinburgh and as far as Portsmouth.

Only a few years after Lady John’s death the antiquarian Alexander Curle, Secretary of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, visited Spottiswoode and noted the clock lodges and, more vaguely, the many ‘evidences of Lady John’s eccentric tastes’. Not known to survive today, but also a great curiosity, was Lady John’s coach which Curle described as ‘a great clumsy vehicle’ which was modelled on Napoleon’s.

Lady John died without issue in 1900, and Spottiswoode House passed to a grand-nephew. The place was not maintained and by 1912 was already looking ‘forlorn’. Spottiswoode was sold in the 1930s, when it was said that ‘time has played havoc with its wide domain’, and the house was pulled down in 1939. The stable block was converted into a residence in 1996 and a new house built in the grounds at the same date.

Happily the ornaments erected by Lady John survive. The arches are both listed at category C, and the Clock/Eagle Lodges are category B. All can be seen from public roads.

Top marks to anyone who spotted the non-indigenous wildlife in the top image. Here’s the friendly little fellow who adds further charm to the hamlet of Pyatshaw.

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On a hilltop near the village of Hermitage, a few miles from Newbury, are the remains of an early Iron Age hillfort which became known as Grimsbury Castle. Close by is a battlemented structure, also called Grimsbury Castle, but this one only pretends to antiquity, being a diminutive sham castle built to house a gamekeeper.The two ‘fortifications’, ancient and modern, were once part of the manor of Hampstead Norris (sometimes Hamstead, sometimes Norryes). The estate was in the ownership of Sir John Gallini and his descendants from the middle of the 18th century until it was sold in 1838.

Gallini (1728-1805) has an interesting history: he arrived in England from Italy in around 1757 and worked as a dancer and choreographer. Later in life he was a well-known impresario on the London theatre scene and in 1763 he entered into the upper echelons of British society through his marriage to Lady Elizabeth Peregrine Bertie, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Abingdon. Through this union Gallini acquired an estate at Yattendon, which included the manor of Hampstead Norris.

An exact date for the construction of the lodge has not been found, but it was probably built during Sir John’s lifetime when he is known to have employed a gamekeeper (Thomas Milson was in post in 1799). He died in 1805 and it took many years for the wrangling over his estates and fortune to be settled, with trustees in control of the estate. So it seems unlikely that such a bold and expensive building would have been commissioned in that period. The ‘important Freehold estates of the Gallini family’ were eventually offered for sale in October 1838 and lot 25 included the ‘keeper’s lodge known as Grimsbury Castle surrounded by one of the best preserves for game’. The auctioneers considered the parcel of land ‘a beautiful site for a residence’.

Happily the plot was not developed, and Grimsbury Castle continued as home to a gamekeeper into the 20th century and remains a private house today. The land it stands on is protected as part of the site of the camp, a scheduled ancient monument, but the sham castle lodge is not listed.

The remains of the fort and the very picturesque Grimsbury Castles, iron age fort and 18th century folly, can easily be seen from public roads and from permissive footpaths courtesy of landowners the Eling Estate.

Thank you for reading, and if you have any thoughts or further information please scroll down to the comments box to get in touch (only your name will appear online, your email address remains private).

This fine arch could once be found on the edge of the village of Westwick, but sadly it was pulled down as recently as 1981. Nearby, in a scrappy ribbon of woodland, stands a decrepit brick tower with a square base supporting a round shaft. It is difficult to appreciate that this remnant was once a much-admired eye-catcher and belvedere, which went by the curious title of the Westwick Obelisk.

Dr Johnson’s dictionary of 1755 defined an obelisk as ‘a magnificent high piece of solid marble, or other fine stone, having usually four faces, and lessening upwards by degrees, till it ends in a point like a pyramid’. Clearly the tower at Westwick fails to meet this accepted description, and it has been assumed that the name was used in error by the surveyors who marked it thus on the first Ordnance Survey maps. But this is not the case: it was called the ‘obelisk’ in the earliest known reference: Armstrong’s History and Antiquities of the County of Norfolk, published in 1781. Armstrong notes the ‘obelisk’ and, perhaps aware of the peculiarity of this title, elaborates that it is a ‘tower or belle-view, ninety feet high’. At the top was a glazed lantern ‘fitted up to view an extensive tract of country each way, and the sea-coast for nearly thirty miles’. The building is also named as ‘obelisk’ on maps of Norfolk published in the 1790s.

Westwick was the seat of William Petre (1686-1772) the property having come to him though his 1736 marriage to Elizabeth Berney (1711-1778). Their son, John Berney Petre (1741-1819), must have been laying out a new landscape at Westwick even before he inherited the estate in 1772, for in 1809 he wrote that he been planting there ‘for more than fifty years’. One of his greatest achievements was the construction of a sinuous lake which curved round the ancient church of St Botolph, making it a picturesque feature of the landscape. When William Watts described Westwick in his Seats of the Gentry (published between 1779 and 1786), he described the major civil engineering that allowed the piece of water to be created: two Archimedes Screws, powered by a windmill, pumped water up from a reservoir.

