Lord Littlehampton’s Folly.

In 1949 Osbert Lancaster published a history of the town of Drayneflete, with illustrations showing its development from the Bronze age to the then present day. His detailed research took him to rare historical volumes, archaeological reports and contemporary prints and photographs. With help from the Earl of Littlehampton, and local historian Miss Dracula Parsley-ffigett, he set about recording the town’s past in print. As the admiring visitors above have spotted, an interesting architectural ornament could be found in the park of Drayneflete Castle, which stood on the edge of the settlement.

As Lancaster’s history tells us, the 1st Earl of Littlehampton (died 1742) rebuilt Drayneflete Castle to a Palladian design by Hawksmoor, and the park was laid out in the French style by the great landscape designer Le Nôtre.

Of particular interest to the Flâneuse was the development of Drayneflete Castle in the eighteenth century. The 3rd Earl of Littlehampton (1749-?), went on the Grand Tour as a young man, and was painted by Batoni whilst in Rome in 1769 (like his peers he sent home crates full of antiquities and paintings). Upon his return he called upon ‘Mr Wyatt’ to remodel Drayneflete Castle in the fashionable gothic style.

The earl also employed Capability Brown, who swept away the formal avenues and canals of Le Nôtre and in their place created picturesque lakes, clumps of trees and a landscape dotted with grottoes and temples. But the earl’s pièce de résistance was his folly.

This great building was an ‘architectural curiosity expressly designed to display correct examples of all the five great schools of architecture’. Completed in 1799, the basement was an Egyptian crypt, whilst the lower storey was a cube with porticos in the Ionic, Doric, Corinthian and Tuscan orders. This supported a Gothic octagon, which in turn carried a Chinese pagoda, and the finishing touch was a cupola ‘in the Hindoo taste’. The architect is not recorded, but it would seem likely that Littlehampton himself played a part – it is known that he designed a ‘magnificent mausoleum in the Saracenic style’ after the death of his wife in 1782. It is greatly to be regretted that no further views of the park are known to survive.

Sadly Lord Littlehampton’s Folly was not to stand for many years: at the very hour that the 3rd earl expired (the exact date seems to be hard to trace) the folly was struck by lightning, destroying the uppermost sections. The Gothic octagon was taken down as unsafe in 1923, and the classical base was used as an Anti Aircraft Battery in the Second World War, before it too collapsed. All that could be seen in 1949 was the Egyptian crypt, which had been used as an air-raid shelter during the Blitz.

Like so many other fine mansions Drayneflete Castle ceased to be a family home towards the end of the nineteenth century: its future was in institutional use. The grounds became a public park, although much of it was redeveloped to meet the housing needs of the area after the Second World War.

The earls of Littlehampton retained the family portraits until the middle of the twentieth century when they sold the collection to the National Portrait Gallery (it was quietly accepted that they needed to raise funds to pay death duties). For reasons of lack of space the works were consigned to the basement, but in 1973 the outgoing director of the gallery, Roy Strong, asked Osbert Lancaster to write an illustrated catalogue of the collection. In the foreword Strong described the collection as ‘the most significant addition to the gallery’s holdings since the last war’. The catalogue was published as The Littlehampton Bequest towards the end of 1973, and it was surely the book’s great success that persuaded the National Portrait Gallery to mount a small display of works from the bequest in the spring of the following year.

By now readers may have their suspicions that all is not what it seems. Drayneflete Revealed (1949) and The Littlehampton Bequest (1973) are magnificent parodies from the pen of Osbert Lancaster (1908-1986). Drayneflete Revealed is an ‘excursion into imaginary topography’ – a spoof of the dry antiquarian accounts of many a settlement. The reviews were excellent, with Elizabeth Bowen writing in Tatler that the book was ‘exquisitely, rumbustiously and satanically enjoyable’. The novelist John Fowles noted in his copy that Lancaster’s satire ‘deserves to be ranked with Thackeray and Waugh’. Many people will have found a copy in their stocking on Christmas Day 1949.

Roy Strong, ‘with tongue in his elegant cheek’ (as The Times put it), had suggested that Lancaster write the ‘catalogue’ of the Littlehampton Bequest shortly before Strong left the NPG to become director of the Victoria & Albert Museum. In his diaries Sir Roy (he was knighted in 1982) noted that he gave copies of The Littlehampton Bequest to the National Portrait Gallery’s trustees as parting gifts at his farewell dinner.

The Littlehampton Bequest was described by The Sunday Times as ‘by far the most civilised joke of the year’. The bequest was of course entirely fictional, but the exhibition of Lancaster’s illustrations of the Littlehampton collection at the National Portrait Gallery was real.

Guests were invited to a private view in March 1974, and the exhibition continued until 30 April. A poster advertising the show could be seen around London, and the Flâneuse sought out the copy in the NPG archives.

The books are a joy to read. Lancaster’s spoofs are works of genius, for to parody history and art one must first know the subject matter very well. Copies are available in libraries and from the usual second-hand book sources. The Flâneuse thanks her Decorative Friend for the wonderful gift of copies of the books.

N.B. Lancaster admitted in 1973 that Miss Parsley-ffigett’s family history, which he had relied upon in Drayneflete Revealed, had been flawed. Updated research was published in The Littlehampton Bequest, and that is the source used here.

Coincidentally, the Flâneuse recently came across this image, which was published in a pattern book in 1752. Did Lord Littlehampton have a copy in his library?

Lancaster’s work was the subject of a delightful exhibition, Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster, at London’s Wallace Collection in 2008-2009. The accompanying book of the same name by James Knox, with significant input from John and Virginia Murray of Lancaster’s publishing house, is the best place to learn more.

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