In 1807 the 9th earl of Winchelsea built a rustic retreat deep in woodland in his park at Burley-on-the-Hill. The building was known as ‘The Hermitage’, and soon became the subject of tales which were somewhat fanciful, even in the fantastical world of follies.

George Finch (1752-1826) succeeded his uncle as the 9th Earl of Winchelsea in 1769. The Burley-on-the-Hill estate that he inherited included the elegant mansion on its hilltop site, a building which will be familiar to anyone who has driven near Oakham in Rutland.

The parkland was home to a vast wood, cut through with straight rides in a star shape by a previous generation. In one of the segments of the woodland Finch built a summerhouse in the form of a hermit’s abode. The floor was a mosaic of pebbles and the knucklebones of sheep, and featured a ‘W’ for Winchelsea and the date 1807, which is assumed to be the date of construction.

In 1858 a local newspaper described the Hermitage as ‘an object of interest and amusement’ and encouraged readers to walk the ‘narrow and meandering’ path through the woods to find the rustic cottage, which was built almost entirely of wood except for a huge chimney built of rough stones. There were two rooms – a bedroom with wooden bed and straw mattress covered with sacking, and a front parlour. The centrepiece of this room was a ‘huge block of wood’ which served as a table. The table was by that date already covered in graffiti, as the many visitors had carved their names or initials into the surface. Despite this vandalism, the Hermitage remained ‘constantly open for inspection’.

The same account introduces the first ‘history’ of the building. In brief, a man wanted by debt-collectors went into hiding in Burley Woods (he is not named in the report but locally he is remembered as a Mr Booth or a Mr Bennett). Being ‘sufficiently versed in construction’, he built the ‘humble tabernacle’ and only ventured out occasionally for provisions. Eventually, the bailiff found his secret hideout and tried to take him into custody, but the fugitive locked the bailiff in the hermitage and ran for it. The bailiff, being a stout man, was allegedly stuck in the cottage for days until rescuers found him, much to the amusement of the locals.

An alternative version of the tale has the lurid twist that the fugitive was in fact a murderer. To atone for his crime he sequestered himself in the woods and lived as a hermit, bound by oath not to speak to his fellow men. A short distance from the Hermitage was a smaller rustic shelter called Soloman’s Hut, and according to the legend this is where food was left for the hermit to collect.

Still more diabolical is the history recounted in 1911, which has an ancestor of the Finch family selling his soul to the devil. When Satan tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to keep his word, a deal was struck that the bond would be broken when a Finch had spent 7 years in solitary confinement in the Hermitage. Until this was accomplished the devil would retain his hold over the family. The report concluded that ‘within living memory’ one member of the family had managed two years of isolation before he ‘lost his reason’. Clearly the writer didn’t believe a word of the nonsense he was feeding to his readers, and he concludes with the anti-climactic ‘At any rate, it is a fact that there is at Burley to this day a Hermit’s cell’.

Barbara Jones described the Hermitage in the first edition of Follies and Grottoes in 1953. She thought it a ‘magnificent example’ of the hermitage genre of landscape buildings, and was amazed to find the interior intact. The furnishings included ‘three triangular stools of remarkable rustic discomfort’, and the vast table was still in situ. Her wonderful sketch shows just how intricate the fan-vaulted ceiling was, with branches for the ribs and huge elm bosses.

The Hermitage was visited by architect Neville Hawkes (1910-1988) in 1955 and his photograph shows that by that date the building was looking a little shabby and protected by a barbed-wire fence. Hawkes was probably accompanied on that visit by his son, William (1939-2024), and a year later William and a schoolmate returned to explore the building. Their status as pupils at the local public school of Uppingham gained them permission to visit the Hermitage, and for future historians this would be one of the best decisions the estate office ever made. Young Will, later to train as an architect, recorded the floorpan of the building in a lovely sketch.

Only six years after Will Hawkes visited, the Hermitage was set alight. On Thursday 5 July 1962 the Oakham firemen fought to save the structure, but it was totally destroyed (N.B. Barbara Jones gives the date 1965 which she was given in error by the estate office). A police investigation was launched, but it is unclear if the perpetrators were ever found and the blame is generally pinned on ‘schoolchildren’. The demise of the Hermitage caused great sorrow to an anonymous correspondent with the local paper. The writer remembered picknicking there with ‘the late Squire Finch’ and wished everyone to know that the ‘story of the Burley hermit is a myth’.

