Enville, together with Hagley and The Leasowes, was one of the triumvirate of famed eighteenth-century Midland estates. The seat of the Earl of Stamford, it was ornamented with a variety of features: some have disappeared over the years, but fortunately many survive. A number of regular readers were intrigued by the image of the exquisite Museum at Enville which appeared in these pages in April, and asked to know more. So the Folly Flâneuse asked The Garden Historian, aka Dr Michael Cousins, to explain its history…

Various contenders for designer of the unusual garden building have surfaced: Sanderson Miller, the gentleman (i.e. amateur) architect who favoured the Gothick style, for one. Discussion with his mason about ‘Ld Stamfords Green House’ was underway in October 1749 and he spent the rest of that month, and most of the next, drawing up a design. Miller (1716-1780), besides his own inclination to the ‘Gothick’, had a well-stocked library to call upon that included Batty Langley’s Ancient Architecture Restored and Improved (1741/2). This was a pattern book which builders and owners used for ideas, and may have provided inspiration. By June 1750 William Shenstone, the poet and acquaintance of Stamford, was able to note the new ‘Gothick Greenhouse’ at Enville.

By 1756 Miller’s building had been renamed, with the peregrinatious Dr Pococke noting an elegant ‘Gothick Summer house of Mr Millers design’. Clearly then the greenhouse and summerhouse were one and the same building, and although it has been suggested that the first incarnation of the greenhouse was a wooden structure, no evidence has come to light to support this.

Sandy Haynes, the former archivist at and authority on Enville also concludes that the greenhouse and summerhouse were two names for the same building, writing that: ‘Sanderson Miller’s name is mentioned by too many different sources to be discounted and although Pococke refers to it as a summer-house there is no other building at Enville that he could be describing.’ Sadly no records seem to survive in which the exact use of the building is noted, so we don’t know for sure if the building ever housed plants or was simply a pleasure pavilion, or dual purpose.

By 1770 the building had been repurposed as a billiard room. Joseph Heely’s guidebook of c.1773 described it as being fitted out with a billiard table, a chamber organ, and ‘the inside richly adorned with stucco, the cieling remarkably so’. This work is more difficult to date: Haynes believes that it was during the transition to billiard room that the building acquired its elaborate interior plasterwork, and this brings in another contender: Henry Keene (1726-1776). This rare photograph of the inside of the building as it was in March 1952 shows stucco work that bears a strong resemblance to that in the chapel at Hartlebury Castle in Worcestershire, which Keene refitted and reroofed in the Gothic style in around 1750.

The association between Miller and Henry Keene was strong, with the two working together at Hagley in Worcestershire, Chart Park in Surrey and at Arbury in Warwickshire (where Keene probably took up reins as architect following Miller’s deteriorating mental ill-health at the end of 1759) and it is possible that he undertook the interior work of Enville’s summerhouse. To add to the naming confusion the summerhouse was referred to as a ‘Gothic room’ in 1759, yet was still being called a greenhouse by a visitor as late as 1777.

In 1846, soon after the 7th Earl of Stamford inherited, it was refurbished as a Museum for the display of ‘shells, fossils and curiosities’, and that name has now stuck for almost two centuries. By the middle of the twentieth century the building had decayed significantly and its plight gained public attention. Ultimately the principal structure was restored and reroofed by William Hawkes of Cave-Browne-Cave architects in 1988-9. The interior awaits restoration.

There was another Gothic feature at Enville, a ‘Gothic Seat’ which is sometimes misinterpreted as Miller’s building. It is mentioned in a letter of 1754 from John Ivory Talbot of Lacock Abbey to Miller  ‘at Enville we saw an Horrid Massacre of a Fine Gothick design of yours: committed by the Hands of some Shrewsbury man…’ (it was an occasional hazard for architects to have their plans tweaked by owners or masons as soon as their backs were turned). Haynes believes it was the Gothic Seat sited at the west edge of Essex Wood that Talbot was referring to – no views survive, and it fails to get mentioned in any visitors’ accounts after 1759 and so probably disappeared soon after.

