A short distance from Rothley Castle, on land which was once part of the Wallington Hall estate near Morpeth, is a sham fort known today as Codger Fort. It was built as an eye-catcher by Sir Walter Calverley Blackett in around 1770 as part of a programme of improvements at Rothley.

Rothley Castle (featured here last week, see link below if you missed it) was erected in 1746-47, and the landscape was further embellished with the creation of Rothley Lake in the 1760s. Sir Walter took delivery of a boat to sail on the lake in 1768, and at around the same date he was planning an adjoining piece of water to be known as Rothley Low Lake, with a sham fort on high ground above it.

This ornament was to be erected on the rocky outcrop called ‘Cadjah Crag’, high above the two lakes (to thwart researchers Cadjah is also recorded as Codjah, Codger, Codgy and Cadgey before Codger became the accepted name in the 19th century). The ‘intended fort’ was discussed in a letter in March 1770, when Sir Walter’s instructions were that no work should begin until Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s plan for the head of the new lake had been executed in the summer of that year. In 1772 five brass cannon were delivered to the folly which were to be fired in celebration when work on the lake was complete.

A drawing for the fort survives in the collection at Wallington Hall, dated September 1769. It is attributed to Thomas Wright of Durham (1711-1786) and shows that a tower was originally planned to complete the fort, but does not appear to have been executed.

The historian William Hutchinson described the ‘stupendous cliff’, which he called ‘Codgey Crag’, in his A View of Northumberland published in 1778, but having already failed to appreciate nearby Rothley Castle, he dismissed the fort as just ‘another uncouth ornament’.

In around 1860 the surveyors working on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map were noting significant landmarks for inclusion on the maps. Part of their work involved ascertaining the history of such structures, and they were told that ‘Codger Castle’ had been ‘erected at the period of the Scotch Rebellion of 1745 to scare the Enemy’. Whilst the Jacobite uprising had indeed caused concern at Wallington, the fort was built principally as an ornament some 25 years later (although with Northumberland’s history of border skirmishes a visible deterrent to any future invaders from the north may have been a secondary consideration).

In August 1893 a Sunday school party was ‘marched’ to the folly ‘where a repast of milk and buns was served’. Decades later the Flâneuse too picnicked on the spot during a Girl Guide hike, and went home desperate to learn more about it. That passion for follies endures.

The grade II listed folly is in the care of the National Trust, but it is not on a public right of way. It is best viewed when travelling south towards Rothley on the B6342.

You can find the post on Rothley Castle here https://thefollyflaneuse.com/rothley-castle-rothley-northumberland/

Wallington Hall’s website is here  https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/north-east/wallington

The Flâneuse is always delighted to receive your thoughts or comments. Scroll down to the foot of the page to get in touch. Thank you for reading.

In February 1992 the North Wales Weekly News carried its usual list of planning applications. Among them was an announcement that Bodysgallen Hall Hotel wished to convert a barn and stable into accommodation, and to erect a new ‘leisure building, tower folly and obelisk’. No objections were received, and permission was granted by Aberconwy Council.

In 1980 Bodysgallen Hall, former seat of the Mostyn and Wynn families, had become part of the small Historic House Hotels group, established by Richard Broyd. The house, gardens and estate buildings were restored, and Broyd wished to erect an obelisk as a ‘decorative asset to the landscape’. Plans were drawn up by his architect Eric Throssell, and both the stone and the stonemason, Henry Wilson, were local.

But as work got underway in autumn 1992 locals claimed that they hadn’t been properly informed of the plans, and a vociferous campaign was launched demanding that the Obelisk be demolished. There were genuine concerns, including that the planning officers had not realised that Ffrith Hill was a Site of Specific Scientific Interest.

But among the odder complaints was the fact that the Obelisk ‘dominated the landscape’ – a strange criticism as obelisks are not usually shy and retiring types, and generally prefer to hog the limelight on an eminence. Even more bizarre was the opponent who suggested that placing the Obelisk near the edge of a former quarry encouraged men to ‘urinate over the cliff into the garden of a house 150 feet below’. Reporting this in the local paper, a journalist suggested that such a feat would merit entry in the Guinness Book of Records requiring as it did a ‘jet of some 25 feet’.

