Towards the northern end of the lengthy village street of Long Melford, in Suffolk, stands Melford Hall. In a corner of the garden, overlooking the road and the green opposite, stands a rutilant brick summerhouse. Once furnished with a table and chairs, the little building must have hosted the most elegant intimate parties.

The summerhouse was extant by the early years of the seventeenth century, and is shown on a map of Melford Hall dated 1613. It epitomises the kind of structure that John Worlidge, writing later in the same century, advised was an essential feature on a gentleman’s estate. In his Systema Horticulture of 1677 Worlidge wrote that a ‘small Edifice, usually term’d a Pleasure-house or Banquetting-house, may be made at some remote Angle of your Gardens’. The more remote the better, thought Worlidge, for the further from the mansion one went ‘the more private you will be from the frequent disturbances of your Family and Acquaintance’.

The summerhouse was modernised in the Georgian era by the splendidly named Sir Cordell Firebrace. He replaced the windows and panelled the interior. In 1873, the then owner of the estate, Sir William Parker, called the building the bowling-house, and noted that it stood alongside a bowling-green. At that date the interior was painted in white and gold and, according to Sir William, looked a little shabby.

Many generations will have retreated to this idyllic corner of the garden with the latest novel or newspaper, or perhaps a sketchbook, and no doubt liveried servants brought coffee and cake. Please excuse the Flâneuse for one moment as she drifts off into a reverie of a morning spent in such a manner…

Someone who was lucky enough to spend time at the summerhouse was author and illustrator Beatrix Potter. Potter often visited her cousin Ethel at the hall in the early years of the twentieth century, and her drawing of the then ivy-clad ‘Octagon’ is now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Visitors to the exhibition Feast and Fast: the Art of Food in Europe 1500-1800 at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 2019-20 saw the summerhouse reimagined in a new medium. Food historian and confectioner Ivan Day made the building the centrepiece of a sugar landscape in the style of those which would have graced a wedding banquet in c.1610.

Today, everyone can enjoy the building as Melford Hall is a National Trust property. As well as the summerhouse (grade II*) and hall, there are new walks out into the parkland. You can read more here.

A largely pictorial post this week as the Flâneuse is away from home rambling and researching, so thanks for viewing. Your thoughts and comments are welcome, please scroll down to the bottom of the page to get in touch.

On the banks of the river Orwell in Suffolk there once stood a lofty obelisk. It proclaimed to all the filial piety of Charles Berners, who erected it in 1793 in memory of his father, William. At 96 feet tall, and topped with a golden sun, it was a prominent landmark but sadly it came to a sorry end when it was damaged by fire and then demolished in the middle of the 20th century. But as the image above shows, fragments were salvaged and survive today.

William Berners (1709-1783) acquired the Woolverstone (or Wolverstone, Woolverston) estate in 1773 when it was described as being ‘capable of great and immediate improvement’. Berners commissioned a new mansion which was built to the designs of the architect John Johnson. The house was described in 1784 as ‘fine enough’, but it was the hilltop location with views of the river Orwell that gave it ‘all its merit’: the numerous small boats which sailed up and down the river brought to life this ‘superb view’.

After his death his son and heir Charles (c.1734-1815) commissioned the architect Robert Mylne (1733-1811) to design an obelisk in memory of his father. The plan was drawn up early in 1791, and the situation decided in September of the same year, with an Ipswich mason called Edward Tovell given the job of erecting the monument.

The obelisk was square in plan and surmounted with a golden metal ball surrounded by sun-rays (possibly inspired by the obelisk to the Duke of Cumberland in the park at Windsor of 1765 or the one at Stourhead in Wiltshire which was topped with a gilded bronze sun in 1748). But unusually it had a hollow centre which contained a wooden staircase, and presumably the circles near the top of the shaft were peepholes through which to admire the view, although as the engraving above shows the view was pretty impressive even from ground level.

Old postcards record how the obelisk looked, and show it to have been decorated with decorative roundels. These are very likely products of the Coade artificial stone manufactory in Lambeth, as that the company is known to have supplied the huge plaque featuring Diana the huntress which adorns the pediment of the mansion, as well as vases, urns, consoles and capitals. There were two inscriptions which were recorded on a pen and wash drawing by Issac Johnson of Woodbridge.

