In the 1970s the Coutts Bank building in central London was partly remodelled to a design by the architect Sir Frederick Gibberd. A new glass entrance was designed to replace the columned central section of the facade on the Strand. As work progressed Gibberd salvaged some of the redundant masonry to reuse at his Essex home. There he indulged in what the Architects’ Journal called ‘that virtuous activity’ of building follies.

Sir Frederick Gibberd (1908-1984) was the Master Planner of the new town created at Harlow, in Essex, from 1946. Needing to be close to the works, he bought a small cottage on Marsh Lane. He remodelled the house and developed the extensive garden, which had plenty of space for the sculpture and architectural salvage Gibberd collected with his second wife, Patricia (they married in 1972).

Gibberd decided to use some of the redundant masonry  from Coutts to create a ‘Roman’ Temple in the garden. His colleagues on site were apparently disgruntled by this decision, as removing the columns Gibberd had chosen was time consuming work – they would have preferred to smash the whole lot to bits.

The masonry was delivered the following year, and as Gibberd wrote ‘a huge lorry equipped with a crane drove down my lane, demolished three trees and dumped a pile of huge fragments in a ditch opposite my entrance gates’. The stone was dragged to the prepared site on a sledge with steel runners.

Three men with a crane and a digger were recruited to construct the folly. Two Portland stone columns and a section of frieze were to be erected in the form of a temple inspired by ancient Roman models. Steel rods were inserted in the columns to give support and one of the men sat in the bucket of the digger to guide the stones into place. The crane driver was asked to drop a third column, so that it would appear to have fallen and broken. The bewildered man exclaimed ‘They’ve come all the way from London and I’m to drop one of them?’, and apparently demanded the instruction in writing so that he couldn’t be held responsible for the damage.

It was, Gibberd concluded, a ‘very expensive folly’, but it brought him great pleasure. When passers-by paused at the gate and asked what the structure was, Gibberd enjoyed telling them it was a fragment from an ancient Roman temple discovered during the development of a nearby industrial estate.

Four urns from the Trafalgar Square facade of the bank, which Gibberd believed to be made of Coade Stone, were mounted on a plinth and placed at an angle to the temple to create a pleasing ensemble.

Although Gibberd claimed to have no masterplan for his garden, he did draw an exquisite plan and elevation of the temple and its garden setting. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1981 as ‘Roman’ Temple (Gibberd was elected RA in 1969).

The Architects’ Journal thought the whole of the bank’s facade should have been retained, or at least reused at another building, but as their reporter concluded, at least Gibberd had ‘tried to atone and Freddie’s folly promises to become a well-loved landmark in Freddie’s own New Town’.

Gibberd died in 1984 and left his house and garden to Harlow for the benefit of the people of the town, although initially it remained home to his widow and there were only occasional open days. Complications over his will left the garden vulnerable (a long story), but there was strong local support and in 1995 the Gibberd Garden Trust was formed to maintain the site and welcome visitors. Lady Gibberd remained closely involved until her death in 2006.

Gibberd said that the half a mile approached road gave his garden ‘a quality of remoteness’. Modern housing now stands close to the track, but is still an adventure to drive down the long lane, wondering if you have perhaps taken a wrong turn, only to suddenly spot the eagle-topped gateposts.

Gibberd’s comments on making the garden are from his lecture notes On Making Gardens and Landscapes which are in the Gibberd archive at the Garden Museum.  Sir Frederick and Lady Gibberd were early supporters of the museum where you can see a small display celebrating Gibberd’s work. The account of the bemused lorry driver is from oral histories collected by Annalise Taylor and published to mark 25 years of the Gibberd Garden Trust.

The Gibberd Garden reopens for the 2026 season on Wednesday 1 April. There’s more here.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to share any thoughts please scroll down to the comments box. You can find it at the bottom of the page.