Meanwhile Richard Broyd was adamant that the correct procedures had been followed and he was prepared to fight, telling the Daily Telegraph that ‘he who builds an obelisk has to defend it’.

In brief, the council began to get cold feet after the anti-obelisk campaigners made a complaint of maladministration, claiming the council should never have granted planning permission. Despite a barrister assuring the councillors that their decision was robust, and that Mr Broyd had followed the correct procedures, the Planning Committee voted to demolish the Obelisk. The matter then went to the full council and the proposal was defeated by just one vote. On 16 September 1993 the local paper ran the story under the succinct headline of ‘Obelisk is staying’.

There had been support for the Obelisk too, and some who had been concerned later admitted admiration for the completed structure, which stands 19.5 metres high. But some resentment remained, and there are locals who will tell you dark tales of a plot to blow the obelisk to pieces. Even now, some 30 years on, the structure seems destined never to be mentioned as anything but the ‘controversial obelisk’.

The Folly Flâneuse took the Uncouth Companion to Bodysgallen Hall as a birthday treat soon after the obelisk was completed (he having long since learned that such jaunts had one, or more, ulterior motives) and walked up to the Obelisk. The photo’s from that pre-digital age have long since faded away, but this little model of the Obelisk, bought at the hotel, sits in the study as a memento of the trip. And of course a return visit was required in order to snap the shots needed for this post.

In all of the fuss about the Obelisk the little Gothic Tower, designed in the same period, has been overlooked. A sham ruin sits on raised ground in the woodland, and a climb up to the rooftop viewing platform reveals why this site was chosen. There’s lovely vista to the obelisk  – the only spot in the gardens from where it can be seen.

Richard Broyd had always intended that his hotel group would pass to the National Trust, and for all profits to benefit the charity. The three properties (the others being Middlethorpe Hall near York and Hartwell House near Aylesbury) were handed over in 2008.

Pabo Bach, once home to one of the most vocal objectors to the obelisk, is now a holiday cottage where you can enjoy dramatic views of the former quarry with the obelisk perched on the precipice.

The Obelisk can be seen from the A55 and the Royal Welsh Way leading into Llandudno, as well as from across the estuary in Conwy, and there is public access. The Gothic Tower may only be seen by guests at Bodysgallen Hall Hotel.

For Bodysgallen Hall and the other Historic House Hotels see https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays/hotels/historic-house-hotels

For Pabo Bach see https://www.holidaycottages.co.uk/cottage/93622-pabo-bach

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In 1981-82 the Royal Mail issued a set of stamp books featuring follies, and Richard Downer, an artist best known for the vast number of lovely line drawings he provided for the covers of Britain’s telephone directories, was commissioned to provided the illustrations. Of the six follies featured, five survive today and are very familiar to anyone with an interest in the subject, but one was relatively obscure, and has a rather interesting history.

Outside of post office opening hours, stamps could be bought from vending machines attached to the building. The stamp books had cardboard covers to protect the postage stamps, and these covers were often illustrated with subjects such as museums, period costumes and postal history.

Downer (born 1933) trained at Leeds College of Art. He then worked as an art director for an advertising agency, before setting up his own design consultancy. Alongside this work, he produced the drawings for the covers of telephone directories from 1967 to 1985, working initially for the GPO and continuing as the organisation became Post Office Telecommunications and then British Telecom. He liked to sketch on-the-spot, and was often an item of curiosity to passers-by. Many stopped to talk, and on one occasion Downer was aware of someone edging ever closer and peering over his shoulder at his sketch (it was his rule to chat, but never to look up from his work). Eventually the person spoke, asking ‘are you going to colour it in when you get home?’

Downer was commissioned in February 1981, and offered a fee of £750 for the six designs. The Post Office’s design team asked the National Trust to suggest folly subjects, and they replied with a copy of an article on ‘National Trust Follies’ which Barbara Jones had recently written for their members’ magazine.