Today only a handful of photographs and sketches of the Hermitage survive to record its history, although visitors to the Rutland County Museum might see a miniature model of the building. It was made by local resident William H. Sewell, aka Billy Bennett (1912-1985). The exact date of the model is not known, but it shows the building much as Neville Hawkes saw it in 1955, with the chimney partially collapsed.

The Burley-on-the-Hill estate descended to the Hanbury family, and by the middle of the twentieth century the woods had been closed to the public (there’s an interlude when the estate is owned by the later-disgraced entrepreneur Asil Nadir that needs only the briefest of mentions here). The house was converted into houses by Kit Martin in the 1990s, but the parkland remains with the Hanburys who are currently planning to create an ‘immersive visitor attraction’ called Wild Rutland. Perhaps the Hermitage could be recreated – what could be more wild than a solitary hermit’s cottage?

The Rutland County Museum has a fascinating collection, although please note that the model of the hermitage is not currently on display. Visit before 4 October 2025 to see an exhibition of the works of the artist Rev J.L. Petit (1801-1868) of which the highlight for the present writer was, of course, this view of the folly known as Old John in Bradgate Park in Leicestershire.

Thank you for reading. As ever, your thoughts are very welcome. Please scroll down to find the comments box.

On the quiet main street that runs through the village of Sticklepath, near Okehampton, stands a former works known as the Finch Foundry. It has been redundant since the 1960s, and is now a museum. Passing through an arch to the side of the works, the visitor is surprised to find a tranquil garden and beyond it a burial ground where the only noise is the rumbling of the river Taw. In the corner of the burial ground is a little thatched shelter, and more recently it has been joined by the most perfect of nineteenth-century rustic summerhouses.

The burial ground was first created by the Quakers, or Society of Friends, in the early eighteenth century. In the middle of the following century it was bought by Thomas Pearse, a woollen manufacturer who had a mill nearby, and vested in trustees from his family. Pearse was a Nonconformist, and it was his wish that people of all beliefs might be buried there. He was a generous donor to local good causes, and in 1838 it was noted that he was planning to mark the coronation of Queen Victoria with ‘a dinner for the whole of the persons under his employ’. The feast would however have been strictly teetotal, for Pearse was the leading light in the local Temperance Movement.

Pearse, who maintained the cemetery, is thought to have erected this little retreat in the corner of the burial ground. In 1942 it was described as having a table and seat, and ‘panels with quotations’ on the walls. Only one can be seen today, and it has lines written by the Scottish poet, journalist and hymn-writer James Montgomery (1771-1854). They first appeared in 1813 in the fifth canto of his long poem The World before the Flood.

A notice in the summerhouse states that it was originally erected in Thomas Pearse’s garden, across the road from the foundry, and that in 1974 it was gifted to the Finch Foundry Trust by a Pearse descendant, Mrs C.N. Jevons. The authors of the National Trust’s guidebook to the foundry are more circumspect about the history of the summerhouse, and it gets only a cursory mention: ‘In front of the graveyard stands what is alleged to be Tom Pearse’s old summerhouse’. Whatever its origins, it is an absolute delight.

The summerhouse is kept in the neatest order, and inside are two painted boards with verses and biblical quotations framed in gothic arches with geometric rustic-work.

In 1966 it was announced that members of the Finch family hoped to turn the ‘dilapidated’ former foundry into a museum where the industrial archaeology of the site could be explained. The Finch Foundry Trust and Sticklepath Museum of Rural Industry ran the site until 1989 when the Museum of Dartmoor Life took over. In 1994 it passed into the care of the National Trust. Finchs’ Foundry is listed at grade II*.

When researching the summerhouse, the Flâneuse discovered that it had inspired a scale model for model railway enthusiasts, and was available to buy in kit form. She was unable to resist, and here is the diminutive work in progress.

Sticklepath was once on the busy main road from Exeter to Penzance, but it is now a peaceful spot after the village was by-passed in 1987. The Flâneuse urges anyone driving along the A30 to make the short detour to visit the village and its attractions. The burial ground and garden can be seen at any reasonable time, and there’s more on visiting the foundry here.

…and greetings from the Flâneuse and thanks for reading. Please scroll down to the comments box below to share any thoughts.

