Cook’s Castle and the Obelisk, Appuldurcombe, Isle of Wight

Sir Richard Worsley inherited his father’s baronetcy, and the Appuldurcombe estate on the Isle of Wight, in 1768. The following year set off on the Grand Tour, and on his return in 1770 he turned his attention to remodelling the house and park. In the next few years he erected two eye-catchers to be seen from the mansion: an obelisk and a dramatic hilltop sham ruin called Cook’s Castle.

The origin of the name Cook’s Castle is uncertain, but it is named as such on a 1773 estate plan. In the eighteenth century there was no good road to the folly, and in 1793 Henry Penruddocke Wyndham was frustrated by the effort that was required to reach the ruins. He concluded that the sham castle did not ‘deserve such exertions’, as the building was too ‘regular’, that is it was too neat to be a genuine ruin. His mistake seems to have been to view the folly at close quarters: Sir Richard Worsley (1751-1805) himself described the sham in his History of the Isle of Wight, published in 1781, and makes it clear that the ‘ruin of an ancient castle’ was intended as ‘a point of view from the house’. Maps from the middle of the nineteenth century also show it as a series of three towers connected by a curtain wall, but as an engraving from the same period illustrates, the central tower had by then collapsed.

Visitors who looked to the folly from the mansion were impressed, and even the oft-critical commentator on landscape Revd William Gilpin found much to praise. He described Appuldurcombe House as ‘magnificent’, and thought the grounds equally impressive. Cook’s Castle was, he wrote, ‘well executed and […] well placed’. A traveller in 1798 noted the ‘modern ruin’, and thought it had a ‘better effect from the house than is usual for such buildings to have’.

A century later, with improved roads and the coming of the railway, Cook’s Castle and its ‘picturesque grounds’ had become a favourite picnic spot for excursionists and society outings. Few were fooled by the supposed ancient ruin, and John Gwilliam expressed his feelings in verse in 1845:

There was of course a downside to the popularity of the spot, which was featured in countless guidebooks, and by 1887 there were concerns that the folly was being damaged by vandals. The sham ruin quickly became a genuine one, and by the middle of the twentieth century there was nothing at all to be seen. Only a stone now marks the approximate spot where Cook’s Castle once stood.

Sir Richard also erected a ‘Cornish granite obelisk, near seventy feet high’ to the memory of Sir Robert Worsley 4th bart, who died in 1747 (the fourth baronet died without issue and the Appuldurcombe estate was left to a cousin who was Sir Richard’s grandfather). Built on a ‘bare down’, the obelisk was completed in 1774 and commemorated Sir Robert’s ‘long and exemplary life’, and Sir Richard’s gratitude that he had succeeded to the estate.

The monument was visible from miles around, but this exposed spot made it vulnerable to the elements. Having been repaired after a lightning strike in 1831, it was ‘blown down’ in a gale in December 1836.

The lower stages of the obelisk were restored in 1983, resulting in a stubby little monument, which is no longer a great landmark and eye-catcher…

The only major landscape ornament to survive at Appuldurcombe today is the elegant Freemantle Gate (grade II*), described in c.1779 as a ‘handsome Gateway of the Ionic Order’.

It is not clear who designed the obelisk and folly castle, but the antiquarian Sir Richard is likely to have played a part. A possible candidate is William Donn, who worked for Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown before setting up on his own: he was paid almost £4,000 for work at Appuldurcombe between 1774 and 1782. Donn was crossing to the Isle of Wight in 1777 and chatted to a fellow traveller. The tourist noted in his journal that Donn was working for Sir Richard, and described him as being ’employed in undertaking to build Houses and to lay out Gardens for Gentlemen’ (thanks to the Garden Historian for this brilliant reference).

Capability Brown himself did visit Appuldurcombe in October 1779, and sent a plan for improvements the following summer. Sadly Sir Richard’s accounts of work on the house and park are not known to survive, so many questions about who did what, and when, remain unanswered, but the sham castle and obelisk pre-date Brown’s plan.

Appuldurcombe House (grade I) is in the care of English Heritage and can be visited in the summer season. It was a roofless shell for many years but has been partially restored as a wedding venue. There’s more here.

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