I could wish to lounge about the Country in Search of Antiquity, and the Beauties of Nature: finding myself at an Inn, free, unembarrassed.
John Byng, 1789

Byng’s words were written in a different context, but how relevant they seem after a year of lockdowns which ended in tiers.

Thank you to everyone who has helped The Folly Flâneuse in 2020. With travel curtailed, and archives and museums closed, research has been something of a challenge, and the range of potential sites rather limited. I am therefore hugely grateful to all those who have given permission to use images, and helped with information to fill the gaps.

So until 2021, here is Codgers Fort, on the Wallington estate in Northumberland, one of the first follies to capture the attention of the Folly Flâneuse in her formative years. The image is courtesy of the wonderful geograph.org.uk project, which aims to collect photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland.

I hope 2021 brings you good news, the chance to see family and friends, opportunities to travel and explore, and above all good health.

The Folly Flâneuse is taking a short break and will be back in the New (and hopefully much improved) Year.

On recent sedate tours of Britain The Folly Flâneuse was intrigued to find two pairs of pavilions which had sadly lost their principal part. Near Towcester in Northamptonshire are the Palladian pavilions that once flanked a fine house. Meanwhile at Mistley in Essex the twin towers of a Robert Adam church have long since lost their linking nave. The surviving pairs are, however, far from forlorn and seem to be throughly enjoying their independence.

The mansion at Stoke Park  was built for Francis Crane in c.1630 and is attributed, with some authority, to Inigo Jones. It is claimed as the first house in Britain to use the Palladian model of a central villa with two flanking pavilions linked by colonnades. This is of course ironic, as the main block was destroyed by fire in 1886 leaving only the pavilions. Curiously, when a new house was built a few years after the fire, it was constructed on a virgin site behind the eastern pavilion rather than on the footprint of the lost house. Stoke Park was requisitioned by the military during World War Two, and allowed to fall into decline when the war ended.

Robert Duff Chancellor became the saviour of Stoke Park when he bought the estate in 1954. He demolished the derelict Victorian house, leaving only a very pretty service wing, and put all of his efforts into restoring the pavilions, with one being converted into a private home. The setting, with ornamental pond and overflowing borders is fabulous.

Until 1928 the estate had stayed in the hands of the same family for around 300 years, but had never once passed from father to son.  Stoke Park then had a number of commercial owners until Robert Chancellor bought it in 1954. He bequeathed it to his nephew, Alexander Chancellor, and as he and his wife Susanna have only daughters the pattern looks set to continue for another couple of generations at least.

At Mistley in Essex two elegant towers look out across the estuary of the River Stour, close to the border with Suffolk. These towers are also the work of a major architect, in this case Robert Adam who designed only one other church: Gunton in Norfolk.

Robert Rigby of Mistley Hall had grandiose plans to turn Mistley into a spa and attract prosperous visitors to the area. The mediaeval church was not considered an attraction so Rigby asked Adam to come up with something a little more modern and elegant. Sadly, Rigby’s plans came to nothing, and by the mid 19th century Adam’s design was in turn considered dated.  Another new church was built nearby, but the towers of the Adam church were remodelled to make them symmetrical and left standing as seamarks for ships on the river.

The towers were sold to local families who planned to use them as mausolea but this plan also failed*. The pavilions were restored in the 1950s and are now in the care of English Heritage.

The Stoke Park Pavilions are used as a stunning wedding and events venue, but are open to the public from 24 July to 20 August 2019 between 3pm and 6pm. Don’t miss this chance to visit. http://www.stokeparkpavilions.co.uk

The exteriors of Mistley Towers can be visited at any time, and the key to one of the towers is available locally, for more information see https://www.englishheritage.org.uk/visit/places/mistley-towers/

* There is however a very curious black granite mausoleum in the churchyard, the resting place of the Norman family.

Bishopthorpe, a few miles outside York, has been home to the Archbishops of York for centuries. In the 1760s Archbishop Drummond added a new facade to the palace, constructed a gatehouse, and rebuilt the village church. His architect of choice was Thomas Atkinson, a respected designer but a curious choice as he was a Roman Catholic*. All three structures were built in a whimsical gothick style, much of the stone coming from the ancient former episcopal palace at Cawood, a few miles south. When first built the three buildings formed an ensemble around a small ornamental lake, sadly long since drained. 

By the late 19th century the situation of the church on the waterlogged and eroding bank of the river Ouse was causing concern. A flood in 1892 washed bodies out of graves and the ‘inadequate and damp’ church was abandoned a few years later. In 1899 a new church was consecrated and such fittings as could be reused were transferred from the old to new church. The Consistory Court in York then issued a decree that the old church could be taken down.

With its useful life as a place of worship ended the church was adapted as a delightful landscape ornament. It is not clear who decided to leave the facade of the old church to stand as an eye-catcher, but they are to be congratulated for it is a lovely feature in a tranquil spot by the river. One contender must be Archbishop Maclagan, whose palace overlooked the old church. Or perhaps his good friend the vicar of Bishopthorpe, Canon J.R. Keble, who was the key mover in getting the new church built, may have wanted to save a piece of village history?

The former churchyard with its folly, tucked away from the main street overlooking the river, became a tranquil haven and was a particular favourite of the composer William Baines. The Folly Flâneuse is hugely grateful to Linda Haywood, manager of the Bishopthorpe Village Archive, for introducing her to this largely-forgotten musician. Baines died aged only 23, but not before he had composed a vast body of work. In his last years he lived in York and often walked to Bishopthorpe where the ‘enchanted lake’, a pond in the Palace grounds, inspired a composition, and where his favourite place was the old churchyard; ‘What a divine spot it is’, he wrote, with the church facade ‘covered partly with creeping roses and ivy’.

The roses and ivy have gone, as has the bell that Baines saw, but it remains a divine spot thanks to the work of the St Andrews Trust, a small charity formed to safeguard the folly. The trust masterminded an exemplary restoration in 2002, which included reinstating the window tracery. The crumbling stonework had been taken into storage in 1979, and craftsmen were able to copy it using matching magnesian limestone sourced locally in Tadcaster.

The Bishopthorpe facade is petite in comparison with another eye-catcher at Guisborough, in the Tees Valley, in the far north east of Yorkshire. The Augustinian Gisborough [sic] Priory was taken down during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century, but the Chaloner family later restored the Gothic east end as the termination of a walk in the grounds of their nearby seat. The Folly Flâneuse visited with the Yorkshire Gardens Trust on the wettest day imaginable when the folly looked particularly dramatic.

A warming cup of tea was in order at Gisborough Hall, a 19th century seat of the Chaloner family now a hotel, where an extra treat was the discovery of this model of the folly facade made of alum. The Gisborough area was once a centre for alum production, essential for fixing dyes, and the Chaloner family developed a factory. As human urine was a necessary for the manufacturing process, it is surely no coincidence that this wee model can be found by the hotel loos.

For more on the St Andrews Trust see http://standrewstrust.co.uk

And click here for more on the Yorkshire Gardens Trust (which, rest assured, arranges visits on glorious days as well as wet) https://www.yorkshiregardenstrust.org.uk

Thanks to The Decorative Friend for a lovely day in Bishopthorpe

* Atkinson is not named on the website of the current Archbishop of York where the gatehouse is said to be by John Carr.