In 1950 the Automobile Association (A.A.) published a handbook for drivers which included maps and a gazetteer of the towns and villages of England and Wales (Scotland had its own association). As post-war paper shortages eased, a new expanded edition was published in 1958 which included illustrations of the sites a motorist might expect to see as they travelled sedately along the roads of Britain (as the maps make clear the motorway network was then at a very early stage of development). Alongside the churches, monuments, castles, historic pubs, chalk figures and gibbets there are more than thirty follies for the driver to spot along his way.

By the time the Flâneuse’s 1961 copy of The Illustrated Road Book to England and Wales (a battered family heirloom) was published, more than 450,000 copies had been supplied to A.A. members, along with the distinctive yellow badge to display on the car.

Whilst the atlas and guide contains everything the driver needs to know about motoring, mileages and market days, it doesn’t give any clues as to who compiled the comprehensive gazetteer, which ranges from Abberton to Zennor, so the Flâneuse is unable to give credit.

The illustrators too remain anonymous, although we do know how the images were sourced. For four years A.A. members of staff photographed anything of interest they saw, and these images were handed to the artists. As the introduction explains, using sketches allowed ‘some of the more obtrusive features of modern life’ to be omitted – so the reader wouldn’t be offended by a TV aerial or an ugly modern streetlight.

The author of the introduction struck a melancholy note when they mused that some of the landmarks illustrated might have disappeared by the time a new edition was published. Local improvements, they wrote, ‘seem so frequently to obliterate the picturesque.’

The Flâneuse is pleased to report that of the many follies featured in the guide almost all survive, including the small selection pictured above.

There have only been two major casualties – an eye-catching toll-house in Berkshire (above) and the Westwick Arch in Norfolk, described as ‘formerly the main entrance to the Westwick Estate’.

As this has been a rather monochrome post, here is an example of the A.A.’s very own contribution to landscape ornament – the black and vibrant yellow phone boxes that could once be found across Britain. All are now redundant, and only a handful survive in their original locations, brightening the roadside. This one is in Mere in Cheshire.

As ever, the Flâneuse found herself wandering off subject into the fascinating history of the A.A. As the 1961 edition of the Road Book was published, it was announced that members would soon miss out on the famous salute from a passing A.A. patrolman. In that year the practice was discontinued as dangerous, although pedestrian patrolmen were still permitted to greet members in this way. There’s a great potted history of the A.A. here.

The Flâneuse salutes her readers and wishes them a safe journey if they are travelling this weekend. Your thoughts are always welcome, please scroll down to the comments box to get in touch.

William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford (1722-1791) had his principal seat at Wentworth Castle near Barnsley in Yorkshire, and Boughton in Northamptonshire was where he broke the journey to the social and political hub of London. Both estates were embellished with temples, sham churches and castles, obelisks and archways, including this castellated curiosity at Boughton.

Few records survive to document the early years of the arch. The earliest surviving estate map of 1794 does not show the part of the estate where the Spectacle stands, and 18th century visitors describe the ‘pretty Woods and Improvements’ and the number of ‘Temples & Alcoves’ on the estate, but frustratingly without ever being specific.

The Spectacle was probably built in the 1760s or early 1770s when Strafford was adding ornaments to the park. It was extant by 1775 when Rev. Dr. Lucas (c.1748-1812) mentioned it in his poem ‘Boughton Green’, composed in that year. Robert Lucas was born in Northamptonshire, and studied at Cambridge before holding ecclesiastical posts in Northamptonshire from 1772-1787: his poem describes some of the buildings Strafford had added to the Boughton landscape by that date:

‘Twas he stripp’d off the rustic role of chance,
And cloth’d it new, in taste and elegance;
Bade here and there the various object rise,
T’arrest with gentle force, the wandering eyes:
Here, the triumphal arch he turns; and, there,
The many-column’d temple bids appear;
On every slope erects the piny grove,
Whose soft retreat invites the conscious dove;
Or lifts the mimic castle from the dale,
Or spreads the watr’y sheet along the vale;
While o’er the rest, and greedy of the eye,
The daring obelisk attempts the sky:

The obelisk (1764) can still be seen, now tucked into a modern housing estate, as can the ‘mimic castle’ – which probably refers to the castellated eye-catcher farmhouse called Bunkers Hill (dated 1776 so almost complete when Lucas was composing his poem), although New Park Barn (1770) is also battlemented. Both are now a private homes. Sadly the intriguing ‘many-column’d’ temple is long gone.