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 1740s William Kent designed a new garden ornament for Thomas Coke of Holkham. An artificial hillock was constructed on which the temple was to stand, giving it the name the Seat on the Mount. The temple was later pulled down, but fragments of the four busts which once decorated it were salvaged, and incorporated into a cottage in a nearby village. The Flâneuse has written about follies built from the remnants of houses, but a cottage decorated with the remnants of a garden temple is something new.

The ‘New Mount’ at Holkham was constructed in 1742, and the Seat on the Mount the following year. The sculptor Peter Scheemakers provided the four figures, two female and two male, that decorate the front elevation. Coke (1697-1759), created Baron Lovell in 1728 and 1st Earl of Leicester in 1744, could visit the seat and from its elevated site he is said to have watched as his new house was constructed.

The architect Matthew Brettingham Senior, who had overseen building work at Holkham, produced a volume of views which included an engraving of the Seat on the Mount. His text tells us that the temple was home to a ‘small antique figure of the Nile’ and a ‘Coro Marino’ (Sea Chorus) of sea nymphs, centaurs and cupids in alto relievo. The figure of the Nile was added to the earl’s collection in 1752, and the bas-relief panel of sea creatures was bought by Coke in Rome in 1716, and was originally part of a sarcophagus. It was noticed by a visitor in 1767 who saw the summerhouse with an ‘ancient Bass-relief in the wall’.

It would seem likely that the Seat on the Mount was taken down when parts of the garden were remodelled in the late eighteenth century. The figure of the Nile had been moved into the house by 1817, and the summerhouse does not appear on nineteenth century Ordnance Survey maps. The art historian Adolf Michaelis complicates matters by mentioning the ‘Seat on the Mount’ in his Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, which was published in 1882. Perhaps he was using outdated information? What is certain is that by 1907 the heads from the Seat on the Mount had been used to embellish a simple cottage in nearby Burnham Overy Town (actually a village, but thus named to distinguish it from Burnham Overy Staithe).

How the figures came to be moved to Burnham Overy Town to decorate the little cottage remains another puzzle, and many passers-by must have wondered about the history of the carved heads.

One such curious tourist was the late follyphiliac Jeffrey Whitelaw, and in 1960 he wrote to Country Life magazine asking if anyone knew the origins of the statuary. Whitelaw questioned if the busts were artificial stone from the Pulham factory, but the mystery was solved a couple of weeks later when the Duke of Wellington replied via the magazine’s letters page. The Duke confirmed that the ‘canephoræ’ originally decorated the temple at Holkham. Arthur Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington (1885-1972) was an architect, and is of course famed in follydom as the designer of Lord Berners’ tower at Faringdon. Canephoræ are caryatids bearing a basket on their heads that serve as a capital (although strictly speaking canephoræ are female, and two of the figures here are male).

In the later years of the twentieth century the fragments were moved to new positions in the tiny front garden, where they remain today. The cottage is now called ‘The Images’ and can easily be seen from the road through the village, and here’s a rather appealing view of it by artist Richard Swallow.

Holkham may have lost the Seat on the Mount, but other fine garden buildings can still be seen including the Obelisk (see the plate above) and the Temple. The latter was built in 1734 after a sketch by William Kent.

And of course there is the mansion itself and the wonderful collection it holds. The statuette representing the River Nile and the bas-relief panel remain in the family collection (not currently on display), although the latter has fallen apart and is now incomplete.

Coincidentally (i.e. the Flâneuse is not on commission) the cottage is currently on the market. There’s more here. Everything you need to know about Holkham can be found on their website.

For information on sculpture at Holkham the Flâneuse is indebted to The Holkham Collection of Classical Sculpture by Elizabeth Angelicoussis.

Further information is always very welcome. You can get in touch via the comments box at the foot of the page (only your name will appear – your email address remains private). Thank you for reading.

