Most of the structures featured in these pages decorate vast estates or landscapes, or at least substantial gardens. But the sculpture pictured here is something a little different – it started life as a project for men building a reservoir, and later spent many years ornamenting a quiet garden in a Yorkshire village. It is a scale model of the dam and valve tower at Angram Reservoir, north of Pateley Bridge in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, and was built by two of the masons who worked on the construction of the reservoir.

Angram was one of a string of reservoirs built in remote spots along the course of the river Nidd in the early years of the twentieth century. The water was to supply the prosperous city of Bradford: by constructing the reservoirs on high ground, gravity would allow the water to flow to the treatment works on the edge of the city without the need of pumps.

The model was made by the father and son team of Robert Drummond (1844-1920) and his son Duncan (1883-1942) whenever they had some spare time. The 1911 census shows that both men lived with their wives and families on site at Angram, in the specially-constructed ‘temporary village’ for workers constructing the reservoir and massive stone dam.

Although there was a reading and recreation room on site, there must have been little to do in such a ‘wild, solitary spot’, and construction of the scale replica kept the men busy when not at work.

The model was first erected on land near where the Drummonds lived in the temporary housing shown in the background of the photograph above (which the workers christened ‘Angram Terrace’). According to the date stone it was completed in 1913, although the tower on the actual dam carries the date 1916.

The village was cleared when work on the reservoir was complete. The model was then moved to stand outside Bradford Corporation’s Water Works at Chellow Heights, but was threatened with destruction when the works were modernised in the 1970s. It was rescued by the Drummond family and moved to the garden of one of the family in East Morton, near Keighley in West Yorkshire.

There it remained for many years until the house was to be sold, and a new home for the model was required. Robert and Duncan Drummond’s descendants approached the Nidderdale Museum, in Pateley Bridge, to ask if they might find some space to display it: the museum is the perfect home as it already tells the history of the building of the reservoirs. With financial support from Yorkshire Water, the model was restored by monumental masons H.A. Green of Ripon, and moved to stand outside the museum. In summer 2023 the Lord Mayor of Bradford, performed the ceremony to welcome what is now known as the Angram Monument to Pateley Bridge.

In 1921 work began to construct Scar House, an even larger reservoir further down the valley (where Duncan Drummond was also employed). The Chairman of Bradford Council’s Waterworks Committee was Lt Colonel Anthony Gadie, and not everyone supported his decision to invest so much money in the reservoirs. Scar House Reservoir became known as Gadie’s Folly, but Bradford’s naysayers were forced to eat (or rather drink) their words when the city had ample water in periods of drought later in the century. The reservoirs continue to serve the people of Bradford and district today.

There is a circular walk to Angram and Scar Top reservoirs from the Yorkshire Water car park near the village of Lofthouse.

Visit the Nidderdale Museum in Pateley Bridge to learn about the construction of the reservoirs (and much more).

Thank you for reading, and as ever do please get in touch to share any thoughts or further information.

In the middle of the eighteenth century William Aislabie began to create a landscape garden on the banks of the River Ure, near the village of Grewelthorpe. In contrast to his grand estate at Studley, a few miles away, there were few manicured lawns or geometric pools, and instead Hackfall was a ‘sequestered and most romantic place’. Dotted around the grounds were summerhouses and shelters, including a dramatic hilltop tower called Mowbray Castle.

Word soon spread that Hackfall was a place worth seeing, and early visitors recorded their admiration for the place: ‘never was there seen a finer assemblage of wild and variegated nature’ wrote a tourist in 1785. Although visitors frequently refer to the ‘imitations of ruins’ in the pleasure grounds (there’s also a sham-ruin banqueting house), the earliest specific reference by a visitor to ‘Mowbray Castle’ found to date is from the 1780s, which tallies with an account in the archive suggesting work was ongoing in 1778.

By 1801 the gardener, who gave tours of the grounds, estimated that around two hundred parties visited each season. The Yorkshire weather was not always kind, but it didn’t spoil the experience. In 1792 Lord Torrington found ‘so much to admire, so much to celebrate’, despite the rain falling ‘in buckets’. And in 1799 another tourist wrote that he knew of no other place that gave so much pleasure’ even though it ‘rained the whole time’.

When first built Mowbray Castle could be seen from almost every spot within the pleasure grounds, and its ‘isolated situation’ was described as having an ‘extremely happy effect’. William Gilpin, whose comments on landscape were widely-read, criticised the buildings at Hackfall, but few were in agreement. In 1796, the Duke of Rutland wrote that ‘We did not find any room for censure’.

