In 1761, Henry Blundell was given control of the Ince Blundell estate by his father. He had recently married Elizabeth Mostyn and the couple settled into the mansion house, which had been built earlier in the century. Blundell was an avid collector, with the funds to indulge his passion, and after his wife’s early death he spent time in Italy before returning to Ince Blundell to build two temples ‘purposely for the reception of statuary’.

Blundell (1724-1810) had become very wealthy thanks to family bequests and Ince Blundell was home to an impressive collection of Old Master and modern paintings. What was lacking was a fine collection of Roman statuary, so in 1776 he set off for Italy to join his friend, fellow collector and fellow Catholic, Charles Townley. With advice from Townley, and a network of contacts, he went on something of a shopping spree. Blundell returned to Italy in subsequent years, and also continued to buy works privately and at auction in Britain, quickly running out of space to display the works.

Blundell’s solution was to display sculpture in a complex of garden buildings fronted by a classical pedimented temple. This was connected to a greenhouse and an octagonal room, all of which were filled with sculpture as well as plants (the tithe map of 1843 shows this substantial range of buildings). The temple carries a Greek inscription, shown in the engraving above, which is usually translated as ‘here spring is eternal and it is summer in months not its own’ – i.e. the heated glasshouses allowed plants to flourish in all seasons (this inscription also appears on the orangery in Clapham).

The temple is attributed to the Liverpool architect William Everard (1723-1792) on the evidence that a portrait of the architect showed him with ‘the plan in his hand’, pointing to the completed structure (the portrait was shown at a lecture in Liverpool in 1869, but its current whereabouts are unknown). The temple was extant by February 1790 when it is shown in a drawing (see below). In that same year the Polish princess Isabel Czartoryska visited – she was not impressed by the combination of sculpture and verdure. She complained that Ince was a ‘storehouse of various objects gathered without taste or choice. Plenty of ugly statues and many sarcophagi, so called antique, positioned among the geraniums in the hot houses’.

Blundell soon needed still more space, and in 1801 he discussed the creation a new gallery with Townley. He commissioned a wooden model (sadly lost) of the planned ‘room’, which took the form of a rotunda modelled on the pantheon in Rome.

Like the original, the building was top-lit although, this being Lancashire, it was glazed. When complete it was used to house his ‘choicest specimens’ and one visitor recorded how his ‘eye roved in admiration from figure to figure’. Blundell had boasted that many of the buildings on his estate were to his own design, and he may have designed this building himself, using an executant architect/mason named briefly in the surviving accounts as Hope.

Blundell carefully catalogued his collection and in 1803 he published a handlist of the works in the house and both temples, followed in 1809 by a lavish two-volume illustrated work.

Originally the pantheon was freestanding, but in the second half of the nineteenth century it was connected to the house via a single storey link.

Whilst Blundell understandably favoured classical buildings in which to display the sculpture collection, there was a gothic ornament in his park. Sometime before 1786 a prospect tower was erected east of the house (it is shown on Yates’s map of the County Palatine of Lancaster published in that year). Described in 1823 as the ‘observatory’, it was said to ‘command a very extensive view’.

Named on nineteenth century Ordnance Survey maps as ‘Blundell Tower’, it disappeared early in the next century and is known only from two artworks. The drawing above, formerly at Stonor Park (once home to Blundell’s son-in-law), is a great record of the lost tower. National Museums Liverpool was able to purchase this view for the city’s collection at Christies in 1992. The tower also appears in a painting by Charles Towne of Blundell’s horse, Duchess (private collection).

James Lees-Milne, Historic Buildings Secretary of the National Trust, visited Ince, a ‘romantic Papist establishment’ in August 1947. By that date the house had descended to the Weld family, who had added the name Blundell.  Lees-Milne found the Pantheon ‘marvellous’, and thought the displays at Ince Blundell must be the ‘finest statuary collections left in private hands’. That ownership was not to last: in 1959 the family presented many of the sculptures to the city of Liverpool, and a year later the house was sold to the Augustinian Sisters, a Catholic order of nuns, to be used as a care home.

Although the art world was relieved that the works were to be preserved as a single collection, there was sadness that it could not remain, as Geoffrey Grigson wrote, in ‘the delightful setting which Henry Blundell devised for it’. A group of ‘distinguished members of the Georgian Group’ wrote to the Times expressing their dismay that the collection was to be removed. Writing in response, Vere E. Cotton, former Lord Mayor of Liverpool, explained that the Liverpool Corporation had only decided on removing the collection with ‘extreme reluctance’. The corporation had explored constructing a new access to the Pantheon, taking a long lease on the temple and even taking down the Pantheon and rebuilding it in a Liverpool park. But none of the options was feasible.

Only a fraction of the sculpture collection can be seen in Liverpool today, with the majority of the works inaccessible in store. The Walker Art Gallery has a selection of the eighteenth century copies from Ince Blundell on display, but the city’s World Museum has no works on show,

But there is some very good news. Ince Blundell recently became a respite centre where unpaid carers can take a break and relax. As well as ensuring a future for the house, and providing a wonderful resource for the local area, this new use means that public access is possible, and pre-booked guided tours are available (and highly recommended).

The tour includes the Pantheon, which is now bare of sculpture, although some of the niches still display the catalogue number assigned by Blundell. The interior is in reasonable condition, but sadly the reliefs mounted on the exterior are badly degraded.