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Hubert Walter Wandesford Fenwick, architect turned architectural historian and writer, was a regular contributor to The Scots Magazine, a monthly publication that claims to be the oldest magazine in Britain still in publication, having been launched in 1739. In 1965 Fenwick wrote an article about ‘Features and Follies’, in Scotland, illustrated with his own very attractive colour sketches.

Fenwick (1916-2003) starts, as so many writers on architectural curiosities do, with the thorny question of how to define a folly. He quotes the Universal English Dictionary which states that a folly is a ‘useless, fantastic structure, built from foolish caprice’, but he does not think it is an accurate description. He then launches into an analogy which the Flâneuse rather likes: ‘… after all, most oil paintings are useless, unless they happen to cover a gap or a dirty mark on the wall. Most paintings are fantastic, some even foolish, but they, nevertheless, tend to make life more interesting and civilised, and they express an aspect of the human spirit.’ It is, he concludes, the same with a good folly. He is however strict about his classifications of what is a folly and what is a feature.

McCaig’s tower at Oban, for instance, is a feature, not a folly, as it was originally intended as an ’eminently practical’ museum. According to Fenwick’s rules, the Wallace Monument at Stirling is a commemorative tower, not a folly.

The buildings that do qualify as folly in Fenwick’s opinion are a particularly lovely bunch, and amongst his selection are The Whim at Blair which he describes as a ‘dummy fort’, the sham ruin on Balcarres Crag in Fife, the tower on Kinnoul Hill in Perth which was built to show that the Tay was the equal of the Rhine, Ossian’s Temple (aka the Hermitage) at Dunkeld, the Craigiehall Temple and Hume Castle which is a ‘magnificent fake’. The Pineapple at Dunmore is included for its ‘extremely clever and imaginative design’.

Fenwick wrote the piece in response to a book about follies which he had recently read. He felt cheated as it contained ‘less than a dozen Scottish examples’ (actually there are exactly twelve), and only two that ‘could legitimately be so designated’. He failed to name the book, but he does give the clue that it was produced by a ‘petrol firm’, so we can be sure it was Follies, written by Ella Hatt, beautifully illustrated by Paul Sharp, and published by National Benzole in 1963 (there’s more about that book here.) In case you are wondering, the two true follies that Fenwick approved of in the book were the sham on Balcarres Crag and the Hermitage at Dunkeld.

You can read more about the history of the Scots Magazine here.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts are always welcome so please scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page if you would like to get in touch. Don’t forget that clicking on the highlighted text will take you to further folly stories.

In the early decades of the nineteenth century Lord Rolle of Bicton House in Devon, developed land by the sea in Exmouth in a bid to attract tourists. He made ‘commodious gravel walks’ and created gardens with rustic benches, as well as building elegant marine residences. Lord Rolle also granted a lease on a plot of land to one William Kendall, who in 1824 built a ‘very pretty’ house modelled on the Temple of Theseus in Athens.

The property had a lodge in the form of the ‘Temple of the Winds’, also in Athens, a building more correctly known as the Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes but colloquially as the Tower of the Winds. It is not in sight in Hallet’s view (above) but appears in the centre of James Fidlor’s View of Exmouth:

Little seems to be known about Kendall (1767-1832). He was a solicitor based in Exeter, a founder member of the Devon and Exeter Institution and a poet. He died in March 1832 and his will shows he had a fine art collection. An account of a sale of his collection after his death includes works by Canaletto, Reynolds and Rubens and a ‘Splendid Landscape by Wilson’, as well as classical statuary, an Etruscan vase and bronze models of the Elgin Marbles. So here is a hint of the interest in classical antiquities that must have been the stimulus to build models of ancient temples at his English seaside home. No other account of his inspiration seems to have survived.

The ‘elegant and substantially built residence’ was offered for sale by private treaty soon after Kendall’s death. The six-acre estate had delightful land and sea views, and the house was described as a ‘chaste model of the Temple of Theseus at Athens’. It seems there was little interest, and the estate was again offered for sale by auction in 1842, at which date it was still owned by Kendall’s executors.