The trust also sent a list of suggested follies which included Creech Arch in Dorset and the Temple of the Winds at Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire. The first was discarded, for reasons unknown, and the latter was replaced with the similar structure in County Down, presumably to ensure a good geographical spread. The National Trust properties of Paxton Tower, Mow Cop, Stourhead and Cliveden were all chosen to feature.

Things got rather complicated when a subject in Scotland was required. Downer had already visited what he thought was Mugdock Castle and sketched it for the cover of the Argyll and Lomond telephone directory, issued in 1976. Although it was later established, after some debate, that the building was actually in Stirlingshire, no-one spotted a further error and thousands of telephone directories were circulated ‘without a whisper of anything wrong’.

But Mr Arthur Brown of Southampton purchased a stamp book in August 1981, and noticed that the folly was wrongly named. Having explored the ancient Mugdock Castle as a youth he recognised the little tower, and wrote to the Chief Postmaster in Glasgow to point out that the building featured was not Mugdock Castle, but a nearby tower. The letter was forwarded to the Post Office HQ in London and the planning department of the Central Regional Council were consulted. They confirmed that ‘Mugdock Castle’ was an old fortification, and that the tower was a folly in the surrounding estate. But with the stamp books already in circulation there was little the Post Office could do, although it seems Mr Brown’s was the sole comment, as there is no further correspondence on file.

Locals know the little tower as ‘Smith’s Folly’ as it was built in the early 19th century by James Smith of Craigend. It was constructed ‘partly as an ornament to his grounds and partly for the sake of the splendid view’, and was described in 1922 as being 45-50 feet high, with a stone spiral staircase of ‘interesting construction’, although the writer did not elaborate on the design.

Sadly the tower was then allowed to become derelict. By 1975 the building was a shell, with only skeletal remains of the spiral staircase. This was the view sketched by Downer. Later, the upper storey was taken down, leaving only the ground floor with its gothic windows to be seen. Eventually this too was pulled down, leaving only a few courses of stonework.  In 2020 plans were submitted to rebuild the category C listed tower on new foundations, as part of a new semi-subterranean family home. Plans seem to have been withdrawn before the local authority’s decision process began.

Garden buildings have also appeared on an enchanting set of Swedish stamps issued in 2003. Here they are on the first-day cover:

And architect and designer Raymond McGrath created these stamps featuring Irish follies Dromoland Belvedere and Connolly Folly. They were issued in 1978, a year after his death. Do any philatelists out there know of more examples of follies featuring on stamps?

Update September 2022: Here is a stamp issued in 1993 as part of the Art in the 20th Century series. It features the pagoda at Kew Gardens, London

The genuine Mugdock Castle ruins, as well as the ruins of Smith’s Craigend Castle, are features of Mugdock Country Park https://www.mugdock-country-park.org.uk and the remains of the gazebo are nearby on private land.

More of Richard Downer’s work can be seen here http://drawingsoflondon.com/home.html

You can read about the garden buildings featured on the Swedish stamps here http://follies.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/ebulletin/Foll-e-49-Fem-Lusthusen.pdf

After her visit to the Postal Museum Archives the Folly Flâneuse had a great morning exploring the Postal Museum itself, including a trip on the redundant underground Mail Rail – highly recommended! https://www.postalmuseum.org

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Newstead Abbey is best known as the seat of the Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, but it was equally famed in the middle of the 18th century as the home of his great-uncle, William, the 5th Baron, known as the ‘Wicked Lord’. It was William who built sham forts and castles around the estate’s Great Lake, on which sailed his fleet of boats.

William (1722-1798) became notorious when he killed a man in a duel in 1765, and after his death countless stories were told of the Wicked Lord’s licentiousness, his feckless approach to money, and his murderous tendencies – many of the tales were wildly exaggerated, but whatever his vices he had the virtue of knowing how to erect a good gothic folly.