The Garden Temple can also be seen, but the attached greenhouse is long gone (ruins of the furthest room can be seen, although this was later remodelled as part of a range of glasshouses). The temple was restored in the late 1990s, but damp is an ongoing problem. Some wall-mounted works can still be admired, but the free-standing statuary has been removed.

The vast sculpture collection is listed in Blundell’s own publications, and more recently it has been discussed in depth in the volumes of The Ince Blundell Collection of Classical Sculpture, published from 1991.

House, Pantheon and Temple are listed at grade II*. The park is grade II* registered. Ince Blundell is north of Liverpool and, although originally in Lancashire, it became part of the new county of Merseyside in 1974. You can find Ince Blundell visitor information here. 

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In the 1980s follies played a part in promoting a new breakfast cereal: special packs of Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain contained picture cards featuring ‘Gardens to Visit’. The twenty cards were illustrated with views of gardens in Britain and Ireland, all of them open to the public, and five follies or quirky garden ornaments were among the cards to be collected. As the blurb on the box announced ‘Most of us are enchanted by the magic of a beautiful garden’.

Nutri-Grain was launched in 1987 and, as well as publishing the collectable cards, the marketing team promoted it via recipe leaflets: a ‘cosy supper dish’ of trout stuffed with Nutri-Grain was one suggestion. But the Flâneuse digresses…

Once you had the full set of cards you could send off for a folder in which to display your collection…

The album had an introduction by Clay Jones, then chairman of Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time and co-presenter of Gardeners’ World on BBC2. He wrote that ‘no matter where you live in Britain, there is sure to be a magnificent garden not far away’ (although the cards didn’t actually reflect this – only one was in Scotland, one in Wales and two in Ireland and the majority were in southern England). Acclaimed writer and photographer Heather Angel provided most of the photographs, including all of those featured here, and wrote that she hoped ‘this series will stimulate a greater interest in our gardens’.

The cards are small, only 58cm x 75cm, and the print quality is not the finest, but the Flâneuse would still have been very happy to discover these wonderful photographs in her cereal box…

Card three featured the Pagoda Fountain at Alton Towers in Staffordshire. The autumnal view was accompanied by text describing the ‘magical sight and sound’ of the water falling onto the tiered copper roofs and cascading down causing the copper bells to tinkle.

Number five in the series showed the Gothic Temple at Painshill in Surrey, which had been returned to its former elegance after a major restoration only a couple of years earlier. The card explained that work continued to bring Painshill back to life, and that the park deserved to be better known. Work has continued at Painshill since 1987, and the magnificent grotto, described on the card as damaged during the Second World War, once again sparkles and surprises.

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal in North Yorkshire was the focus of card eight, and in particular the Temple of Piety complete with its much-photographed reflection in the Moon Pond. The card encouraged collectors to visit and find the ‘spectacular’ surprise view of the ruins of Fountains Abbey.

Card seventeen in the set had a view of the Chinese House and Bridge at Shugborough, in Staffordshire. The card praised the ‘Chinese shrubs’ planted to complement the garden building, and recommended seeing the other ‘notable monuments’ in the park.

The only Irish garden was Mount Stewart in County Down in Northern Ireland. The card didn’t feature the famous Temple of the Winds, but instead showed the Dodo Terrace, where quirky concrete sculptures were placed in the early twentieth century.

All of the gardens remain open to the public, although if visiting the follies at Alton Towers you might be distracted by a different kind of folly – the screams of those riding the Toxicator (‘take hold and brace yourself’) or Nemesis Reborn (‘more uncontrollable than ever before’).

Thanks to Cherrill S for introducing the Flâneuse to the cards, and thanks to you for reading. As ever your thoughts and comments are welcome via the box at the foot of the page.

As with all good serials, there will be a wait until the next episode, but the Flâneuse will be back with a snap, a crackle and a pop in 2026. Until then, wishing everyone happiness whatever your plans for the festive season. Goodbye for now, or should that be Cheerios? (Apologies, but it is the season of the corny Christmas cracker joke).

In the vast park of Cirencester House, adjoining the town of the same name, a pretty rusticated temple sits in an opening called Seven Rides. This is the point where avenues cut through the woodland meet, giving long vistas in each direction. It was named Pope’s Seat after the poet, Alexander, who designed it for his friend Lord Bathurst.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was a good friend of Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl of Bathurst (1684-1775), who in the early eighteenth century was laying out pleasure grounds and parkland at his seat on the edge of the town of Cirencester. By 1742 Lord Bathurst’s demesne was described as ‘a fine park […] adornd w^th several beautifull buildings’. Pope is said to have offered advice on this landscaping and designed this alcove, which was named in his honour – ‘POPES SEAT’ is engraved on a stone above the entrance.

The Flâneuse is delighted to announce that a diminutive new version of the summerhouse has been added to the Cirencester Park landscape. Bristol based woodcarver Andy O’Neill started his working life as a graphic designer, before a desire to work outdoors led to a new career as a tree surgeon. Then, combining his creative and arboricultural talents, he began to create sculptures with a chainsaw.

When a decaying cedar had to be felled in Cirencester Park, Lord Bathurst saw the opportunity to use some of the timber to create a bench on the Broad Avenue, which runs for around six miles through the estate. In consultation with Andy it was decided to decorate it with Pope’s Seat in miniature.

Pope’s Seat is listed at grade II*. It and other fascinating ornaments can be seen when exploring Cirencester Park. For more information visit https://www.bathurstestate.co.uk

For more on Andy’s work see https://wildwoodcarving.co.uk

Thank you for reading and do get in touch if you have any thoughts you’d like to share. Scroll down to the foot of the page to find the comments box.