It must have been soon after that date that Henry Ward bought the property (he died in 1848 when the house and grounds were once more offered for sale). He goes down in history as having ‘corrupted’ the Temple by putting in bay windows and ‘sticking on it two lateral appendages’. We learn this from Rev. William Webb’s Memorials of Exmouth published in 1872, by which date the Temple was a feature of the grounds of the Imperial Hotel and the ‘Temple of the Winds’ had been demolished. Webb described the surviving temple as an ‘exact copy of the Temple of Theseus’ – the Flâneuse leaves readers to judge for themselves…

The Athenian temple inspired a number of follies and landscape ornaments, including the Penshaw Monument in County Durham, begun in 1844, which captures the spirit of the original but is not an exact copy.

The Temple of Theseus at Hagley Hall in Worcestershire, was erected from 1759 to a design by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart, who as his nickname suggests had travelled in Greece and specialised in Neoclassical architecture. Like the Exmouth temple, the design of the portico and frieze is inspired by the Greek monument, but the columns on the side elevations are omitted.

Exmouth’s Grade II listed Temple remains within the grounds of the Imperial Hotel, and at 200 years old is in a somewhat tatty state (the facade is maintained but is a different story round the back). The Temple of Theseus in Athens (more correctly the Temple of Hephaestus), constructed in the 5th century BC, has fared rather better and remains a major landmark in that city.

Thank you for reading. As ever, your thoughts are most welcome – scroll down to the foot of the page to find the comments box.

Many follies have lurid tales attached telling of wicked acts and/or ghostly goings-on and a classical temple, high on the Whitley Beaumont estate near Kirkheaton, doesn’t disappoint. It is known locally as Black Dick’s Temple, after Whitley Beaumont’s owner in the early seventeenth century, Sir Richard Beaumont. Local legends tell that Sir Richard ran up such huge debts gambling that he had to live a double-life as a highwayman. He is said to haunt the site and, of course, there are whispers of a network of secret tunnels under the building.

Sir Richard (1574-1631), 1st and only baronet, or Black Dick if that’s the version you prefer, built a new mansion at Whitley Beaumont which remained in the family until the early twentieth century. Sir Richard is commemorated with a magnificent monument in St John’s, Kirkheaton.

… also shown here, with an appreciative visitor, in a lovely watercolour sketch by Huddersfield artist Peace Sykes.

The tales of Sir Richard and his dissolute lifestyle may or may not be true, but he never knew the Palladian temple. It was built in the middle of the eighteenth century, as a landscape ornament and banqueting house, for a later Richard Beaumont (1719/20-1764). The architect was possibly James Paine (1717-1789), who was married to Richard’s sister Charlotte, and who worked on the house at Whitley Beaumont in the 1750s. It was extant by 1760 when a visitor admired the grand Terrace Walk which led to the ‘Temple’. A domed banqueting room, once decorated with ornate plasterwork, stands above a basement that probably housed a kitchen for the servants (although it is sometimes said to be an ice-house).

The next generation of Beaumonts remodelled the park south of the house to a design by Capability Brown. By the middle of the twentieth century, this part of the park had been exploited for its coal reserves, but the terrace and temple north of the house remained largely unchanged, although greatly neglected. The Beaumonts had sold up in the 1920s, having auctioned the mansion’s fixtures and fittings in 1917.

The estate was once more offered for sale in 1950, when it was auctioned in lots. The auctioneers didn’t even consider that a private owner might make the ‘impressive mansion’ their home, and although ‘renovation as an institution’ was a proposed use, it seemed to be taken for granted that it was ‘eligible for demolition’. Lot 2 was ‘The Avenue’ which included that ‘local landmark known as The Temple’.