Originally referred to simply as the ‘arch’, at date unknown the structure became known as ‘the Spectacle’, presumably because of its impact in the landscape: ‘spectacle’ being used in the sense of something visually striking. The arch gave its name to Spectacle Lane on which it stands, and the early 20th century Spectacle Lodge, built on land behind it.

By 1885 it had doubled into ‘the Spectacles’, and this plural form was used on picture postcards in the 1900s. This may just have been a misnaming which was perpetuated, or as Barbara Jones suggested the name may have arisen because the two towers resemble a pair of binoculars. Oddly, it is only named on the 1837 1st series Ordnance Survey map and then disappears from future editions.

In the 1950s follies were distinctly déclassé and the eye-catcher arch was described as a ‘bogus gateway’, and dismissed as ‘just ornamental’ (although after the war and a long period of austerity it is understandable that such luxuries were considered decadent). Reports from that decade also suggest that it was beginning to decay, having already lost its uppermost crenellations sometime in the early 20th century. Its saviour was Les Scott (1914-1999) who bought Spectacle Lodge in 1954. In 1992 Scott rebuilt the central arch, securing the future of the eye-catcher.

For over 50 year Les’s son Simon woke every morning to a view of the Grade II listed folly, and he has retained a passion for it and the other follies within Boughton Park. This culminated in a book on the subject first published in 1995 and revised in 2011. Simon Scott’s Follies of Boughton Park Revisited has been reprinted as a Limited Edition to coincide with the 300^th anniversary of the birth of William Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. Only available direct from the author at £15 including UK postage.  For more details see www.simonscott.org.uk/boughtonpark

N.B. rather confusingly Northamptonshire has two Boughtons. Strafford’s seat, discussed here, is Boughton Park. The house he knew (which was never admired) was demolished and a new mansion built in the middle of the 19th century . Not far away is Boughton House, the seat of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry.

Thank you for reading. As ever, any further information or general comment is very welcome. There’s a comments box at the foot of the page where you can get in touch.

This fine arch could once be found on the edge of the village of Westwick, but sadly it was pulled down as recently as 1981. Nearby, in a scrappy ribbon of woodland, stands a decrepit brick tower with a square base supporting a round shaft. It is difficult to appreciate that this remnant was once a much-admired eye-catcher and belvedere, which went by the curious title of the Westwick Obelisk.

Dr Johnson’s dictionary of 1755 defined an obelisk as ‘a magnificent high piece of solid marble, or other fine stone, having usually four faces, and lessening upwards by degrees, till it ends in a point like a pyramid’. Clearly the tower at Westwick fails to meet this accepted description, and it has been assumed that the name was used in error by the surveyors who marked it thus on the first Ordnance Survey maps. But this is not the case: it was called the ‘obelisk’ in the earliest known reference: Armstrong’s History and Antiquities of the County of Norfolk, published in 1781. Armstrong notes the ‘obelisk’ and, perhaps aware of the peculiarity of this title, elaborates that it is a ‘tower or belle-view, ninety feet high’. At the top was a glazed lantern ‘fitted up to view an extensive tract of country each way, and the sea-coast for nearly thirty miles’. The building is also named as ‘obelisk’ on maps of Norfolk published in the 1790s.

Westwick was the seat of William Petre (1686-1772) the property having come to him though his 1736 marriage to Elizabeth Berney (1711-1778). Their son, John Berney Petre (1741-1819), must have been laying out a new landscape at Westwick even before he inherited the estate in 1772, for in 1809 he wrote that he been planting there ‘for more than fifty years’. One of his greatest achievements was the construction of a sinuous lake which curved round the ancient church of St Botolph, making it a picturesque feature of the landscape. When William Watts described Westwick in his Seats of the Gentry (published between 1779 and 1786), he described the major civil engineering that allowed the piece of water to be created: two Archimedes Screws, powered by a windmill, pumped water up from a reservoir.

In his text Watts avoided using the misleading word obelisk, and instead described the ‘ornamental building, or gazebo’, built by Petre ‘some Years since’ which was ‘remarkable for the fine prospect it affords’. The plate of the house and gazebo, was drawn by T. Hearne and engraved by Watts. More interesting is the note in the text to say that the drawing was based on a sketch by ‘H. Repton Esq.’ Humphry Repton was then living not far away at Sustead Hall, and was yet to formally embark on his career as a ‘landscape gardener’, but he must, at the very least, have taken notice of the major engineering and landscaping project at Westwick.