Enville is a private estate but opens very occasionally for special events. Keep an eye on their website for details https://envilleestate.com

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 your name will appear. Thank you for reading, and thank you to Michael for this guest post.

Tutbury Castle is best known as one of the fortifications in which Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned. The ruins that stand today have been remodelled on a number of occasions since those days, and in the middle of the 18th century the motte, long since missing its genuine tower, was embellished with a sham ruined turret called the Round Tower.

In 1751 Bishop Pococke visited the area and was ‘told’ that George Venables-Vernon (1709-1780), of neighbouring Sudbury Hall had just purchased the castle from his ‘relation Captain Vernon’. In fact Vernon was leasing the site from the Duchy of Lancaster.

Pococke described Tutbury Castle as a ‘curious piece of antiquity’, but quickly spotted that parts of the structure were built ‘in imitation of ancient ruins’. Unfortunately he didn’t elaborate, and we can’t be certain that the Round Tower was there at that date. But it was extant by 1773 when it is named as ‘the Round Tower’ on a map of Tutbury.

Vernon’s programme of landscaping at Sudbury in the 1750s included replacing the formal gardens with a Brownian design featuring a lake and clumps of trees. Tutbury Castle was a distant eye-catcher from within this improved park, and the sham turret on the highest point would have added to the drama of the skyline. As early as 1760 visitors to Sudbury noted the old fortification on the horizon, and a tourist in 1783 wrote of the fine view from the park to ‘Tutbury Castle on a high eminence’.

The picturesque ruins attracted the attention of artists including Paul Sandby, who painted this view in the 1790s.

Archaeologists suggest that before the tower was built the ancient motte was raised with rubble, thus ensuring that the tower would be prominent in the view from Sudbury. This poor foundation probably accounts for the later addition of buttresses to support the Round Tower.

In the 20th century the little turret had a moment of fame when it featured on an advertising poster. The petrol company Shell commissioned artists to paint follies for a series of posters entitled ‘To Visit Britain’s Landmarks’. These were pasted onto the sides of lorries, creating both a promotional tool and a travelling art gallery. Leonard Rosoman (1913-2012) chose to paint Tutbury Castle’s little sham tower, and later recalled the job as his ‘big break’.

Tutbury Castle is today a privately-run visitor attraction and wedding venue, and can be visited during the opening season. The Round Tower maintains its function as a very pretty eye-catcher on the approach from Sudbury, albeit with many modern distractions competing with it.

*The folly is usually said to have been constructed between 1780 and 1792, based on information in the first volume of Stebbing Shaw’s History and Antiquities of Staffordshire …, published in 1798. Shaw attributed the folly to the ‘present possessor’ of Tutbury Castle, which at that date was George the 2nd Lord Vernon (1735-1813). But Shaw used research conducted by an earlier Staffordshire historian, without updating the text, and the error has been perpetuated ever since.

For the full history of Tutbury Castle, which reopens at Easter, see https://tutburycastle.com

Sudbury Hall is a National Trust property and will reopen as ‘The Childrens House at Sudbury Hall’ in spring 2022 https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/the-childrens-country-house-at-sudbury

Thank you for reading. Please scroll down to the comments box below if you would like to share any thoughts.

Thistleberry House (aka Thistlebury) was the home of Samuel (1767-1838) and Margaret Mayer (c.1773-1859). Samuel Mayer was a tanner and currier, and town dignitary, who was elected Mayor of Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1833. He is said to have erected this pretty tower in his grounds in the first decades of the 19th century.

Although the early history is unclear, Thistleberry Castle was extant by 1847, when it is marked on Robert Malabor’s map of Newcastle. It was a very attractive squat square brick tower with round corner turrets, curious slim battlements, and pointed arched windows. Standing three storeys high, the middle floor had a room decorated with shellwork, and housed a collection of statues, but frustratingly no further detail can be found. The tower would have been used as a belvedere and banqueting house – and would also demonstrate Mayer’s good taste and wealth. It was picturesquely situated in the middle of a square moat which was crossed on the western side by a timber bridge, whilst the elevation facing east towards the house was decorated with a pair of cannon. Thistleberry was on the rural outskirts of Newcastle-Under-Lyme, far from the noise and bustle of the industrial and industrious manufacturing town, and would have had views over open countryside.