As predicted, the house was indeed pulled down soon after the sale in 1950, and the materials sold. Local boy Brian Tattersfield began to visit Whitley Beaumont just as demolition started, and explored every corner of the estate. In his own words it became a ‘lifelong obsession’. Whenever a busy career (as one half of the acclaimed design studio Minale Tattersfield) allowed, he returned to his early Box Brownie photo’s and sketches, and created finished pen and ink drawings. Although the dome of the Temple was gone when he first visited, he always preserved the building’s dignity and showed it intact.

Today the temple is a ruin. Vandals and thieves have long-since stripped the lead from the roof (where was the terrifying ghost of Black Dick when he was needed?), and the internal floor is long gone, leaving a gaping hole inside the building. The soot-blackened shell remains a local landmark and can be seen from nearby public footpaths.

Thanks to Katina Bill, Senior Curator, Kirklees Museums and Galleries and Brian Tattersfield for their invaluable help with this post.

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

Eighty years ago this month Sir Osbert Sitwell and his good friend Rex Whistler were discussing how materials such as papier-mâché, much used in theatrical set construction, could be used in the ‘arts of landscaping and garden design’. Once the war was over they planned to erect a dramatic eye-catcher at Sir Osbert’s Renishaw home. But two months after their meeting came tragic news: in July 1944 Whistler was killed in action in France.

Having designed sets for drama, ballet and opera, Whistler (1905-1944) had become fascinated by the use of ‘papier-mâché and other kindred substances’ by set builders, and thought they had developed to a point where they would be durable enough to survive outside for around 50 years. He planned ‘great constructions of all kinds’ including colonnades, aqueducts, clusters of towers, gigantic statues, artificial hills and ‘panoramic visions of vast cities’. These were all ideas which he had explored in two dimensions in his art, and in particular his great murals for the Tate Gallery and Plas Newydd.

At Renishaw the men planned to test Whistler’s idea by erecting a ‘vast colonnade’ at the bottom of the garden, framing views over the lake. Sir Osbert (1892-1969) recalled that his father, Sir George Sitwell, had planned something similar in ‘bricks and rubble’, but it had never come to fruition.

As Sir Osbert believed that Whistler, a ‘wonderful and extraordinary being’, had been the only man who could ‘comprehend or undertake’ such a work, this pioneering scheme for Renishaw was abandoned after his death. As Whistler’s brother Laurence later wrote, this plan for a grand garden arcade would have been ‘magnificent in form and flimsy in magnificence: the folly of follies.’

Even if Whistler and Sir Osbert’s plan for Renishaw had been implemented, they believed it unlikely to have a long life. Sir Osbert calculated that the colonnade would have ‘dissolved’ by the end of the 20th century (if not already swept away by the successive generation).

But perhaps they had underestimated the material. Papier-mâché had been used for internal and external ornaments in the 18th century, and there were a number of manufactories in London.

The Temple of Bacchus at Painshill, in Surrey, had ornament within the pediment that was crafted in papier-mâché. It was put up in the early 1760s and, as the photo’ below shows, it was still intact, if a little decrepit, in the 1940s. Papier-mâché was also used in the construction of Painshill’s Turkish Tent. Although the Duffour family business, whose trade card is featured above, was employed at Painshill in 1752-4, no documents have been discovered to link them to the garden buildings.

By the middle of the 20th century the columns that supported the pediment of the Temple of Bacchus had been reused at the house, and the temple was shortly to collapse into total ruin. The Painshill Park Trust commissioned a new temple on the footprint of the old, and the exterior work was completed in 2019.

Whilst not quite the ‘vast city’ of Whistler’s imagination, there was once an entire papier-mâché village. It was created in 1835 by the papier-mâché specialist Charles Frederick Bielefeld for his client, Mr Seymour, who was about to start a new life in Australia. The village consisted of 10 houses which included a villa with an elaborate papier-mâché mantelpiece supported by caryatids. An early exercise in pre-fabrication, or flat-pack, the village was easy to transport and erect, and was tested at Bielefeld’s Staines manufactory. The Illustrated London News reported that during this period the site flooded, but despite being ‘nearly two feet under water’ the buildings were not damaged.