The first inscription translates as ‘In memory of William Berners Esq., best of fathers and well meriting the building of this obelisk by his son Charles Berners 1793’. The second plaque recorded that William was born on July 10 1709 and died on September 18 1783.

Sadly it was the internal void which brought an end to the obelisk. In July 1943 a fire was started at the foot of the wooden stairs which quickly spread (naval ratings returning from the pub were blamed). Considered beyond repair, the monument was demolished with explosives soon after.

But all was not lost: a few lucky villagers salvaged ornamental fragments which survive in private gardens, including what seem to be some of the Coade stone plaques from the obelisk.

The keen-eyed will have spotted two further landscape curiosities in the earlier illustrations to this post, both of which were once part of the Woolverstone estate. The map shows Freston Tower (top left), a ‘tall, imposing and picturesque bit of Tudor brickwork’ now a holiday home in the care of the Landmark Trust.

The engraving of Woolverstone Park shows a small ornamental building (bottom right): this ‘pretty little lodge’ became known as the Cat House, with the tale told locally that a stuffed cat was displayed in the window to warn local smugglers that the authorities were in the area. It has since been substantially extended and is now in the grounds of the MDL Woolverstone Marina.

Woolverstone Hall (grade I) was requisitioned during the Second World War and has been in use as a school since the 1950s. The views which the obelisk once enjoyed can be seen from a public footpath.

The Woolverstone obelisk is a sad loss, but the obelisk in Windsor Great Park, also topped by a golden sun, was recently restored by Cliveden Conservation, and looks rather handsome on a bright day.

The Folly Flâneuse wishes to thank Simon Pearce of Woolverstone for sharing his research and for being an excellent guide to the area. Thanks also to the owners of the surviving plaques for permission to view.

Woolverstone Hall is currently home to Ipswich High School. There are excellent views of the house on its website https://www.ipswichhighschool.co.uk

Thank you for reading and please scroll down to the foot of the page to share any thoughts or comments.

This weekend the country celebrates the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Thinking of the events of 1939-45, the Folly Flâneuse was reminded of a wartime project to document the changing rural and urban face of Britain. At a time when the future seemed uncertain,  ‘Recording Britain’ commissioned artists to portray the country as it then was, creating a visual history for future generations.

The ‘Scheme for Recording the Changing Face of Britain’ was initiated by Sir Kenneth Clark, then Director of the National Gallery, soon after the outbreak of the Second World War. Financial support from the Pilgrim Trust enabled him to recruit artists for the project, which soon became known by the snappier title of ‘Recording Britain’*. Although the threat of destruction, or devastation, as a result of war was one of the stimuli to collect images of a life that might be lost, Clark and his Committee were also responding to an age of rapid change, when industrial and residential development was encroaching on the countryside. There was also a philanthropic aspect, as artists were seen to be struggling to make a living in wartime.

Many artists were commissioned, and the list includes some who went on to become very well-known, John Piper perhaps foremost, but there are others who are barely known today. The scenes they were asked to portray included castles and canals, townscapes and topiary, inns and industry, and all aspects of the British landscape in the early 1940s. In a move to boost patriotism and morale during the war, selections from the collection were exhibited at the National Gallery, London, and the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts organised provincial tours in conjunction with local arts groups.

Of the 1549 topographical works that were collected, a number of follies and landscape ornaments were included, and three are featured here: Freston Tower in Suffolk, the Pagoda at Alton Towers in Staffordshire, and the Dashwood Mausoleum in Buckinghamshire.

Freston Tower, overlooking the River Orwell in Suffolk, was the chosen subject of Russell Reeve (1895-1970), an artist who painted many Suffolk scenes. The tower had been standing since the 1570s, making it one of the oldest follies in Britain. Such tall coastal structures were seen as vulnerable, both as hinderances to British aircraft in a time of war, and as prominent objects to guide the enemy. Happily, the tower survives today and is a Landmark Trust property, available for lofty holiday lets.