No documentation has been found to confirm a date, but a possible architect might be Margaret Mayer’s father, John Pepper. Pepper (1751-1811) was an architect and builder, based in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, whose projects included the town’s Theatre Royal and Pepper Street, to which he gave his name. He also improved Maer Hall for Josiah Wedgwood, a family friend.

Mayer died in 1838, and his wife in 1859, after which the family left Thistleberry House. The property then changed hands a number of times as the century progressed. The tower was falling into disrepair when this photograph was taken sometime around the end of the 19th century – note the plank across the dilapidated bridge.

In 1911 the tower featured in a local history lecture accompanied by lantern slides. By that date the statuary inside had been ‘mutilated’ and the shell decoration destroyed. The speaker hoped the ‘picturesque and curious tower’ would not be allowed to become completely ruined, but sadly his hopes were in vain. Land in the Thistleberry area of Newcastle-under-Lyme was much in demand for housing development, and by the early 1920s Thistleberry Castle had been demolished, with the stone used to fill the moat. The house survived until the 1940s before being taken down to allow for road improvements, and the Thistleberry Hotel was then built on its site.

These views from the collection at the Brampton Museum, Newcastle-under-Lyme, seem to be the only traces of Thistlebury’s castle to survive. https://www.newcastle-staffs.gov.uk/bramptonmuseum

If you know more about this lovely lost folly, or have any comments (which are always appreciated), please scroll down to find the comments box. Thank you for reading.

The sham castle folly on Mow Cop was built by Randle Wilbraham of Rode Hall in 1754 as a summerhouse to which the family could ride for picnics. Its elevated position meant it could be seen from the mansion, some three miles away on the Cheshire side of the county boundary.

The folly became famous in 1807 when it was the site of the meeting that launched Primitive Methodism. Since that date there have been regular assemblies at Mow Cop to mark the anniversary. The centenary celebrations in 1907 led one journalist (whom we can assume to be a member of the established church) to comment that Mow Cop looked like ‘a gigantic ant-hill’ which crawled with ‘thousands and thousands of pilgrims’.

Local people had always enjoyed access to the folly and the surrounding land, and there was an outcry and public demonstrations in 1923 after an entrepreneur bought the site from the Wilbraham family, and began quarrying. Public access was once more secure when in 1937 the land and folly were given to the National Trust (although in 1945 the trust’s James Lees Milne would dismiss it as ‘the ridiculous castle folly’). https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/alderley-edge-and-cheshire-countryside/features/mow-cop

It used to be possible to climb right up to the tower, but it is now fenced off for the inevitable health and safety reasons. The wall’s rugged ruined outline has sadly been rebuilt into neat right-angles, but it remains the most perfectly designed and situated of follies, and surely the inspiration for Old John Tower in Bradgate Park, Leicestershire and St David’s Ruin in Yorkshire https://thefollyflaneuse.com/the-ruin-bingley-west-yorkshire/

Jessica Hallen (née Brooke) grew up locally and after attending art school in Burslem and London became a ceramicist. She was employed by Wade’s Pottery in 1930 and became acclaimed for her figurines, which were affordable versions of those produced by grander firms such as Doulton. Her employment terminated in around 1940, when the outbreak of war meant that the factory produced ceramics for the war effort rather than fancy goods. She continued to freelance for the major potteries and in 1957 she designed a ceramic model of the folly on Mow Cop. There’s very little information on Jessie (who styled herself ‘Jessie van Hallen’ for reasons unknown), but this was perhaps in celebration of 150 years of the Primitive Methodist movement. The Dilford Pottery produced further issues from her moulds after her death. Jessie died in 1983 and was buried at St Luke’s, on the hillside below Mow Cop.