A poem written in 1859 suggested that the castle was an ancient fortification:

Now turn thy steps towards the right,
And view that grand imposing sight –
Tis Mowbray Castle, in decay,
The relics of a bygone day.

But Georgian visitors recognised it as a sham, a ‘very excellent imitation of an ancient ruin’, and praised its natural appearance.

Aislabie’s descendants sold Hackfall to a timber merchant in 1933, and much of the woodland was felled. Happily, the folly survived this period of neglect (although the short section of wall with an arch seen in the early images is lost), and was consolidated as part of a masterplan to restore the pleasure grounds and buildings after Hackfall was purchased by the Woodland Trust in 1989 (with strong support from the Hackfall Trust and other local groups). Sadly the vistas to and from the castle are now largely lost because of tree growth.

Around the time the folly was under construction a boy was born who would grow to great fame as an artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on 23 April 1775, 250 years ago this week. He visited Hackfall in 1816, and later worked up one of his sketches into a watercolour now in the Wallace Collection, London.

Hackfall is in the care of the Woodland Trust and is freely accessible to walkers.

J.M.W. Turner clearly admired follies – he painted/sketched the tower at Tabley in Cheshire, Cook’s Folly near Bristol and the Gibraltar Tower in Sussex amongst many others. Click the link in red for events planned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Turner’s birth in 1775.

Thank you for reading. Please scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page to share any thoughts.

Bolton Hall in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, was the seat of the Dukes of Bolton. The 3rd Duke’s mistress (and later wife) was the acclaimed actress and singer Lavinia Fenton, best known for creating the role of Polly Peachum in the premiere of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera in 1728. In the 19th century writers told the romantic tale that this tower was built as a summerhouse retreat for the Duchess, but it actually began life years earlier as a hunting stand.

An estate map of 1723 shows a square enclosure, either walled or paled, in which stands a tower with a domed roof, suggesting that the tower was extant in the lifetime of the 2nd Duke (1661-1722). The map gives very little detail but only a few years later the engraver, print publisher and antiquarian Samuel Buck (1696-1779) produced a ‘Perspective View of the Hall and Castle of Bolton, &c’. Bolton Castle was the former family seat and stands a few miles north west of Bolton Hall.

His working sketches and finished pen and ink drawing (dated 1727) survive in the Gough Collection at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. They show that the upper floor of the tower was accessed by an external staircase, and that the tower was surmounted by a large statue of a figure blowing a horn – which would seem to confirm that the tower was a hunting stand to view the chase. The finished engraving shows a herd of deer on the move through the park.

The tower is named on Buck’s finished drawing as ‘Mount House’, although an estate map of 1737 showing the footprint of the tower has the altogether simpler annotation of ‘Lodg’. An exact date for the tower has not been found, but as previously noted it is probably the work of the 2nd Duke of Bolton, who ‘greatly improved’ the house and grounds before 1718. The tower would have been used as viewing platform for spectators enjoying the chase in the park below, and as a banqueting house for refreshments.

As John Byng, later Viscount Torrington noted, by 1792 the Bolton Hall estate was ‘in wild neglect and disorder’, and a letter in the family archive dated 1793 confirms that the ‘Temple in the Park’ was by then ‘dilapidated’. In that same year John Anderson of nearby Swinithwaite wrote that the temple should be saved as it was ‘an ornament to the Dale’, but he was a particular fan of eye-catchers, having built his own in 1792 (link below).

In 1798 the cupola of the Mount Tower collapsed in strong winds, and the lead was removed before it could be pilfered. The architect John Foss (the designer of Anderson’s tower) proposed adding ‘little turrets’ to the corners to retain its role as an eye-catcher in the park, but there’s no evidence that this was ever done, and the tower seems to have been abandoned and allowed to slip into romantic ruination.

Only one reference to Lavinia Fenton having ever having set foot in Wensleydale has been found. In 1792 John Byng was given a tour of Bolton Hall and shown the bed in which ‘Polly’ had ‘always modestly slept alone’. It is impossible now to know if this story is true, or if the aged retainer was embellishing the story in the hope of a generous tip.

