In the 1760s Sir Thomas Wentworth* (1726-1792) of Bretton Hall, near Wakefield, set about landscaping his park. Initially, he employed Richard Woods, a professional landscape designer, but soon decided he could manage just as well on his own. In the 1770s he added to his grand design without recourse to even the most eminent landscaper of the age: Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. A second lake would, he told friends, be completed without the help of ‘Capability or any such pretending Rogues’.

In 1769 the first lake was embellished with an island on which Sir Thomas built ‘a little Gothic Temple … where a dozen might be sociable’, shown here in a sketch by the itinerant artist and drawing master J.C. Nattes. The Temple was the centrepiece when Sir Thomas threw a grand party in 1771. A ‘genteel cold collation’ was served at the building, which was illuminated with lamps. As guests sailed up the lake in Sir Thomas’s boat, The Aurora, a band played, fireworks were set off and a huge bonfire blazed at the end of the lake.

Although Sir Thomas described the temple as gothic it had in fact two facades, one gothic and one with a pediment. This classical front is known only from another sketch by Nattes in the collection of the National Trust at Stourhead. The architect was probably John Carr of York.

Sir Thomas wrote that he intended to dedicate the temple to Bacchus, god of wine, and Venus, goddess of love, and planned to erect statues of the two deities on the island . The building housed a pantry and kitchen and a bedroom above; the former presumably the haunt of Bacchus and the latter the domain of Venus. The baronet was a rake, who vowed never to marry, but kept a mistress and, in the manner of the age, exercised his droit de seigneur. He fathered a number of children, four of whom lived in his household and were accepted by polite society.

If only Sir Thomas had crossed paths with the French architect Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826) he might have been tempted to build a more daring structure in which to conduct his dalliances. The Folly Flâneuse was very sorry to miss a recent exhibition in Paris which featured Lequeu’s exotic output. Sir Thomas might have been tempted by this garden pavilion with its ‘Hammock of Love’, complete with ecstatic couple.

There’s more on all of Lequeu’s erections here https://gallica.bnf.fr/html/und/images/jean-jacques-lequeu

Already ruinous when it was photographed by Country Life in 1938, the temple at Bretton was demolished as unsafe after the mansion became a college in the later decades of the 19th century. The park at Bretton is now home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park https://ysp.org.uk and the mansion is currently being restored as a hotel http://www.rushbond.co.uk/our-projects/bretton-hall-estate-wakefield/

*He took the name Blackett in 1777.

Root houses, so named because they incorporated natural materials such as tree trunks, branches, bark, moss or heather, became key features of gardens and parks in the 18th century. On the Cannon Hall estate near Barnsley a particualrly lovely example can be found. It stands at the end of a ride through Deffer Wood, with views out onto a green meadow.

Richard Payne Knight summed up the genre in his poem The Landscape in 1794:

The cover’d seat, that shelters from the storm,
May oft a feature of the landscape form,
Whether composed of native stumps and roots,
It spreads the creeper’s rich fantastic shoots;

Often such structures were associated with solitude and being, literally, at one with nature. Walter Spencer Stanhope of Cannon Hall, near Barnsley, composed ‘Verses wrote in a Root House’ which begins:

Beneath these shaggy Roots grotesque & rude
A Spot retired for lonely musing made
Let all be peace – no lowering thoughts intrude
No passions fierce disturb ye gentle shade.

Spencer Stanhope’s poem describes how the country brought solace to his ‘harassed mind’. He seems to have had a rustic summerhouse at his seat at Horsforth, near Leeds, as well as this summer house at Deffer Wood, a short ride from Cannon Hall, so we can’t be sure which building is the subject of the poem. Deffer Wood was a favourite retreat, for hunting as well as relaxing, and Spencer Stanhope continued to develop the plantations in the early 19th century when he laid out new rides in the wood.

The poem concludes:

Such the loved leisure, such the genuine Joys
Of rural life ye healthful happy lot
Haste then from London’s wealth & smoke & noise
To Simple pleasures and the Sylvan Grot

The simple pleasures of Deffer Wood were threatened with smoke and noise in 1950 when a plan was announced to start open-cast mining in the wood. The local councils worked together to obtain a preservation order for Deffer Wood as a local beauty spot. The summer house had fallen into disrepair but was listed as Grade II in 1987 and then beautifully restored in 1991. The wood is owned by the Cannon Hall Estate which allows public access.

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Some great news. A joint statement from Barnsley Council, the National Trust and the Northern College was issued early this morning announcing that the future of Wentworth Castle now ‘looks more secure’. The three bodies have been in discussion since the site closed in April 2017, and now plan on ‘working collaboratively’ towards a reopening in 2019. Wentworth Castle is the only Grade I listed Park in South Yorkshire and has an outstanding collection of follies and landscape buildings, including Stainborough Castle pictured here. The house (which houses the Northern College and is not currently open to the public), the gardens and the landscape buildings were restored at great cost, largely thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, to secure their future. This new alliance must build on that work to ensure that Wentworth is enjoyed by the people of South Yorkshire and beyond.

The full press release is here:

https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/news/new-partnership-set-to-secure-the-future-of-wentworth-castle-gardens-in-south-yorkshire/