Although the Illustrated London News story was picked up by the Australian press, no further reports have been found, so sadly it is not known if the village ever reached the other side of the world.

As ever, the Flâneuse digresses…. so back to Renishaw. There may not be any papier-mâché scenery, but the estate has plenty of other attractions, including the house itself and two early 19th century garden ornaments, all the work of Sir Sitwell Sitwell (1769-1811). On a lawn near the house stands the Gothic Temple, once a glazed conservatory, and later an aviary, but now a pretty shell filled with the graves of family pets.

Loveliest of all is the Gothic Lodge, built in c.1807 to a design by Sir Sitwell himself. The lodge is now a shell, but sometime in the nineteenth century the central arch was filled to create a dwelling (the drive through the arch had by then been rerouted). In 1938 it was declared ‘unfit for habitation’ and the central room must have been demolished soon after. The lodge then took on its new role as a garden ornament, and what Barbara Jones called a ‘very pretty borderline folly’.

The gardens are open regularly. There is a weekly house tour when the many views of Renishaw by another artist friend of the family, John Piper, can be seen in the eclectic Sitwell collection. There are also fascinating displays in the Sitwell Museum in the stable block.

For more on visiting Renishaw see https://renishaw-hall.co.uk

Thanks to Christine Beevers, Renishaw’s archivist, for her help with this post, and to Michael Symes and Cherrill Sands for information on papier-mâché at Painshill.

And finally… many readers clicked on the link in last week’s post to see Portmeirion from the air with commentary by John Betjeman. There is to be a celebration of John Betjeman and his work on the 40th Anniversary of his death, Sunday May 19th, with a whole evening of films on BBC4. The rarity is The Last Laugh, the biography shown only once, in 2001. The full schedule is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl6b/2024/05/19

In 1934 a local paper published a ‘Cleveland Ramble’ featuring a walk around Kirkleatham village. The author looked across the park to the ‘elaborate castellated pigeon-cote’ which was described as a ‘startling example’ of the extravagant ‘pseudo Gothic craze’ of the later 18th century. Only a couple of decades after this account was published the castellations were gone, and the pigeon cote was cracked and crumbling, and soon to disappear.

In 1808 Kirkleatham was praised for both its ‘various natural beauties’ and the ‘many decorations art has furnished it with’. The pigeon cote was one of the most striking of these ornaments, with a circular central tower and linking walls radiating out to three smaller turrets. Sadly no images of the folly before it began its decline have been found, but the Ordnance Survey maps illustrate the unusual plan.

The building’s early history seems to be lost, and although a document in the family archive cross-references an account book for work on the estate, that ledger does not seem to survive. The pigeon cote was most likely commissioned by Charles Turner (1726-1783), who lived at Kirkleatham after his father inherited the estate in 1757. No architect is named, although John Carr of York, who remodelled the house at Kirkleatham in the 1760s, is a possible contender. We do have a terminus post quem for the pigeon cote of around 1775, as it is not shown on an estate map of 1774.

The Kirkleatham estate passed through various families until the middle of the 20th century. The contents were then dispersed and, after attempts to find a use failed, the fabric of Kirkleatham Hall was auctioned as building materials in 1954.

Although promises were made to protect the historic structures on the estate, the pigeon cote and temple, admired by the 1934 rambler as an ‘exquisite little pavilion’, survived for less than a decade before they too were pulled down. The arable field surrounding the pigeon cote now covers the site of the building, with not a trace remaining above ground.

Happily there are still many reasons to visit Kirkleatham. The Free School of 1709 houses the Kirkleatham Museum, and the almshouses called Turner’s Hospital and the church with its adjoining Turner Mausoleum are both fascinating structures (there’s limited public access to the interiors, but they can be admired from the footpath).