The idea that the tower was a favoured retreat of the Duchess seems to have first appeared in print in the middle of the nineteenth century when W.G.M. Jones Barker published The Three Days of Wensleydale or Valley of the Yore. In 1854 the book erroneously claimed that the summerhouse was ‘built so as to resemble a ruined tower’ and that it was erected ‘for the accommodation of the famous Lavinia Fenton’ (Lavinia by then would have been Duchess of Bolton, having married the duke in 1751 after the death of his first wife). Ten years later the tale was further embellished when it was said that ‘village tradition asserts that when the lady warbled here, the Duke used to listen to the strains at Bolton Hall’. In 1925 Edmund Bogg, in his Beautiful Wensleydale, romanticised the history still further: ‘in the tranquil charm of summer evening twilight she would give out her voice in beautiful melody, which was eagerly listened to by the dalespeople’.

The ruined lodge continues to enjoy a wonderful panorama of Wensleydale, taking in the family seats of Bolton Castle and Bolton Hall (rebuilt after a fire in 1902).

Bolton Hall is home to Thomas, 9th Lord Bolton and his family. There is no public access to the hall or the grade II listed tower, but you can appreciate the view the tower enjoys from nearby roads and from a public footpath that runs above it. Bolton Castle, the former family home, can be visited.

Access to the path above the tower was restricted when the Flâneuse visited – these lovelies lolloped over to say hello, and they were just a little too lively to tempt her to walk through the field.

Read more about the Temple at Swinithwaite here. For more on Bolton Castle click this link.

Thanks to Val Helpworth of the Yorkshire Gardens Trust for sharing extracts from the family correspondence. Her research into the history of the Bolton Hall gardens and pleasure grounds can be read here. 

And many thanks to the Garden Historian who alerted the Flâneuse to the Buck sketches in the Bodleian Library.

And as ever thank you for reading. The comments box is at the foot of the page and the Flâneuse is always pleased to hear from fellow folly fans.

In 1839 the Marchioness of Normanby wrote to her husband from the couple’s seat at Mulgrave Castle, on the Yorkshire coast just north of Whitby. Amongst other news, she told him of progress on the ‘new hermitage’ which was then being built, and of the views which were being opened in the woodland.

Lady Normanby’s (1798-1882) ‘charming woodland summer-house’ was noted in John Walker Ord’s history of Cleveland, published in 1846. Ord describes it as a ‘pretty tasteful structure’ with a thatched roof supported by rustic oak pillars to ‘harmonise’ with the woodlands around it. The interior was elegantly, but simply, furnished and the Hermitage had views to the mansion and out to sea. Curiously, the view that Ord chose to include in his work does not reflect the summer-house described in his prose.

A family letter of 1852 records further work to create vistas from the Hermitage, and in 1858 the roof was under repair – although work was delayed when a cartload of ling (heather) was mysteriously destroyed by fire on its way to Mulgrave Woods. The charming little building is shown in an engraving dated 1854, with what appears to be a grotto or chamber beneath.

In 1887 the Hermitage was described as a ‘pretty little rustic building’. The octagonal core was said to be ‘composed of Mulgrave cement’, a kind of Roman cement which was made on the estate (although correctly the building had a brick core coated in cement). As well as being used by the family, it was also a ‘favourite resort’ of picnic parties: in the 1880s visitors could request permission to ride around the woods in their carriages.

Romantic tales are told that the Hermitage was built on the site of an ancient religious establishment. This is probably a romantic tale, and in 1897 one writer was disappointed to find that it was ‘nothing more than a summer house of modern construction’. By the 1950s a visitor was saddened by the graffiti on the Hermitage, and it was clearly slipping into decay. Today only a section of wall is still standing, but the Flâneuse knows this only from photos found on social media. Despite a valiant effort clambering up hill and down dale she failed to find it, and a subsequent email to the estate office revealed that what’s left of the hermitage isn’t on a ‘route that is available to the public’.

Nineteenth century visitors to Mulgrave Woods were able to picnic in style as they were permitted to pitch tents for refreshments by the ‘Old Castle’. This was another eye-catcher in the landscape, being an ‘interesting and somewhat extensive ruin’ – the reimagined romantic remnant of a genuine ancient fortification. Landscape designer Humphry Repton suggested in 1792 that this ‘fragment of ancient Baronial importance’ should become an eye-catcher in the landscape, and it was subsequently partially rebuilt from the scattered stones on site.

Although mature trees now block the views, there were once magnificent prospects out to sea from the woods.

Whilst carriages and tents are not permitted in Mulgrave Woods today, the current Marquess and Marchioness continue to welcome visitors to walk in the woods and visit the Old Castle. The woods are open on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays except in the month of May. (Mulgrave Castle is private and the gardens open occasionally for charity).

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome – please scroll down to the foot of the page to get in touch.