A decade before she would publish Follies and Grottoes in 1953, Barbara Jones (1912-1978) chose to paint a view of the pagoda at Alton Towers in Staffordshire, one of many works she contributed to the scheme. Jones preferred the pagoda at Alton Towers, built in the early 1830s, to the more famous example at Kew, which she thought ‘a little pedestrian’. At Alton Towers, she later wrote, the ‘pagoda supports its winged roofs and bells on open lattice work of the most airy elegance’. Her ‘vivid’ watercolour of the pagoda was admired by the Yorkshire Post’s art critic when it went on display in Menston Methodist School, Yorkshire, in April 1945. Country houses and their parks were a focus for the project as there was a fear, ultimately justified, that many would be abandoned after the war, or become institutions. Alton Towers was not typical, as it had passed out of the family’s hands in the 1920s, and was operated as a pleasure ground by a local consortium. It was however requisitioned during the war, and returned in poor condition in 1951. A gradual restoration and development from that date eventually culminated in the hugely successful Alton Towers theme park.

The prominent mausoleum and eye-catcher on the West Wycombe estate in Buckinghamshire, was built in the 1760s for the Dashwood family. It was sketched for the project by Elliot Seabrooke (1886-1950), and remains today a striking feature of the landscape.

The Pilgrim Trust gave the collection to the V&A Museum, London, a partner since the early days of the project. The fabulous collection can be explored on their website https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?listing_type=&offset=0&limit=15&narrow=&extrasearch=&q=recording+britain&commit=Search&quality=0&objectnamesearch=&placesearch=&after=&before=&namesearch=&materialsearch=&mnsearch=&locationsearch=

And there is an excellent book about the scheme, Recording Britain, edited by Gill Saunders https://www.vam.ac.uk/shop/recording-britain-110127.html

*actually a misnomer as Northern Ireland was not represented. Scotland was excluded and had its own ‘Recording Scotland’ project. Wales was represented by only a few works, and within England there was a distinct southern bias with Northumberland and Durham excluded entirely and only 3 works featuring Cumberland.

Squire White of Tattingstone Place in Suffolk wanted an eye-catcher to enrich the view from his mansion. Rather than start from scratch, he simply enlarged and embellished a couple of existing cottages, adding a tower and some gothic windows. He called his folly The Tattingstone Wonder, and the story goes that he declared that the local people were wont to wonder at nothing, so he would give them something to wonder at. 

There’s a chimney brick inscribed with Thomas White’s initials and ‘1790’, so that must be the approximate date, but we know little more. The building does not seem to have been discussed in guides or histories until the middle of the next century, when it is described as ‘an ornamental building in the form of a church, commonly called the Tattingstone Wonder.’

We do however have a lovely record of the folly from the 1930s, when it was studied by Walter Steggles (1908-1997), a prominent member of the East London Group of artists.

In 1937 Steggles was invited by Jack Beddington, Publicity Manager for Shell, to contribute a painting for use in the To Visit Britain’s Landmarks You Can Be Sure of Shell advertising campaign: a series of posters featuring follies (see recent post https://thefollyflaneuse.com/oswell-blakestons-folly-suitcase/). Beddington’s secretary wrote to Steggles in April of that year to ask if he had decided which folly he would represent. Steggles produced a shortlist of Sevendroog Castle in London and three Suffolk structures: the obelisk at Wolverston (sic), Ickworth and The Tattingstone Wonder.

He chose the latter and his charming working drawings and a photograph survive in his archive (now part of the Shell Heritage Art Collection). Steggles chose to depict the rear of the folly, exposing the mechanics of the building and its cottage-into-folly status.

And the finished poster…

The Grade II* listed Tattingstone Wonder had fallen into disrepair by the later 1970s, but has been restored as a private house. It can be seen from the road.

The Tattingstone Wonder, the round house at Ickworth (a curiosity rather than a folly), and Sevendroog Castle stand today. Had Steggles chosen to record the Woolverstone Obelisk it would have been one of the last representations of the monument, as it was demolished after fire damage in 1943. There’s a good account of it here http://woolverstone.onesuffolk.net/assets/Uploads/Woolverstone-Park-Obelisk.pdf

Thanks to Alan Waltham for information on the Steggles commission, follow him @EastLondonGroup or visit his excellent website  http://www.eastlondongroup.co.uk/walter-steggles/4573465108