Wandering in the glorious landscape that is Stourhead in Wiltshire there are vistas to grand classical temples and gothic monuments, but there is also a pastoral scene featuring a pretty little rustic cottage which has inspired artists – from painters to designers of tourist souvenirs – over the centuries.

Stourhead, one of the most famous landscape gardens in Britain, probably needs little introduction here, but in brief it was created by the Hoare family in the eighteenth century. A grand lake is crossed by an elegant bridge, and a walk around the water leads to features including a grotto and classical temples as well as offering vistas to gothic ornaments and a sun-topped obelisk.

The cottage has been described by many names since it was first constructed in the middle of the eighteenth century. There is a reference to Pantheon Cottage, and it is also mentioned as the Rustic Cottage or Arcadian Cottage. For many years it was called the Watch Cottage, most likely because it was home to a keeper, but it is now known as the Gothic Cottage. As the watercolour below shows, the picturesque little building was overgrown with creeping plants such as woodbine and clematis, commonly found in cottage gardens.

Around the turn of the nineteenth century the cottage was in frequent use as a summer retreat, with a comfortable sitting room for the ladies of the house. In this period the thatched roof was replaced with stone slates.

In 1946 the Hoare family gave the house and grounds to the National Trust, and the charity’s early guidebooks and maps called the rustic house the Watch Cottage.

The cottage was restored in 2007 and the roof covered with thatch to return it to its original appearance. The Folly Flâneuse dreams of living in such a rural retreat, but only after the crowds have gone home: in 2023-2024 over 370,000 visitors were able to wander around the lake and past the Gothic Cottage. But as an obsessive collector of all things folly, she can gaze upon it in various iterations from the comfort of her desk…

This little pottery model of the ‘Gothick Cottage’ was made for the National Trust by the Boncath Pottery in 1979. The design is by ‘Dorn Williams’ – Miss Dorn Williams produced other decorative and commemorative pieces for the National Trust.

In 1983 Ian Logan Ltd produced a series of tins featuring National Trust properties. Bill Dare produced the illustration used on this tin, which was ‘based on the Gothic Cottage, Stourhead’. Note that both the model above and this tin show the cottage with the slate roof that was in place at the time they were made.

Sometime towards the end of the 1980s the Flâneuse bought a ceramic model of the Gothic Cottage ‘in the tradition of the pastille burners made by the Staffordshire potters early in the nineteenth century’. It was made at the Gladstone Pottery Museum, Stoke on Trent, for a company called Recollections Ltd (the recollections of the Flâneuse stretch no further than that). Although the cottage is modelled with a thatched roof, this was acknowledged as artistic licence by the maker.

For more on Stourhead click here.

Thank you for reading. Please scroll down to the comments box if you wish to share any thoughts or further information. 

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.

After his great success in keeping Great Britain safe from Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington was asked to choose an estate which would be funded by a grateful nation. In 1817 he saw Stratfield Saye, and decided to make it his home. He lived there until his death in 1852, and it remains the seat of his descendants. In 1845 Queen Victoria announced that she and Prince Albert, together with their courtiers, were coming to stay with the ‘good old Duke’.

Stratfield Saye was purchased from the 2nd Baron Rivers, whose family had owned the house since the early seventeenth century. In the 1750s George and Penelope Pitt (later 1st Baron and Baroness Rivers) improved the house and pleasure grounds so that by 1762 the park was described as ‘laid out prettily’. Although there were ambitious plans to build a new palace in the park, these were never executed and the Duke was content to remodel the existing, relatively modest, house.

The Queen and her party set off from Windsor on 20th January 1845. Her route had been announced to the press and well-wishers lined the streets of the towns and villages she passed through. At Arborfield Cross in Berkshire two detachments of the North Hants Yeomanry met the royal party and formed an escort to Stratfield Saye. The Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) joined the procession to ride the last few miles to the house.

The Queen wrote about the visit in her diary. She found Stratfield Saye ‘a low and not very large house, but warm and comfortable’ and she enjoyed a walk in the pleasure grounds – although sadly she doesn’t mention a summerhouse. Prince Albert went shooting and his wife later watched him try a game of tennis (the Duke was ‘an ardent admirer of this healthy pastime’). Evenings were spent in the company of the local aristocracy and gentry.