In 1934 a local paper published a ‘Cleveland Ramble’ featuring a walk around Kirkleatham village. The author looked across the park to the ‘elaborate castellated pigeon-cote’ which was described as a ‘startling example’ of the extravagant ‘pseudo Gothic craze’ of the later 18th century. Only a couple of decades after this account was published the castellations were gone, and the pigeon cote was cracked and crumbling, and soon to disappear.

In 1808 Kirkleatham was praised for both its ‘various natural beauties’ and the ‘many decorations art has furnished it with’. The pigeon cote was one of the most striking of these ornaments, with a circular central tower and linking walls radiating out to three smaller turrets. Sadly no images of the folly before it began its decline have been found, but the Ordnance Survey maps illustrate the unusual plan.

The building’s early history seems to be lost, and although a document in the family archive cross-references an account book for work on the estate, that ledger does not seem to survive. The pigeon cote was most likely commissioned by Charles Turner (1726-1783), who lived at Kirkleatham after his father inherited the estate in 1757. No architect is named, although John Carr of York, who remodelled the house at Kirkleatham in the 1760s, is a possible contender. We do have a terminus post quem for the pigeon cote of around 1775, as it is not shown on an estate map of 1774.

The Kirkleatham estate passed through various families until the middle of the 20th century. The contents were then dispersed and, after attempts to find a use failed, the fabric of Kirkleatham Hall was auctioned as building materials in 1954.

Although promises were made to protect the historic structures on the estate, the pigeon cote and temple, admired by the 1934 rambler as an ‘exquisite little pavilion’, survived for less than a decade before they too were pulled down. The arable field surrounding the pigeon cote now covers the site of the building, with not a trace remaining above ground.

Happily there are still many reasons to visit Kirkleatham. The Free School of 1709 houses the Kirkleatham Museum, and the almshouses called Turner’s Hospital and the church with its adjoining Turner Mausoleum are both fascinating structures (there’s limited public access to the interiors, but they can be admired from the footpath).

The walled garden has been restored and continues to develop, and a wander around the village reveals the elegant stables and a number of other fascinating structures – look out for information boards and maps around the village. Here’s a taster…

Thanks to David Winpenny for introducing me to the archive of Peter Burton’s photographs. Burton (1927-2014) took many of the images which illustrated the Shell Guides that were produced in the mid-20th century. Burton was commissioned to write the North Yorkshire volume by the editorial team of John Piper and John Betjeman, but the project was cancelled before he could complete his research. He eventually published his material as North Yorkshire: a Guide in 2006. Thanks also to Burton’s friend and fellow photographer Harland Walshaw for permission to use images from the collection.

For the Kirkleatham Walled Garden https://kirkleathamwalledgarden.co.uk

And for more on the Kirkleatham Museum https://redcarcleveland.co.uk/enjoy/kirkleatham-museum/

Comments are most welcome – scroll down to share any thoughts. Thank you for reading.

Just over the river Ure from the market town of Masham is this unusual rotunda sitting on top of a rustic grotto. It was designed to take advantage of the view over the river to the church and the attractive little town. An engraved stone near the temple tells us that in 1770 ‘Samuel Wrather built this grotto’.

Samuel Wrather (1727-1806) was a wool-stapler of Masham. In 1773 he married Miss Spence, a ‘young lady of merit and fortune’, and he died in 1806 ‘at an advanced age universally respected’. He was succeeded by his son, Samuel junior (c.1778-1854), who is best known today as the owner of Nutwith, the champion racehorse bred by his late brother, which won the St Leger in 1843. The family had a small estate at Beggars Bush, in nearby Grewelthorpe, and also owned property in Masham town.

The early history of the Grotto Temple is unclear, and apart from the stone near the building there is little to go on. Late 18th century maps show that Samuel Wrather owned the strip of land now called Grotto Plantation, but the Grotto Temple itself is not marked.

The earliest image of the Grotto Temple found to date shows it as the property of Samuel Wrather junior. An engraving after a sketch by the artist George Cuitt (1779-1854), who moved to Masham in 1821, was made in 1837. It was published a year later in a fashionable pocket diary called Le Souvenir, or Pocket Tablet and captioned ‘Temple in the Grounds of S. Wrather, Masham’.

The 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, published in 1859, shows the structure as ‘Pavilion’, within woodland called ‘Grotto Plantation’. At that date there was no house nearby, suggesting that this was a detached pleasure ground (another unnamed building and bridges over a stream can be seen on the map), perhaps to be visited by the ferry which crossed the river not far away. There was certainly inspiration nearby: Hackfall, the famed woodland landscape with buildings created by William Aislabie of Studley in the 1750s and 60s, did not have a principal house attached and is only a short distance away.