Petre won medals from the Society of Arts for his planting, and in 1809 was still enlarging his woods. In that year he wrote that when his current project was complete he would have created ‘a plantation of five hundred acres with a five-mile drive through it’.

The Westwick Obelisk continued to be a popular attraction throughout the 19th century, when the grounds were opened up to clubs and societies. The Churchman’s Club visited in 1877 and members admired the view from the top of the obelisk. Hasbro’ (Happisburgh) lighthouse could be seen, as well as ‘smoke of the coast-wise steamers, and the top-sails of passing vessels’.

The dilapidated obelisk is today engulfed in trees, so that its purpose as an eye-catcher and belvedere has been completely lost, even in deepest winter. Not that one would attempt to climb it, as the lantern superstructure has largely disappeared, and what survives is in poor condition. And as can be seen, the Westwick Estate does not encourage visitors.

The obelisk might be in a sorry state today, but it does at least survive, unlike its complementary adornment a short distance away. At the former entrance to the park is a pair of very attractive lodges: until 1981 they flanked a handsome arch, which like the obelisk and the lodges was decorated with pebble rustication and knapped flint. Discussions were underway to protect the arch (which was in a dangerous condition) as a listed building, but the owner pressed ahead with demolition before the process could be completed, and within a day no trace was left. The lovely lodges survive astride the B1150 Norwich Road.

The only trace of the arch today is a view of it, and the obelisk, on the very charming village sign.

For more of George Plunkett’s photographs of old Norfolk visit http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk

If you would like to share any thoughts, memories, or information, please scroll down to the Comments box below. Thank you for reading. 

Parlington Park is close to Aberford, south of Wetherby, on the old Great North Road. An architectural highlight of the landscape park is this Triumphal Arch, constructed in the early 1780s to definitively declare Sir Thomas Gascoigne’s stance on the ongoing war with America. Its inscription begins LIBERTY IN N AMERICA TRIUMPHANT, an unequivocal statement that Sir Thomas was firmly on the side of the colonists. The Folly Flâneuse has written about the arch before, but is revisiting to mark the Fourth of July, Independence Day in the U.S.A., and to look at a very curious moment in the modern history of the monument.

Gascoigne had first planned an arch in 1780, perhaps to commemorate his renunciation of the Catholic church and conversion to the Church of England, which allowed him to successfully stand as a Member of Parliament, or perhaps to mark his intention to settle at his Yorkshire estate. But this is merely conjecture, and there is no clue in the simple stone bearing his name and date shown in the sketch above. Executed in a proficient amateur hand the elevation survives in the family papers, and Sir Thomas himself has been suggested as the artist.

Gascoigne (1745-1810) supported the Whig party, of which a leading light was the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham of Wentworth Woodhouse, a fellow Yorkshire landowner. The party advocated independence for the American colonies, and did not support George III’s policy of prolonging the war until the Americans were subdued. Hence the decision to make the arch a monument to the American victory.

Moving on from the initial rough sketch of 1780 Gascoigne commissioned architect Thomas Leverton to draw up plans, and his ‘Design for an arch now building…’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1781. The decision on a dedication was made the following year, when Gascoigne intended a long inscription reading: ‘To that Virtue which for a series of Years resisted Oppression & by a glorious Peace rescued its Country & Millions from Slavery. T.G. Dedicates this Arch. 1782’. But by the time the arch was nearing completion the treaties known as the Peace of Paris had been signed, formally ending the war, and Sir Thomas had carved on the arch a short and succinct statement:

LIBERTY IN N AMERICA TRIUMPHANT MDCCCLXXXIII

The house at Parlington was largely demolished in the 1950s and the park sold in the 1960s. When Nicholas Pevsner published his West Riding volume of The Buildings of England in 1959 he described the arch, and was particularly impressed with the quality of the lettering. Dr Alexander Lock recently discovered that Pevsner was involved in a rather bizarre scheme to relocate the arch: in 1975 Pevsner suggested that the monument be taken down and transported across the Atlantic, proposing the arch as a gift to the American nation to celebrate the bicentenary of Independence the following year. Pevsner’s motion seems to have been taken seriously, but ultimately the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was coordinating Britain’s contribution to the celebrations, rejected the idea. Upon consideration, the officers thought the arch did not have ‘sufficient historical significance or contemporary relevance to make it a worthy gift’.