It is not clear what the summerhouse looked like when Queen Victoria visited, but something was extant at that date and was shown on the 1839 tithe map. The summerhouse is dated 1846, so the Duke either rebuilt or refurbished it the year after Victoria’s visit to commemorate her stay. Whilst nineteenth century accounts are full of admiration for the specimen trees planted in the pleasure ground (including Wellingtonia, of course), there doesn’t seem to be even the briefest mention of this lovely rustic retreat.

The summerhouse is double-fronted, with one front giving a view into the pleasure grounds around the house, and the other a view out over meadows to the handsome stone bridge over the river Loddon, built by Lord Rivers in the eighteenth century.

The whole structure is built of natural materials: the roof is covered in wooden shingles, the floor is pebble and flint and the walls are decorated with geometric patterns made of slender stems. Inside is the date 1846 and on the side walls of one room the Queen’s insignia faces that of the Duke.

It is particularly pleasing to see the summerhouse (grade II) being restored for the benefit of future generations using traditional materials.

Stratfield Saye usually opens for pre-booked visits in August each year: put it in your diary for 2025.

As well as the house (grade I) and collections, there can also be seen the grave of Wellington’s horse, Copenhagen, and the absolutely amazing leviathan that is the carriage built in only a few days to carry the Duke’s coffin to his funeral  https://wellington.co.uk/stratfield-saye-house/

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

In the 19th century Cullaloe stone was much in demand as a building material: it was widely used in Scotland and England, and exported to Europe and as far as the Caribbean. But in the shadow of the quarries is an abandoned pleasure ground that is home to this beautifully constructed little temple – a perfect demonstration of the colour and quality of the stone. At the other end of the grand terrace on which it stands is a curious rustic tower.

In the early 19th century the ‘Cullelo’ estate in Fife, as it was then known*, was owned by James Stuart of Dunearn (1775-1849). Stuart lived not far away at Hillside, near Aberdour, where he was said to have ‘greatly beautified the grounds’. At ‘Cullelo’ he seems to have created a ferme ornée with walks and rides surrounding a rather grand farm house.

By 1826 the house at ‘Cullelo’ had been updated with a ‘Grecian front’ and was surrounded by ‘beautiful’ evergreen shrubberies. The fields were sheltered by plantations ,which had an ornamental as well as practical purpose: they were cut through with ‘ridings and roads, and gravelled paths and walks’. The temple and tower, which are believed to be contemporary with work on the house, were features in these ornamental grounds, and the terrace on which they stand was said to have one of the finest prospects in Great Britain. All of this landscaping is shown on a map which can be dated to the 1820s, but no further records seem to survive.

The Temple is supported by a central column from which springs a fine vaulted roof. It was probably built as somewhere to shelter and take refreshments when enjoying the pleasure grounds, but when the Folly Flâneuse visited in November 2023 it was home to three roe deer who sadly skittered off before she could grab her camera.

At the other end of the terrace, or avenue, stands a curious structure which provides a complete contrast to the finely worked stone of the temple. A rough stone pyramid stands on four arches and must once have commanded fine views, although they are now blocked by trees.

In the 1850s the compilers of the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map noted the ‘small ornamental building called the Temple’ and ‘a Tower’ at ‘Cullalo’. The surveyors noted that they were unable to find any ‘historical accounts’ of the buildings. Sadly, the Flâneuse has had little more success.

In 1828 Stuart was declared bankrupt and his estates were sequestered. He is largely forgotten today, and if remembered at all it is for the duel he fought in 1822. Having been insulted in print by his political rival Sir Alexander Boswell (son of the biographer), Stuart challenged him to a duel in which Sir Alexander was mortally wounded. Duels were accepted as a gentlemanly way to settle quarrels, so when the case came to trial Stuart was unanimously acquitted by his peers.

In 1828, with Stuart’s finances in disarray, Cullaloe was bought by the Earl of Moray, whose land surrounded the estate. He had been using Cullaoe stone to develop the majestic Moray Estate in Edinburgh to a design by James Gillespie Graham (Stuart himself lived briefly at No. 20 Moray Place before his funds ran out). The stone was noted for its durability, but it was expensive to quarry and difficult to dress and for periods the quarry was abandoned. It was reopened in the 1860s to provide the stone for the building of Fettes College in Edinburgh to the designs of David Bryce, although by 1881 quarrying was once more discontinued.