A rare lithograph of the pavilion, of which only one copy has been traced, attests to its lost fame. It was published by C. M. Dydynski in around 1850 and was inserted into an extra-illustrated copy of Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s Richmondshire in the collection of Leeds Libraries. Extra-illustration, or Grangerisation, was a fashionable hobby in which prints and original sketches were interleaved into a text to enhance the content. The process took its name from the clergyman and print collector James Granger (1723-1776) who published a biographical history and encouraged readers to embellish it with engraved portraits of his subjects.

The Grotto Temple then featured on a number of picture postcards which were probably produced for the tourists who arrived after the opening of the branch line to Masham in 1875: visitors would have passed the grotto grounds on their way from the station to the town.

Sometime between 1890 and 1905, a house was built which took its name from the existing pleasure grounds: ‘The Grotto’. In the 1910s it was home to Arthur Atkinson, a haulage contractor, but by 1921 it had been renamed ‘The Greens’ and was home to the Burrill family. The engraved stone by the pavilion records that Edward Burrill restored the Grotto Temple in 1935, perhaps in preparation for the wedding of his daughter Lucy in 1936, when the reception was held at The Greens.

A fleeting mention of the ‘grotto in the plantation’ can be found in local novelist and writer Mary Elizabeth Stevenson’s guide to Masham, published in 1919. On Summer Roads in Mashamshire suggests rambles for the visitor to the area, including a walk from Masham town over the bridge towards the weir (since destroyed) to appreciate the views of the church from across the river.

Mrs Stevenson (1853-1935)  introduces the interesting idea that the grotto was a favoured viewpoint of the artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1759-1817), who settled in Masham in 1805. Stevenson wrote that Ibbetson painted ‘many fine views of the Church from this side [of the river]’, and this 1816 view certainly looks to have been taken from within the Grotto Plantation (Stevenson would have known the history of this painting, for it had hung above the fireplace in her childhood home overlooking the Market Place in Masham). The Ibbetson and Wrather families were friends, and in September 1813 they and a party of friends spent a day sketching before partaking of ‘tea and syllabub’ at Wrather’s Beggars Bush home.

Sadly the current condition gives great cause for concern: the pavilion’s pretty roof, with its wide overhanging eaves, has fallen and the grotto is overgrown. The structure is not listed and therefore has little protection, an omission that should be rectified urgently.

Grotto Plantation is private property and there is no public access, but the Grotto Temple can be seen through the trees from a public footpath.

Huge thanks to Alison Brayshaw and Gail Falkingham for their help in compiling the history of the Grotto Pavilion. There are still gaps in our knowledge – do get in touch if you can help.

Thank you for reading. Please scroll down to the bottom of the page to share any thoughts or comments.

This stone shelter, grandly titled ‘The Hermitage’ stands in the former grounds of Newton House, a few miles from Whitby. Newton House was built in the late 18th century as the seat of Jonas Brown a Whitby ship-owner and merchant. Brown (1717-1799) is commemorated by an obelisk near the house which records that he built Newton House and tamed the surrounding wild heath to create arable land and pleasure grounds.

The early history of the cave, likes its interior, is a little murky and no contemporary account of its construction seems to exist. There’s no explanation why a hermitage was built here, although such solemn structures were a fashionable addition to landscapes at this date. The builder might have been inspired by the local ‘romantic fable’ of the Hermit of Eskdaleside, which is just a few miles from Newton House. The story goes that a monk from Whitby lived as a recluse in the woods, and one day an exhausted wild boar ran into his dwelling and expired. The monk slammed the door on the hunters who charged their way in and, furious, attacked the hermit and left him for dead. With his dying words he forgave them but imposed a penance (see the link at the end for the full story).

In the grounds of Newton House a huge boulder was scooped out to create a cavern, with a stone bench running around the interior. Across the path from the hermitage is a walled viewing platform looking down to the May Beck in the valley below. There would have been no shortage of qualified workers to excavate the Hermitage, for the area was already extensively quarried for sandstone, and to provide materials for the local alum industry, in which Brown had an interest. The Hermitage is assumed to have been part of Brown’s landscaping works, but it does not bear his name. Instead is inscribed’ The Hermitage’ and ‘G + C’ and dated ‘1790’.