The walled garden has been restored and continues to develop, and a wander around the village reveals the elegant stables and a number of other fascinating structures – look out for information boards and maps around the village. Here’s a taster…

Thanks to David Winpenny for introducing me to the archive of Peter Burton’s photographs. Burton (1927-2014) took many of the images which illustrated the Shell Guides that were produced in the mid-20th century. Burton was commissioned to write the North Yorkshire volume by the editorial team of John Piper and John Betjeman, but the project was cancelled before he could complete his research. He eventually published his material as North Yorkshire: a Guide in 2006. Thanks also to Burton’s friend and fellow photographer Harland Walshaw for permission to use images from the collection.

For the Kirkleatham Walled Garden https://kirkleathamwalledgarden.co.uk

And for more on the Kirkleatham Museum https://redcarcleveland.co.uk/enjoy/kirkleatham-museum/

Comments are most welcome – scroll down to share any thoughts. Thank you for reading.

In the border town of Coldstream a footpath leads from a lodge down to the river Tweed. The route passes an ice-house shaded by trees before a stroll along the riverbank brings one to an elegant stone temple. The Temple ornamented the landscape of a grand Georgian mansion called The Lees, which was largely pulled down in the 1970s.

The Lees (sometimes just Lees) was the seat of the interrelated Pringle and Marjoribanks (pronounced Marchbanks) family. In 1760 a traveller noted that ‘Mr Pringle has built a handsome house, and made a beautiful plantation’: ‘Mr Pringle’ was James, who died in 1769 leaving the estate to his cousin Edward Marjoribanks.

The temple was extant by 1769 when a historian noted Mr Pringle’s ‘modern seat’ as well as the ‘octagonal tempiato’ on the banks of the river. It is shown as an existing feature on a ‘Design for the improvement of Lees’ by the Edinburgh based designer Richard Stephens (?-1821) dated 1816. Stephens’ family business was in ‘draining, irrigating and embanking’, but he also drew up improvement plans for a small number of Scottish estates.

The Temple is named as such on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858. The map shows the Temple and the Ice House as well as an array of summerhouses and seats that are lost today, and the surveyors preparing the map noted the ‘considerable and well laid out pleasure grounds’. Historic England Scotland incorrectly date the structure to the ‘later 18th century’ and it is listed as Category B.

By the middle of the 20th century the house at The Lees was in a very dilapidated condition and the then owners were only interested in the fishing rights. In 1975, when all attempts to find a buyer or a purpose had been exhausted, permission was granted to demolish. By that date the house was owned by Andrew Douglas-Home, nephew of the former Prime Minister (which information the Flâneuse shares simply so the headline in The Scotsman can be understood: ‘Doom for House of Home’). The paper reported that whilst the Scottish Civic Trust and the Scottish Georgian Society thought the case was ‘one of the saddest ever’, they accepted that there was no alternative to demolition.

Douglas-Home had a long term plan to build a new house on the site, and for that reason the circular central section won a reprieve and was left standing.

Towards the end of the 20th century it was incorporated into a new house designed by Nicholas Groves-Raines, which has since been further extended.

As briefly mentioned the Tweed is of course famed for salmon, and the wide stretch of river in front of the Temple became known to fishermen as ‘Temple Pool’, as seen in this postcard view (which helpfully points out that in Coldstream the river is the border between Scotland and England).

After the Right to Roam was introduced in Scotland Mr Douglas-Home created a footpath through his grounds and down to the river. Walkers are welcome but are requested to keep to the path and to respect the usual rules of the countryside (and to give Mr Douglas-Home a cheery hello if you see him out and about).

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When first built the handsome gazebo in the grounds of Crow Nest in Dewsbury would have had views over the estate’s fine gardens and pleasure grounds. At the end of the 19th century Crow Nest was bought for the people of Dewsbury, and has now been a public park for 130 years. The Temple remains an ornament to the park, but sadly today it has a rather forlorn appearance.