Quarrying at Cullaoe was resumed early this century: the stone is in demand for repairs to historic buildings. There are also extensive forestry operations in the woodland, with the inevitable churned-up tracks, so one has to use one’s imagination to conjure up the picturesque scene that once could be found here. But the elegant temple and curious tower stand as reminders of the designed landscape, and are listed as Category B in a grouping with the farmhouse and a bridge on the estate.

In the 19th century lists of the eminent buildings constructed of Cullaloe stone appeared in advertisements for the quarry, and a number of town and landscape ornaments were mentioned: Lord Nelson’s Monument, Yarmouth; Lord Melville’s Monument, Edinburgh and the Conservatory at Dalkeith Palace to name but three.

To see the Cullaloe temple and the tower consult an OS map and explore the many possible walks through the woodland.

*There ia a bewildering list of variant spellings of Cullaloe including Calala, Collellow and Killalo, so to avoid confusion the modern spelling of Cullaloe will be used here unless a direct quotation is being made.

Thanks for reading. Please scroll down to the bottom of the page to get in touch – your thoughts and comments are always welcome. If you would like a folly story in your inbox each Saturday morning please click the subscribe tab.

In 1903 William Wood and Son, horticultural specialists to His Majesty the King, placed an advertisement in The Garden magazine announcing two new introductions to their range. These were exotically named summerhouses: the ‘Resiance’ and its little sister the ‘Resianette’. The magazine also ran a feature in the same month (actually lifted from a Wood & Son circular), in which the writer announced that ‘we here present two pictures of distinctly novel structures which appear to be very much in advance of ordinary summer houses’.

Messrs Wood were based in Wood Green in North London, and had grown to become an important company which offered a full range of garden and landscape services: estate development, horticultural building, engineering and contracting and landscape gardening as well as supplying all horticultural requisites. Their literature proudly displayed their Royal Warrant as horticultural specialists to King Edward VII, and announced their many horticultural prizes and medals.

The Resianette was the smaller of the two new garden ornaments, and its alternative title makes clear its target market: The Ladies’ Bijou Summerhouse. Elevated above ground to protect from damp, it could also be enclosed with curtains to provide shade and had a terrace for taking tea and reading.

Whilst the ladies kept their pale complexions, the men could lounge about in the Resiance (an archaic term for a residence) which featured a ‘Sun Bath’. The upper storey rotated around a central column so that the open side faced the sun – so new was this idea that the article added a helpful ‘for sunbathing’ in parentheses. The upper floor might house a telescope and the lower floor an aquarium or fernery. The finishing touch to this ‘very picturesque adjunct’ would be roses and ramblers entwined around the pergola which encircled the building.

How many Resiances were snapped up is not known, but at least one Resianette was constructed and it went on display at the 1905 Royal Horticultural Society show at Chelsea. In honour of King Edward’s Queen Consort the building was described as the ‘Alexandra Tea or Summer House’.

The two buildings, as well as other ‘chalets’, were still being marketed in the company’s 1909 catalogue. By that date the wellbeing properties of the Resiance in particular were being promoted, with it described as ‘a temple of health and pleasure’ where one could sunbathe or sleep outdoors. With the buildings being offered for sale for 6 years by this date it must be assumed they were a success with the public, but the Flâneuse has failed to find any further record of these wonderful, if ephemeral, garden buildings. As ever, if you have further information please get in touch.

The work of Messrs Woods was featured in an article by Valerie Joynt in the current issue of Garden History, the journal of The Gardens Trust. A mention of the two garden ornaments set the Flâneuse scurrying into the archives and Valerie is thanked for sharing her research. Find out more about joining and receiving the journal here https://thegardenstrust.org

Thank you for reading. If you’d like to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas please scroll down to the comments section at the foot of the page.

This curious rustic structure once stood in the grounds of Cardross House in the parish of Port of Monteith, near Stirling. It was built by the estate gardener in around 1853, and according to a picture postcard it became known as ‘the Pagoda’. A family memoir however records it by the rather charming name of The Foghoose.

Cardross was home to the Erskine family. From around 1820 they employed William Wyber (c.1792-1878) as their gardener, and he was still hard at work at the age of 69 when the 1861 census recorded him as Master Gardener to the estate. He is captured, shovel in hand, in an early photograph in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland, and was well-known locally as the winner of many prizes at the Stirling Horticultural Society’s annual shows.