Identifying the person behind the initials ‘G+C’ is not easy. The first description in print seems to be in Whellan’s History & Topography of York and the North Riding which was published in 1859, almost 60 years after the cave was created. Whellan states that the Hermitage was built by George Clubb in 1790. A year later Francis Kildale Robinson’s 1860 guide to Whitby, its abbey, and the principal parts of the neighbourhood claims that the Hermitage bears the inscription ‘George Chubb, 1790′. Robinson is incorrect as the carving does not give a full name: there are simply the deeply-incised initials ‘G + C’. Later histories rely on Robinson and perpetuate the incorrect name of Chubb – but he shall be Clubb henceforth (conclusive evidence will be provided in due course).

George Waddington (1821-1898), a Whitby antiquary, amassed volumes of notes and clippings on the area, many based on the oral histories of local residents (now in the collection at the excellent Whitby Museum). In 1880 he noted that George Clubb had been factotum to the Brown family of Newton House, and also designer of ‘the stonehouse or hermitage’. Waddington was told that the hermitage was hollowed out by one Christopher Jeffrey, and that it had housed a stone table until a ‘young beast’ ran in and destroyed it (the species of this brawny brute is not specified). The roof of the cave is home to two stone chairs, one a simple stool, but the other a rather grand, although perhaps not hugely comfortable, armchair – were they for George and Christopher (G+C) creators of the cave?

Waddington was also told that Clubb had a school in nearby Littlebeck, and this part of the story at least appears to be verifiable. Whitby parish registers note that George Clubb, a Schoolmaster who lived to be 75, was buried at St Mary’s in Whitby (of Dracula fame) in November 1812. His dates are therefore c. 1737-1812, but no other trace of the enigmatic schoolmaster/factotum/hermitage designer has yet been found.

Jonas Brown died in 1799 and Newton House remained with his descendants until 1812, before passing through a number of owners. During the Second World War the house was requisitioned and in 1967 the estate was sold to the Forestry Commission. Having been a field studies centre for some years Newton House is now a private home.

The Hermitage stands a little way from the popular natural attraction of Falling Foss waterfall (and the equally popular Falling Foss Tea Garden). It can be easily accessed from the Falling Foss car park, or there is a lovely walk from the pretty hamlet of Littlebeck to Falling Foss, with the mysterious Hermitage, and a much more recent addition, as objects along the route.

For the tale of the hermit and the boar see https://www.whitbyonline.co.uk/whitbyhistory/thepennyhedge.php

There’s more on Littlebeck Wood nature reserve here https://www.ywt.org.uk/nature-reserves/little-beck-wood-nature-reserve

If you have any other thoughts or comments, please scroll down to the foot of the page to get in touch. Thank you for reading.

High above the town of Pateley Bridge in Nidderdale stand two strange stone pillars which look like the remnants of some ancient ecclesiastical edifice. Until 1893 there was a third, and they were known as the Three Stoops, or alternatively as Yorke’s Folly after their begetter, John Yorke. They are often dated to around 1800, but they are actually some decades earlier, being constructed at the height of the Georgian vogue for mock ruins and eye-catchers.

Yorke (1733-1813) first considered building an eye-catcher on Guyscliffe, to be seen from his house at Bewerley in the valley below, in 1768*, the year in which he succeeded his father. The sham ruin’s gothic form may have been suggested by Bewerley having once housed a grange serving the monks of Fountains Abbey, which stands only a few miles away. The folly was complete by 1779 when a lady touring Nidderdale admired the ‘beautiful wooded hill crown’d with cliffs’. But she was not impressed with the folly, and complained that Mr Yorke had expended £300 on ‘a most wretched imitation of a Ruin’. Perhaps she might have felt differently if she knew that this was not just a gentleman’s whim, but a philanthropic enterprise to help the poor of the district.

Writing in Follies & Grottoes in 1953, Barbara Jones noted that unemployed men from the neighbourhood were recruited to build the folly in return for 4d a day and a loaf of bread. Jones gives no source for this story, but an account written in the early years of the 19th century, during Yorke’s lifetime, corroborates her account. On seeing the folly in 1805, Charles Fothergill was delighted to learn of Yorke’s benevolence and described him as a ‘gentleman of ancient family and very good fortune, perhaps not less than £20,000 per annum; the greater part of this sum he regularly expends in ameliorating the condition of the indigent poor and sick’.

Yorke died in 1813, and by his request was quietly buried in Hudswell churchyard, close to his other family seat in Richmond, Yorkshire, where his gravestone has a simple inscription, free from encomiums. But others praised his ‘charity and benevolence’: the Leeds Mercury reported that he was ‘universally lamented’ and the Richmond historian Clarkson wrote that ‘the poor have lost in him their most bountiful benefactor’.

