Some Megalithic Follies.

Stimulated by seeing two very different structures, the archaeologist, scientist, gastronome and TV personality Glyn Daniel ‘thought it might be interesting to collect together a few notes about megalithic follies’. As a recognised expert in the field of genuine megaliths, Daniel was well-placed to consider the folly variety. In 1959 he published his thoughts in Antiquity, the journal of which he was editor.

Glyn Edmund Daniel (1914-1986) a fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, was appointed Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University in 1974, but alongside his academic career he had always been committed to bringing archaeology to a wider non-specialist audience (one of his obituaries noted that ‘he certainly did not play the part of the remote and ineffectual don’). He presented the BBC’s Buried Treasure and its Animal,Vegetable, Mineral? game show, and was named Television Personality of the Year in 1955. He was the editor of Antiquity from 1958 until shortly before his death, and many of his articles, like his TV work, combine deep learning with a cheerful and accessible mode of presentation.

He was also a connoisseur of fine food and wine, and his 1963 book combined his twin passions: The Hungry Archaeologist in France – A Travelling Guide to Caves, Graves and Good Living in the Dordogne and Brittany.

The two principal megalithic monuments that piqued his interest couldn’t be more different – one massive and one quite small. The first was what is now known as the Druid’s Temple near Masham in Yorkshire (of which more later – he left the best until last), and the other was ‘the representation of a megalithic monument’ on the new Chemistry building in Cambridge University.

Built by Rattee and Kett under architect John Murray Easton (1889-1975), Daniel would have seen work on the new laboratory underway from 1953. After the scaffolding around the new building was removed in 1958, Daniel records being struck by the ‘sudden sight’ of this stone panel as he walked ‘sane and sober up Lensfield Road in the city of Cambridge’. The ‘remarkable megalithic panel’ was the work of Mary Spencer Watson (1913-2006) and features chemical symbols and the university’s crest. The architect wanted a rugged feature to ‘get relief from the smoothness of brick and Portland stone’ and the artist responded with what Easton called a ‘megalithic oddity’. John Murray Easton also told Daniel that he would like to have the chance to build a ‘free standing composition of “rude” stones’ – the Flâneuse has been unable to discover if he ever found an opportunity.

Daniel, sensible chap, had a copy of Follies & Grottoes by Barbara Jones to hand. The first edition was published in 1953, and so was relatively new when Daniel was thinking about megalithic follies.

He leaves it to Jones to describe his next megalithic folly, the grotto at Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, built in 1792. Jones describes it as ‘the most Gothic of grottoes’, and Daniel’s reasoning in calling it a ‘megalithic folly’ is that he believed that three stones from a genuine antiquity (a ‘chamber tomb’ on a Tisbury farm) were used in Josiah Lane’s ‘rock-work’ (Lane and his father Joseph were prolific builder of grottoes in the Georgian period).

In his tomes on Wiltshire’s history Sir Richard Colt Hoare only says that these ‘three stones were placed near the old castle at Wardour’. And there are such large upright stones to be found at Wardour, only set up near two rustic alcoves just north of the grotto. If anything, Lane possibly fronted his grotto using smaller stones that once encircled the tomb. Either way, the site would have been a megalithic folly by Daniel’s standards.

After a passing mention of William Beckford’s ‘imitation cromlech’ at Fonthill, Daniel moved on to Alton in Staffordshire (now better known as Alton Towers). He describes the sham monument, known as ‘The Druid’s Sideboard’, as an ‘extraordinary construction of piled stones and megalithic slabs’.

‘But’, he continued, ‘the strangest and finest mock-megalith in Britain is surely the ‘temple’ on the Yorkshire moors at Ilton near Masham’. He repeats the tale told locally of how William Danby of Swinton built the folly in the 1820s (it was actually extant some years earlier) to provide work for unemployed men who were paid one shilling a day.

He illustrated his article with photographs of the ‘very remarkable structure’ and the dolmens and trilithons that stand nearby.

Daniel goes on to discuss some megalithic follies in Ireland and in France, but the Flâneuse had by now been sidetracked by the discovery of another of his pastimes – the writing of detective stories. Time for a coffee and a read…

You can see Daniel in action in episodes of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? on BBC iPlayer here and Buried Treasure here

There is full public access to the Cambridge sculpture and to the stone circle near Masham. To see the Druid’s Sideboard you will have to pay the Alton Towers entry fee and take a few rides to get your money’s worth.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts, as ever, are more than welcome. You can get in touch by scrolling down to the comments box at the foot of the page.