Brizlee Tower. Photo' courtesy of Robin Kent Architecture and Conservation.
Brizlee Tower* stands high on Brizlee Hill, near Alnwick, and overlooks Hulne Park, a detached pleasure ground close to the Duke of Northumberland’s principal park at Alnwick Castle. It was built in the late 18th century as a prospect tower and eye-catcher, and also as an object to be visited on a drive from the castle through Hulne Park. The park was designed by ‘the inimitable Brown’, aka Capability, working with local engineers and designers, and was also home to the ruins of mediaeval Hulne Abbey, embellished and repurposed by the Duke and Duchess as a banqueting house, pleasure garden and menagerie for exotic pheasants. This is one of The Folly Flâneuse’s favourite follies: the detail is just so joyful, or as historian Alistair Rowan so wonderfully put it: ‘at Brizlee there is fantasy and flamboyance’.
Barbara Jones, the first person to write a comprehensive account of follies in Britain, saw this building and was underwhelmed. In the 1953 first edition of Follies & Grottoes she described it as ‘gutted’ and full of pigeon’s nests, and concluded that ‘no amount of bird life can divest this folly of its ordinariness’. If only she had seen it in its prime: a sketch by the itinerant artist and drawing master J.C. Nattes dated 1807 shows an enchanting little building.
Courtesy Manchester Art Gallery
Bambro’ Castle, as it was called, was named in honour of the Bamburgh family, former owners of Howsham. It is not recorded if the builder, Nathaniel Cholmley, was consciously allying his diminutive structure with the somewhat grander Bamburgh Castle on the Northumberland coast. It was extant by 1791, when it is named as ‘Bamburgh Castle House’. The gothic detail is similar to that on the nearby Howsham Mill which is attributed to John Carr of York. Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown is known to have drawn up a plan for Howsham, and these buildings ‘punctuating’ and ornamenting the landscape may have been his suggestion. Sadly little archival material for this period has survived for Howsham.
The mill at Howsham. Functional and an eye-catcher in the landscape.
The folly served a dual purpose. By day, it was a summer-house for refreshments when riding through the ornamental woodland on the Howsham estate. Furnished with a ‘Chintz sofa’, an octagonal mahogany dining table, painted and gilded chairs and all the paraphernalia for serving lemonade, tea and cake it must have been an idyllic retreat. As night fell it perhaps became an observatory for it housed a ‘large Tellescope’.
Jones was one of the last to record the building. Soon after it deteriorated further and was eventually demolished as the ornamental woodland gave way to commercial forestry. Visitors in the 1980s were sad to find it gone.
Surely Barbara Jones was let down by her memory? The two photos above are from from her own files (generously shared from a private collection). How could she describe this folly as ordinary?
Howsham Hall is an events venue and there is no public access. Howsham Mill is open regularly https://www.howshammill.org.uk
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