In November 1893 a storm hit Pateley Bridge, and the third (and most substantial) stoop was ‘blown down’. The Pateley Bridge and Nidderldale Herald reported that it was surprising that the folly had survived so long in its exposed position, and with a nice understanding of the picturesque noted that the stoops ‘so interestingly break the monotony of the edge of Nought Moor’. The collapse of the third stoop was remembered in the Yorkshire Post in 1929, and a Yorke descendant wrote to the paper with the pessimistic premonition that ‘doubtless the last two will, in time, share the same fate’.

Happily he was wrong, and although ambitious plans to rebuild the third stoop as a millennium project came to nothing, the Two Stoops remain a dramatic landmark, and the grade II listed folly is a popular resting spot for friendly ramblers enjoying a panorama of Nidderdale.

If you plan to visit Yorke’s Folly, allow time to explore the Nidderdale Museum in Pateley Bridge and support the volunteers who keep it flourishing  https://www.nidderdalemuseum.com

* This very useful reference is from Margaret Hadley Watersons’s From Folly to Flower Garden: The Yorkes in Nidderdale (2015) which is on sale at the museum.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts are always welcome and can be shared via the comments box at the bottom of the page.

Skelton Tower stands high above Levisham in the North York Moors National Park. Once a moorland retreat, it is now a remote and romantic ruin.

The Revd Robert Skelton (1791-1877) was appointed Rector of Levisham in 1818, the Patron of the living being his widowed mother, Sarah. The Revd Skelton’s family wealth allowed him to live as a gentleman, and he had ample leisure time for country pursuits whilst curates attended to the day to day business of the parish. He was also something of an antiquarian and was involved in the excavation of a barrow on Levisham Moor. The arrow-heads he discovered in 1851 are in the collection of the British Museum.

A date for the building of the tower seems hard to find. Most local guides state it was constructed in 1830, but without giving a source. It was certainly there by the late 1840s when it is marked on tithe and Ordnance Survey maps, being named on the latter as Skelton Tower. There are various local accounts of why the tower was built: it was the quiet retreat where Skelton wrote his sermons, or (if there’s a vicar there has to be a hint of scandal) it was his secret drinking den. Much more likely is that it was a lodge where the vicar could shelter, and take refreshments, when shooting or going about his antiquarian pursuits on the moor.

The construction of the tower seems to have passed without notice, and no accounts have been found in the local newspapers. Then again, the journalists probably didn’t have time for such trivial objects as a folly tower when there were important stories like this to report: ‘A swarm of bees entered the mansion of the Rev. Robert Skelton’. Readers must have been thrilled to learn that the bees settled into the void between the ground and first floor, until eventually floorboards had to be prised up. Happily the bees then exited via the window and settled in a gooseberry bush.

There was even more excitement in Levisham with the coming (but not quite to the village) of the railway in 1836. The local story is that the Reverend Skelton, as the landowner, insisted that the station be built by his home, Grove House, a rather inconvenient mile from the village. The line was closed in 1965 but reopened as the heritage attraction the North York Moors Railway in 1973. The ruined Skelton Tower now provides a perfect grandstand for trainspotters.

There’s no hint of who might have designed the tower, and Skelton’s only known architectural commission was in 1838, when he asked Lewis Vulliamy to build a new church in his Rosedale parish.

The Levisham Estate is now owned by the North York Moors National Park. The grade II listed tower was partially restored by the NYMNP in 1978.

For more on the North York Moors Railway https://www.nymr.co.uk

All the photographs are courtesy of Chris Hand, who first suggested Skelton Tower as a subject. Chris visited on a much better day than the Folly Flâneuse and kindly shared his excellent images.

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The Allerton Castle one sees today is a great Victorian edifice, created in 1848. But the site has been home to a number of renovations and rebuilds, gone through several changes of name, and seen some colourful owners. On a knoll in the park stands an elegant octagonal temple, which must have attracted the attention of passers-by on the nearby Great North Road (A1), but sadly it is seldom mentioned, and its history remains a little vague.

In the 18th century the estate was known as Allerton Mauleverer, after the family who lived there. In 1713 Richard Mauleverer died without a direct heir, and the estate passed to Richard Arundell. He commissioned a new house from the architect John Vardy, before he too died without issue in 1758. He left Allerton to his wife for her lifetime, before it passed to his cousin by marriage, Viscount Galway.