The sham castle on a hill above the lake was built in 1749, the date being inscribed above the door, although no records of a designer seem to survive. The Battery on the shore of the lake below the Castle must have been constructed around the same date, as it is shown in an engraving published in October 1749.

The Castle, as it is named on the earliest Ordnance Survey map of 1838, was built as a belvedere, from whence ‘the views of the lakes, the abbey and its fine arch, the plantation and the park […] form a very noble landscape’. It was also a banqueting house, and in the basement were servants quarters for the preparation of food. The upper storey was an ‘Octagon Gothic Room’ with a coved ceiling. This space was fashionably fitted out with a polychromatic Gothic fire surround, a sofa, blue and gold ‘Chinese’ chairs, and statues including Venus and Flora. No doubt great parties were held there, although little contemporary evidence can be found. But such is the Wicked Lord’s reputation that Emily Brand, in her recent book on the Byron family, surmises that ‘beyond that great oak door William and his dishonourable friends supposedly sank into depravity and staged drink-fuelled orgies’.

Below the Castle was a rampart with gateways at each end on which 4 guns were mounted, and at the foot of the slope was the Battery, ‘a small Fortification with about Twenty Cannon’ and a flagpole with boathouse alongside. Once the Castle and Battery were complete William ordered a number of boats, and in September 1753 a friend of the family noted in her diary that ‘ye ships came today to Newstead’. As well as craft described simply as yachts and boats, there was a rather more impressive gunship equipped with 20 cannon. This vessel fired a gun salute which was returned from the fort and battery. The accounts for 1755 show that a sailor and an assistant were paid to maintain the fleet and crew the ships. It has been assumed, with the arsenal of cannon on the boat and at the forts, that mock naval battles (naumachia) were enacted at Newstead, and whilst that seems likely, no first-hand accounts of such antics have been found.

By 1759 William had already embellished a mill across the lake from the Battery with turrets and battlements. In that same year it was reported that he was planning to add kennels and stables in a similar style. In 1767 a visitor noted that the building was known as ‘Moro Castle’, suggesting that it was complete by 1762, the year the British stormed the Moro Castle in the Siege of Havana during the Seven Years War. But this is the sole mention of it by that name, and it was better known as the Fort.

All of this investment, as well as William’s extravagant lifestyle in general, led to financial difficulties, and he had to sell off wood to pay his debts. In 1760 Horace Walpole wrote to his friend George Montagu to say that Lord Byron had ‘lost large sums, and paid part in old oaks, five thousand pounds worth of which have been cut near the house’.

Walpole may have exaggerated a little for dramatic effect, as other visitors in the 1760s admired the ‘fine park’, and the ‘fine oaks’. The trees in the immediate vicinity of the Castle were certainly reprieved, as in 1768 a visitor admired the ‘large plantation’ each side of the folly. These woods are shown in an engraving of 1780 after a painting by Paul Sandby, above, and in the anonymous watercolour taken from the same viewpoint.

The Castle survived into the 20th century, being used for a time as a schoolroom, but it was demolished in 1921, with only traces now visible above ground.

The Battery (listed grade II* as ‘the Cannon Fort’) and the Fort (grade II) can still be seen: the former was restored a few years ago and can be visited, and the latter, the abbey’s tea-room in the middle of the 20th century, can be admired from across the lake.

Newstead Abbey was bought by the philanthropist Sir Julien Cahn and presented to the City of Nottingham in 1931. The fort and stables were later sold and converted to private housing but the abbey and park have continued as a popular tourist destination ever since. Read more https://newsteadabbey.org.uk

For more on Naumachia see the essay by Michael Cousins (who is thanked for his help with this post) and Patrick Eyres in the New Arcadian Journal https://www.newarcadianpress.co.uk/product/naumachia/

For more on Newstead see the excellent Newstead Abbey: a Nottinghamshire Country House: its Owners and Architectural History 1540-1931, by Rosalys Coope & Pete Smith.    http://www.thorotonsociety.org.uk/publications/recordseries/newsteadabbey.htm