But Wyber was not just a plantsman: he was also an architect and landscaper and was credited with many of the improvements to the park and gardens at Cardross, including draining a damp field and creating a garden on the site. The family remembered his ‘genius for gardening’ and above all the ‘delightful’ Foghoose, so named because it was lined inside with moss, which is known in Scotland as ‘fog’.

In 1883 the summer-house was mentioned by Thomas Hunter in his book on the Woods, Forests and Estates of Perthshire. Hunter wrote that the building had been erected ‘about thirty years ago’, so around 1853, and that it was the ‘handiwork of Mr Wyber’. Hunter describes the Cardross estate in some detail but in the ‘garden policies’ it was the ‘uniquely constructed heather tower’ that most attracted his attention. The tower was built of larch and Scotch fir pillars and the exterior was thatched. The inside walls were lined with moss and the lower room was used as a summer-house.

Above this room was a tower which stood 40 feet high and contained a staircase. It was intended as a belvedere with a view to Stirling Castle and Abbey Craig (which only a few years later would become home to the Wallace Monument). But by the time Hunter saw the summerhouse the trees in the nearby pinetum and plantations had already matured, and the vistas were lost.

Wyber died at Cardross in January 1878 at the advanced age of 85. The unique Foghoose survived into the 20th century before decaying away – the fate of many an organic garden structure.

Please get in touch if you have any thoughts or further information: scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the comments box. Please note that your email address will not be published – only yoor name will appear. Thank you for reading.

Barbara Jones is best known to readers of these pages as the author of Follies & Grottoes (1953, revised 1974), the first book to consider the subject of garden and landscape buildings in any detail. She also wrote books about popular art, erotic postcards and furniture amongst other subjects, and as an illustrator and designer her work appeared in magazines, on calendars, dustjackets, greetings telegrams and much, much more.

One of the more unlikely places where her work could be found was in an elegant little magazine called Pan. Published on behalf of the pharmaceutical company Schering A G Berlin, Pan was sent to doctors and medical professionals and featured advertisments for the company’s ‘sex hormone preparations’ alongside medically themed cartoons by the likes of Michael Heath. Issues were compiled and produced by Napper Stinton Woolley, an advertising agency based in London’s Soho.

Magazine number 61 appeared in January 1969 and contained a very entertaining review of the spoof ‘Post-Op Art Explosion’ exhibition at the fictitious ‘Medic’s Gallery’ (very clever) by the Yorkshire GP Leonard Rosenthal. There was also a most peculiar short story about aphrodisiacs, and then, incongruously, an article by Barbara Jones about Follies with a wonderful title illustration:

The brief editorial introduction suggested that readers might like to take a ‘cosy afternoon run in the car’ to find a hermitage, or ruined tower, or counterfeit castle, and then Jones is given three pages to elaborate.

She began with a definition, describing a folly as a ‘largely pointless fantastic structure built by a fashionable land-owner in the eighteenth century’, and concluded that they were ‘a very clear manifestation of a certain quirky streak in the English character and they may look something like this:’

Jones picked out some of her favourites: the Sham Castle on the Bath skyline (top picture), the Pineapple at Dunmore in Scotland, Clytha Castle near Abergavenny and Jack the Treacle Eater in Somerset (all of which have featured in these pages – use the search button to find out more).

Moving on from the curious tales attached to Jack the Treacle Eater, Jones recounted the then recent story attached to the monument to William Pitt at Burton Pynsent, also in Somerset: in 1948 a cow is said to have climbed the spiral stair and, after rescue attempts failed, fell to its death from the top. (There has been some debate about the veracity of this tale: newspaper reports in 1947 and 1948 tell of heifers climbing the tower, but on both occasions with a rescued cow and a happy ending).

After describing the thrilling chill of grottoes Jones declared that ‘the Hermitage type of Folly is much more cheerful’. Her accompanying sketch illustrated how they were ‘picturesquely confected from rocks, branches, moss and bark, with a simple room or two, a rustic sacking bed, tables and chairs made from tree stumps…’

Jones ended her brief introduction to follies with some words of advice that remain pertinent for anyone embarking on a folly-finding expedition today – take a map, a torch and a flask of tea.

Your thoughts are always welcome – just scroll down to the comments box to get in touch. Thank you for reading.

