In the village with the simple name of ‘Hill’, near Sutton Coldfield in what was then Warwickshire, lived retired pawnbroker Hugh Lewis. At the time of his death in 1908, Lewis was remembered as ‘a man of very eccentric habits’ and chief amongst these were the building of a high wall around his house and the erection of a ‘Look out Tower’ on Hill Village Road – inevitably it became known as Lewis’s Folly.
Observatory
The Temple, Bandrum, near Saline, Fife
When Archibald Hogg of Bandrum House built this tower as an observatory and summerhouse in the 1840s, Saline had the ‘well-merited reputation of being the Paradise of Fife’. The village, built along the valley of the Saline Burn, is surrounded by hills and from the eminence called Bandrum this tower enjoyed a prospect of the undulating landscape to the Firth of Forth and beyond.
Sowler’s Tower, Far Sawrey, Cumbria
On the wooded slopes overlooking the west bank of Windermere in Cumbria (formerly Lancashire) stand the truncated remains of Sowler’s Tower. Although no great beauty today, this curious structure has an absolutely fascinating history. According to one source it was the last resting place of its builders, the Sowlers of Sawrey Knotts, with Mrs Sowler apparently spending eternity within the tower in a glass-topped coffin. The tower is indeed a mausoleum, but its residents are not the Sowlers.
Perrott’s Folly, Birmingham, West Midlands.
It is not everyday that someone builds a seven-storey brick tower on the edge of one of the busiest and most rapidly-growing towns in Britain, especially in the middle of the eighteenth century, so one would assume that the construction of this folly would have been noticed. Birmingham was home to one of the earliest provincial newspapers – surely the curious structure made the pages? But no, the early history of the tower seems very hard to find. The building was originally referred to as the observatory, or as Perrott’s Monument, but soon became ‘vulgarly’ known as Perrott’s Folly because it was born of an ‘insane vanity’.
Leith Hill Tower, near Dorking, Surrey.
The tower on Leith Hill was erected in the 1760s by Richard Hull. The hillside wasn’t actually his property, but his home was nearby and he leased the plot from the landowners, the Evelyn family of nearby Wotton. It became a popular attraction and in 1790 it was said that the view from the tower was ‘esteemed equal, if not superior, to any in the kingdom’. Hull was so fond of his tower that he designated it as his mausoleum.
The Tower, Rookesbury, Hampshire
In 1826 Charles Heathcote Tatham exhibited a view of a ‘tower now erecting’ at the Royal Academy. The tower was a belvedere, eye-catcher and summerhouse on the Rookesbury estate, near Wickham, where a substantial new house, also designed by Tatham, was under construction.
Curiosities of Town and Countryside
In 1941 Batsford published a new title by Edmund Vale called Curiosities of Town and Countryside. With a striking cover by Brian Cook, featuring the triumphal arch at Shugborough Hall, Staffordshire, the jacket blurb promised the reader ‘freaks, eccentricities and follies.’
Browne’s Folly, Monkton Farleigh, Wiltshire
In 1848 a brief note in local newspapers announced that a ‘lofty tower’ had been erected on Farleigh Down. Commanding the ‘most extensive and magnificent prospects’, the tower was built by Wade Browne, who had recently settled at Monkton Farleigh. The tower stands in Wiltshire – although very close to the border with Somerset.
Appley Tower, Ryde, Isle of Wight.
Close to the little town of Ryde on the north coast of the Isle of Wight stood Appley Towers, a fine seaside villa with views across the Solent to the mainland of Britain. In the later decades of the nineteenth century its new owner added a belvedere on the shore, which he called the Watch Tower.
Beckford’s Tower, Bath, Bath & North East Somerset.
In April 1826 a visitor to Bath noted that William Beckford, a ‘wealthy and capricious voluptuary’, had bought land on Lansdown Hill ‘with the design of erecting a magnificent tower with drest grounds about it’. The visitor knew that this had been planned since soon after Beckford’s move to the city in 1822, but he could see no sign of any progress on the project. Had he arrived just a few months later he would have found builders hard at work.