In his text Watts avoided using the misleading word obelisk, and instead described the ‘ornamental building, or gazebo’, built by Petre ‘some Years since’ which was ‘remarkable for the fine prospect it affords’. The plate of the house and gazebo, was drawn by T. Hearne and engraved by Watts. More interesting is the note in the text to say that the drawing was based on a sketch by ‘H. Repton Esq.’ Humphry Repton was then living not far away at Sustead Hall, and was yet to formally embark on his career as a ‘landscape gardener’, but he must, at the very least, have taken notice of the major engineering and landscaping project at Westwick.

Petre won medals from the Society of Arts for his planting, and in 1809 was still enlarging his woods. In that year he wrote that when his current project was complete he would have created ‘a plantation of five hundred acres with a five-mile drive through it’.

The Westwick Obelisk continued to be a popular attraction throughout the 19th century, when the grounds were opened up to clubs and societies. The Churchman’s Club visited in 1877 and members admired the view from the top of the obelisk. Hasbro’ (Happisburgh) lighthouse could be seen, as well as ‘smoke of the coast-wise steamers, and the top-sails of passing vessels’.

The dilapidated obelisk is today engulfed in trees, so that its purpose as an eye-catcher and belvedere has been completely lost, even in deepest winter. Not that one would attempt to climb it, as the lantern superstructure has largely disappeared, and what survives is in poor condition. And as can be seen, the Westwick Estate does not encourage visitors.

The obelisk might be in a sorry state today, but it does at least survive, unlike its complementary adornment a short distance away. At the former entrance to the park is a pair of very attractive lodges: until 1981 they flanked a handsome arch, which like the obelisk and the lodges was decorated with pebble rustication and knapped flint. Discussions were underway to protect the arch (which was in a dangerous condition) as a listed building, but the owner pressed ahead with demolition before the process could be completed, and within a day no trace was left. The lovely lodges survive astride the B1150 Norwich Road.

The only trace of the arch today is a view of it, and the obelisk, on the very charming village sign.

For more of George Plunkett’s photographs of old Norfolk visit http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk

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Nostell Priory, not far from Wakefield in West Yorkshire, is a magnificent 18th century mansion built adjacent to the site of an Augustinian priory. Architect James Paine worked at Nostell for around 30 years, before Robert Adam was called in to add new wings and other works. Adam also designed one of the most luscious of lodges to be found on a country estate.

The new house was commissioned by Sir Rowland Winn, 4th bart. (1706-1765), whose family had owned Nostell since the middle of the 17th century. The original design was by gentleman-architect Col. James Mosyer, but it was modified by James Paine who went on to work at Nostell for 30 years. In the same period the grounds were landscaped with lakes and plantations. Sir Rowland was succeeded in 1765 by his son, also Rowland (1739-1785) and it was he, the fifth baronet, who invited Robert Adam to Nostell. Adam remodelled the stables, created stunning interiors, began ambitious (but ultimately largely unrealised) additions to the house, and designed new lodges.

In the 18th century the terms obelisk and pyramid could be synonymous, so whilst we today would think this structure pyramidal, it was known as the Obelisk Lodge. Adam drew up plans for the ‘Gateway for the Park’ in 1776 and work began immediately. The original drawings show that a pair of sphinx were to terminate the flanking walls, but if they are ever installed they are now lost without trace (see link below). The drive straddled by the lodge brought traffic from the important Pontefract to York road, and it must have been a great thrill for visitors to pass through this monumental lodge in their carriages, before sweeping down over the end of the lake and then climbing again for the mansion to burst into view.

There was accommodation for the gate-keeper in the two small rooms flanking the pyramid. With the arrival of the railway in the 19th century, the Obelisk Lodge was used less and a gate-keeper was no longer needed, although a colliery labourer, a stonemason’s labourer and gamekeepers (the lodge was well-placed to spot poachers entering the park) are recorded in residence over the century. The lodge was by now known locally as the Needle’s Eye (or Needle Eye), perhaps because of its similarity to the arch-pierced pyramid at Wentworth Woodhouse, about 15 miles away. It continued as a family home until the 1950s, but once empty began to decline.

By 1977, when surveyed for the National Monuments Record, it was dilapidated and the tip was crumbling. A decade later the lodge featured in the exhibition (and accompanying catalogue) Georgian Arcadia: Architecture for the Park and Garden, which was held to mark the Golden Jubilee of the Georgian Group. The ‘dramatic Piranesian conception’ was described as neglected and vandalised, and so it remained until the beginning of the 21st century.

In 2002 it was announced that £4.2 million pounds of Heritage Lottery Funding would allow the acquisition of this previously private part of the estate, as well as meeting the costs of a major programme of renovation and restoration at Nostell that included the Grade II* listed Obelisk Lodge. The singular lodge, which had become pointless in more ways than one, is now once again a magnificent parkland feature.

Nostell Priory was given to the National Trust in lieu of tax in 1953  https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/nostell

For Adam’s drawing in the collection of the Sir John Soane Museum see http://collections.soane.org/THES92166

All modern photo’s were taken on rather lovely day in November 2020, when local restrictions allowed, and the National Trust team were doing an excellent job of managing safe access to the park.

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