The Folly Flâneuse begs to differ: this one landscape ornament is a unique monument to a major epoch in British history. Surely the heritage lobby would not have let it happen, but luckily it did not have to be put to the test. There’s no explanation why Pevsner would suggest that the British government should give away an important arch which they didn’t even own. Giving the eminent scholar the benefit of the doubt, only fragments of the house remained, the park had been divided in a major sale ten years earlier, and the arch was by then described in The Dalesman as ‘derelict and forlorn’; so perhaps he thought it would be better off cherished in America than decrepit in Yorkshire.

The civil servants also revived the idea, first discussed during WWII, of gifting one of the surviving copies of the Magna Carta to the United States (and no, the government didn’t own one of those, either). This too was dismissed, and instead Britain decided to loan one of the British Library’s two copies of the Magna Carta to Washington, where it would be on display for a year. In July 1975 the idea was discussed in the House of Lords. Lord Shepherd introduced the proposal, saying that the Magna Carta would be thought suitable ‘by most people who treasure democracy’. The irony was not lost on Lord Carrington, who said:
‘If I may be permitted just one reflection, I am sure we are the only people in the world who would celebrate a considerable defeat by sending something we value 3,000 miles across the ocean; but I suppose we are none the worse for that.’

The Magna Carta went to Washington, where it was displayed in the Rotunda of the Capitol in a ‘specially made showcase box over a gold replica which will be revealed when the original is returned’. Happily the arch stayed in Parlington. In the end it was George W. Turner of Elma, Washington, who brought it to the notice of the American public: he ‘discovered’ the arch when in England in 1975, and the Bicentennial Times reported that the ‘American monument’ could be found ‘tucked away in Parlington Park, near Yorkshire, England’.

At the time of writing in 2020, the date 4th of July will be celebrated in England for a very different reason: cafes, art galleries (to pick personal favourites) and many other businesses will be able to reopen as the Covid19 lockdown is eased (Scotland and Wales have to wait a little longer). The Folly Flâneuse would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped with images and information during this period when resources, and the chance to travel, have not been available. Hopefully flâneusing further afield can be resumed very soon. Wishing everyone good health, happiness and a haircut.

You can see more of Chris Broughton’s wonderful illustrations here https://chrisbroughtonartist.co.uk

And discover the work of the splendid New Arcadian Press here https://www.newarcadianpress.co.uk

Thanks to Brian Hull for the main image. You can visit his excellent Parlington website here  http://www.parlington.co.uk

For an earlier post on Parlington see https://thefollyflaneuse.com/triumphal-arch-and-sham-ruin-parlington-park-aberford-west-yorkshire/

Writing in Tatler magazine in 1961 the writer, and champion of the British countryside, Ronald Blythe, questioned why follies were common in the countryside, but seldom found in the city. Long before the ‘concrete and glass’ that constituted the cities in Blythe’s mind, costly and extravagant ornamental structures could be found on the streets of the capital. These were the triumphal arches built to celebrate the coronation of a new monarch.

Three arches, created as part of the pomp and pageantry surrounding the coronation of James I, feature in a new exhibition by internationally acclaimed artist Ed Kluz. Facades, his new show at the John Martin Gallery in Mayfair, looks at London and includes ‘reconstructions’, in paper collage and oil, of the arches. Always intended to be temporary additions to the London streets, they were built in wood and then plastered, painted, and peopled with ‘engines’ – automata animated from behind the scenes.

The James I coronation pageant was a cause for particular celebration, as it had been postponed due to an outbreak of plague. The 1603 epidemic, coming soon after James I had inherited the throne, caused devastation in London and further afield. The festivities were held over until the following year, when they also marked the city’s recovery and resilience.

Stephen Harrison, architect of the arches, thought his designs would live on only in ‘the tongues and memories of men’, but he hadn’t counted on London’s flourishing print trade. The James I arches were recorded for posterity in a series of annotated engravings, thus allowing Ed Kluz’s programme of ‘rebuilding’ in 2019.

The tradition of building temporary triumphal arches continued over the centuries, as did the publishing of plates:

©Victoria and Albert Museum, E.424_1898. Triumphal arch designed by William Kent. Erected and painted on the West End of Westminster Stall for the Coronation of his Majesty King George the Second and Queen Caroline. October the 11th 1727.

A new take on the genre was Eric Bedford’s design for illuminated steel arches across The Mall at the coronation of the Queen Elizabeth II.

To see Ed’s vibrant works and learn more, you will need to visit the John Martin Gallery on Albemarle Street before 5 October. As a further incentive other works include palaces, pleasure pavilions and pagodas.

https://www.jmlondon.com/exhibitions/facades-by-ed-kluz/