Galway already had estates of his own, including Serlby in Nottinghamshire, where he was employing the architect James Paine. This connection has led to Paine being credited as the designer of the temple at Allerton Park (as it became known as the century progressed) during Lord Galway’s residence. But although Galway was Arundell’s heir, he did not take control of Allerton until Lady Arundell (born Lady Frances Manners, a daughter of the Duke of Rutland) died on 27 November 1769, and as the temple is shown on Jeffrey’s map of Yorkshire published in 1771 (but crucially surveyed in 1767-70), the evidence suggests it was erected by the Arundells.

There are a number of potential architects of the temple, including Arundell himself. He is known to have given architectural advice to Sir Robert Walpole at Houghton, and was for a period Surveyor of the King’s Works (where he would have known William Kent), so he would have been perfectly competent to design a garden temple. Arundell was a great friend of Lord Burlington and shared his admiration for the Palladian style. He employed John Vardy, a close associate of Kent to design a new church at Allerton, completed in 1748. The work of all of these men may have influenced the design, and especially Kent’s temple at Carlton House in London, c.1735-6, illustrated above. But James Paine also remains a contender: he was at Allerton in 1754, and when Arundell wrote his will in April 1756 it was witnessed by Paine.

Although prominent on its hill, not far from the Great North Road, the temple was seldom noted by passers-by. There is a rare account in 1783: a guest at Kirby Hall, a few miles away, ‘rode through exceeding pretty grounds & a handsome wood’ to Allerton Park. He described the landscape as a ‘collection of little hills’ which gave views of the lakes. Some of the eminences were topped with clumps of trees, but in what he called ‘the crack spot’ was the ‘good Octagon building which looks over a very extensive and rich country’.

A few years later there was great excitement in Yorkshire when it became known that the Duke of York, second son of King George III, had bought the Allerton estate for ‘more than £100,000’. The Duke completed the purchase in 1786, and the following year hosted a grand entertainment for ‘his tenants, their families, and in short the whole neighbourhood’. He was also visited by his brother George, the Prince of Wales, for a weekend of country sports. Although the Duke sold the estate only a few years later, his association with the estate has become legend in the form of a nursery rhyme – it is said that it was on the Allerton estate that the Grand Old Duke of York marched his men to the top of the hill, and then marched them back down again. Readers won’t be surprised to learn that other hills across the country also claim this honour.

During their sporting weekend at Allerton, the Prince of Wales and the Duke were entertained at the home of Colonel Thornton, who lived nearby. Thomas Thornton (1751/2-1823) was a well-known figure, a great sportsman, and is remembered as a rather colourful character. A contemporary believed that ‘There is an insanity in the family of Thornton, which accounts for his eccentricities’.

When the Duke of York looked to sell Allerton in 1788 it was Thornton who came up with the funds to buy the newly-improved property (one lady wrote to a friend that the estate was ‘too far North to be agreeable I imagine’).  With the blessing of the prince, Thornton changed the name of the estate to Thornville Royal. It is probably during Thornton’s time that the little pavilion became known as the Temple of Victory (it is only ever called ‘The Temple’ on estate and OS maps) as it was illuminated to celebrate naval successes, including Trafalgar.

In 1805 the estate again changed hands and became the seat of the Stourton family. This time there would be some continuity and the family still own much of the estate, although the mansion and temple are in separate ownership.

By the middle of the 19th century the Temple’s original role as a banqueting house, or belvedere, had fallen out of fashion. As is so often the case with redundant garden buildings, it was put to work as a dwelling house. Throughout the second half of the century the diminutive structure was a family home for estate workers: first the shepherd was in residence with his wife and 7 children, then later the ‘cow man’ moved in with his wife and 6 children.

In the early 1980s what was by now called Allerton Castle was bought by entrepreneur Dr Gerald Rolph, who wished to restore and conserve a grand mansion. The temple and the land around it came into the ownership of Dr Rolph’s charitable foundation a few years later. In 1993 the grade II* listed temple was made secure at a cost of £85,000, with English Heritage contributing just under half of that sum. Work continues to keep the lovely little structure in good repair, and safe from the ever-intrepid vandals.

There is no public access to the temple, but it can be seen from the castle and from public roads. For more on Allerton Castle, which is a wedding venue and open to the public for tours https://www.allertoncastle.co.uk

Historic England commissioned new photography in 2019, after garden features in the wider (private) estate had been restored, and have kindly given permission for images to be used here.

Please scroll down to the comments box below if you’d like to share any thoughts. Thank you for reading.