Information about the Crow Nest estate is quite hard to find (and it shouldn’t be confused with Crow Nest at Lightcliffe, which is not far away). We know that in 1733 it was purchased from the Bedford family by Samuel Burroughs (c.1695-1761), a Master in Chancery and author of important texts on the legal system. Upon his death in 1761 the house passed to his recently widowed daughter, Sarah, who arranged for Crow Nest to be let the following year. The ‘exceedingly pleasant house’ was described as ‘fit for a Gentleman’s family’ and came with gardens, orchards and pasture. There is no mention of the temple, although two maps show it was extant at that date.

The first visual evidence for the gazebo is on a plan of the River Calder surveyed by the engineer John Smeaton in 1757 (the house is mistakenly named as ‘Crows Mount’). The gazebo can be seen in a corner of the walled grounds, and traces of these walls can still be seen attached to the temple today. A map dated to c.1766 shows the gazebo and mansion in more detail.

In 1785 Crow Nest was sold to Richard Milnes, but in 1798 he was declared bankrupt, and the estate was once more offered for sale. The ‘Most Valuable and Truly Desirable Estate’ was described as ‘situate upon an eminence, commanding a most extensive view’. It was bought by the Hague family who remodelled the mansion and remained there for almost a century until they sold the estate to Dewsbury Corporation, who wished to create a public park for the townsfolk. The park opened in 1893 with a day of ‘holiday and public rejoicing’.

The town plan of Dewsbury produced by the Ordnance Survey office in 1852 shows the Temple at the end of a long straight path which was terminated at the other end by a summerhouse. At that date it had two adjoining walls, one of which was  connected to an arch, seen in this photograph. Although ‘old castellated arches of Norman design’ were mentioned in 1889, they had disappeared by the time the 25″ map was published in 1894 and the Temple was by then a free standing structure.

The building is not named on the 1850s 6″ Ordnance Survey map, but is called ‘The Temple’ on the 25″ map surveyed in the late 1880s (but not published until 1894). By the time a revised edition of the map was published in 1907, Crow Nest Park had been created with lake and island, bowling green and, of course, a bandstand. The designer, William Cox, incorporated the Temple into the layout of the park, surrounding it with ornamental shrubberies. From the upstairs room of the gazebo there was a panorama of the whole park and the countryside beyond.

A lovely watercolour in the collection of Kirklees Museums calls the building the ‘Observatory’, but it is likely that the term was used in the sense of a belvedere or gazebo, a building from which the view could be admired, rather than as an astronomical tower. Locally the story is told that a tunnel leads from the mansion to the Temple, and that one of the owners of the estate used it to to escape from his bad-tempered wife – a tale attached to more than one folly.

In the early 20th century a group of retired Dewsbury men known as ‘the Veterans’ Parliament’ used the Temple as a shelter in which to meet. Judging by their age the men had probably served in the wars in South Africa, and the park houses a memorial to the friends they lost which was unveiled by Baden-Powell in 1906. By 1937 the men were in their seventies and finding the stairs in the building a challenge. Bemoaning the lack of facilities to ‘mash a pot of tea’ they left for alternative accommodation.

Soon after that date Britain was at war again, and the maintenance of ornamental buildings was not a priority. At date unknown the elegant roof was removed, and it became a rather grand store for park equipment. Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘quite elegant’, the Temple was listed at grade II in 1985, but is bricked-up and sadly neglected today.

In 1894 a committee was formed to establish a museum in the mansion, and it was a popular attraction for over a century. Sadly the Dewsbury Museum was closed in 2016 after the council withdrew funding as part of a programme of austerity measures. A long campaign to keep the building in community use was unsuccessful, and the house (grade II) currently stands empty. Crow Nest Park is listed at grade II on the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.

The Temple delighted the families who made Crow Nest their home for a century and a half, and has been an attractive feature for the visitors to a public park for another 130 years and counting. It is sad to see it neglected today.

Thanks to Katina Bill of Kirklees Museums for her help with this post.

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