At Rydal Hall in Cumbria is an unassuming little garden building. It was built by Sir Daniel Fleming, in the last years of the 1680s, as a summerhouse from which to view of one of the series of cascades on the Rydal Beck that flowed though his estate.

Sir Daniel’s accounts show that the summerhouse was built in 1668-9, and it was described only a few years later as ‘a little grotto [for] retirement’. But its big secret was the ‘very surprising’ view of a tumbling cascade, framed by the window of the ‘Grot-house’. The interior did not have the expected decoration of shells and minerals usually associated with grottoes, but was expensively fitted out with wooden panelling, sadly now lost. Just upstream Sir Daniel added a rustic arched bridge, which gave a view down onto the cascade and to the grotto.

Many descriptions of the grotto were written in the 18th and 19th centuries, when travellers and writers arrived first in pursuit of the picturesque, when Rydal was a ‘must’ on the tourists’ itinerary, and then in reverence of the romantic after William Wordsworth made his home at nearby Rydal Mount, generating another tourism boom (the cascade is mentioned in the poet’s An Evening Walk).

Visitors record being led along a shady walk by a guide who then opened the doors to the simple ‘Rugged House’ to reveal the cataract. In 1812 the guide was ‘a woman bent nearly double with age, who with astonishing alacrity stumped up the hill in a pair of wooden shoes’. (It is a curious characteristic of ‘tourist attractions’ in the 18th century, that the guides were elderly ladies – examples are recorded at the Claife Station and the Bowder Stone in the Lakes, where a blunt tourist found his guide ‘rather deficient in understanding’. At Roslin Chapel in Scotland,  it was noted in 1788 that the ‘old woman who shows it […] is as great a curiosity as the chapel’.)

William Gilpin, famed for his pontificating on the picturesque, found the scene enchanting, and described the beautiful view from the summerhouse window as ‘like a picture in a frame’. A visitor in 1791 appreciated the carefully composed effect seen through the window: ‘over the head of the cascade is an old bridge, and over that a thicket of tall trees – and over that a dark mountain – and over that perhaps a dark cloud’. To the holidaying Londoner this was all very striking, and filled his mind ‘with terror and amazement’. After all this excitement guests could relax and dine in the little room: in 1795 Harriet Clarke recorded in her journal ‘in this grotto we ate, with much pleasure, our morning’s repast’.

Many artists delineated the scene. As well as the views shown here, other works include a John Constable sketch (Abbott Hall, Kendal) and an oil painting by Julius Caesar Ibbetson (Liverpool Museums). But as the keen-eyed will have spotted, they mainly painted the view from inside the grotto, so views of the building itself are scarce.

Many gardens and landscapes would go on to use the concept of the ‘surprise view’. For example at Studley Royal in Yorkshire doors were flung open for the grand reveal of the ruins of Fountains Abbey, and in Scotland the hermitages at Acharn and Dunkeld were both designed to allow a first sighting of waterfalls, but Sir Daniel Fleming’s predates these curiosities by almost a century, and was a ‘picturesque’ viewing station way ahead of its time.

In 1980 the grade II* listed grotto was described as ‘forlorn and neglected’, with the roof falling in and only a fragment of the wainscot surviving. Happily, it was restored in 2005-2007 as part of a major project to renovate the Rydal Hall gardens and park.

The falls are best seen after heavy rain. The Folly Flâneuse, with her usual impeccable timing, chose to first visit in autumn of 2021 during heavy rain, but it was worth getting soaked to see the cascade in full flow. This is the view from a bridge just downstream, not extant when the grotto was built, which enables the grotto and cascade to be seen in one view. Happily a return visit in spring was a brighter experience.

And of course if one visits Wordsworth country in April, one can’t miss the last of the …

Rydal Hall is now owned by the Diocese of Carlisle and is a conference and retreat centre. The grounds are open to visitors throughout the year, and you can continue the more than 300 year old tradition of viewing the cascade from the grotto window. As a visitor wrote in 1799, the ‘lower cascade must ever delight’. https://www.rydalhall.org

For the full history of the construction of the grotto see Blake Tyson’s article in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, Vol 24, 1980.

For Wordsworth Grasmere see https://wordsworth.org.uk

Thanks for reading. Comments and thoughts are very welcome, please scroll down to the bottom of the page to get in touch.