architecture, Bell tower, belvedere, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, Kent, landscape, Mausoleum, Observatory, Tower

Waterloo Tower, Quex Park, Birchington, Kent

John Powell Powell (1769-1849 – the double Powell acquired to meet the conditions of an inheritance) was passionate about bell-ringing and erected this ‘light, elegant and fanciful building’ at Quex Park, his seat in Kent, where his hobby could be indulged. Not content with a lofty tower, he almost doubled its height with a unique cast iron spire – years before a certain Parisian landmark took shape.

architecture, country house, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, landscape garden, Menagerie, South Yorkshire, Temple

The Gothic Temple, Wentworth Castle, South Yorkshire

In the middle of the 18th century the Earl of Strafford was embellishing his seat at Wentworth Castle near Barnsley in South Yorkshire. A new wing was added to the mansion and the grounds were decorated with temples, columns and garden seats. Strafford asked his lifelong friend Horace Walpole for advice on an ornament for his menagerie, and this little gothic temple was the result.

architecture, country house, Devon, Folly, Temple

Agatha Christie’s ‘Dead Man’s Folly’

In 1954 Agatha Christie wrote a novella which was intended to raise money for her local church. Upon completion she was so taken with the story that she decided to develop it into a full novel, and submitted a different story to the fundraising effort. The work she had originally written was called Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly, and this work was expanded and eventually published in 1956 as Dead Man’s Folly. 

architecture, Art, Column, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, Grotto, hermitage, Monument, Rustic shelter, sham castle

Follies and Pharmaceuticals: a Curious Concoction

Barbara Jones is best known to readers of these pages as the author of Follies & Grottoes (1953, revised 1974), the first book to consider the subject of garden and landscape buildings in any detail. She also wrote books about popular art, erotic postcards and furniture amongst other subjects, and as an illustrator and designer her work appeared in magazines, on calendars, dustjackets, greetings telegrams and much, much more.

architecture, country house, eyecatcher, Folly, Somerset

Jack the Treacle Eater, Barwick Park, Somerset

This unique structure, topped with a statue, stands close to Yeovil, in Somerset, one of a small group of curious constructions erected in Barwick Park. The folly was probably built by John Newman (1717-1799) in the middle of the 18th century, but by the early 20th century it had become know as ‘Jack the Treacle Eater’ and strange stories were told about Jack’s career and nocturnal activities.

architecture, Bell tower, country house, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, landscape garden, Norfolk

The Clock Tower, Little Ellingham Hall, Norfolk

In the 1850s John Tingey, a Norfolk merchant with a passion for agriculture, began to develop a small estate in the village of Little Ellingham near Attleborough, in Norfolk. Despite investing heavily in new buildings and technology, he was not the owner of the land, and claimed his vast complex of farm buildings was the largest range ‘ever erected by a tenant farmer in England’. But the practical Tingey wasn’t averse to a little bit of ornament, as this clock tower/cottage curiosity attests.

architecture, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, landscape, Monument, Shropshire

The Folly, Hodnet Hall, Hodnet, Shropshire

In a field close across the road from the principal entrance to Hodnet Hall in Shropshire are what appear to be the remains of a classical temple. Three Ionic columns are intact, two of which support a fragment of pediment, and a fourth pillar is in ruins. But whilst the columns are Georgian in date, this is not the ruin of an 18th century landscape ornament, for the eye-catcher was only erected in the 1960s.