Enville, together with Hagley and The Leasowes, was one of the triumvirate of famed eighteenth-century Midland estates. The seat of the Earl of Stamford, it was ornamented with a variety of features: some have disappeared over the years, but fortunately many survive. A number of regular readers were intrigued by the image of the exquisite Museum at Enville which appeared in these pages in April, and asked to know more. So the Folly Flâneuse asked The Garden Historian, aka Dr Michael Cousins, to explain its history…

Various contenders for designer of the unusual garden building have surfaced: Sanderson Miller, the gentleman (i.e. amateur) architect who favoured the Gothick style, for one. Discussion with his mason about ‘Ld Stamfords Green House’ was underway in October 1749 and he spent the rest of that month, and most of the next, drawing up a design. Miller (1716-1780), besides his own inclination to the ‘Gothick’, had a well-stocked library to call upon that included Batty Langley’s Ancient Architecture Restored and Improved (1741/2). This was a pattern book which builders and owners used for ideas, and may have provided inspiration. By June 1750 William Shenstone, the poet and acquaintance of Stamford, was able to note the new ‘Gothick Greenhouse’ at Enville.

By 1756 Miller’s building had been renamed, with the peregrinatious Dr Pococke noting an elegant ‘Gothick Summer house of Mr Millers design’. Clearly then the greenhouse and summerhouse were one and the same building, and although it has been suggested that the first incarnation of the greenhouse was a wooden structure, no evidence has come to light to support this.

Sandy Haynes, the former archivist at and authority on Enville also concludes that the greenhouse and summerhouse were two names for the same building, writing that: ‘Sanderson Miller’s name is mentioned by too many different sources to be discounted and although Pococke refers to it as a summer-house there is no other building at Enville that he could be describing.’ Sadly no records seem to survive in which the exact use of the building is noted, so we don’t know for sure if the building ever housed plants or was simply a pleasure pavilion, or dual purpose.

By 1770 the building had been repurposed as a billiard room. Joseph Heely’s guidebook of c.1773 described it as being fitted out with a billiard table, a chamber organ, and ‘the inside richly adorned with stucco, the cieling remarkably so’. This work is more difficult to date: Haynes believes that it was during the transition to billiard room that the building acquired its elaborate interior plasterwork, and this brings in another contender: Henry Keene (1726-1776). This rare photograph of the inside of the building as it was in March 1952 shows stucco work that bears a strong resemblance to that in the chapel at Hartlebury Castle in Worcestershire, which Keene refitted and reroofed in the Gothic style in around 1750.

The association between Miller and Henry Keene was strong, with the two working together at Hagley in Worcestershire, Chart Park in Surrey and at Arbury in Warwickshire (where Keene probably took up reins as architect following Miller’s deteriorating mental ill-health at the end of 1759) and it is possible that he undertook the interior work of Enville’s summerhouse. To add to the naming confusion the summerhouse was referred to as a ‘Gothic room’ in 1759, yet was still being called a greenhouse by a visitor as late as 1777.

In 1846, soon after the 7th Earl of Stamford inherited, it was refurbished as a Museum for the display of ‘shells, fossils and curiosities’, and that name has now stuck for almost two centuries. By the middle of the twentieth century the building had decayed significantly and its plight gained public attention. Ultimately the principal structure was restored and reroofed by William Hawkes of Cave-Browne-Cave architects in 1988-9. The interior awaits restoration.

There was another Gothic feature at Enville, a ‘Gothic Seat’ which is sometimes misinterpreted as Miller’s building. It is mentioned in a letter of 1754 from John Ivory Talbot of Lacock Abbey to Miller  ‘at Enville we saw an Horrid Massacre of a Fine Gothick design of yours: committed by the Hands of some Shrewsbury man…’ (it was an occasional hazard for architects to have their plans tweaked by owners or masons as soon as their backs were turned). Haynes believes it was the Gothic Seat sited at the west edge of Essex Wood that Talbot was referring to – no views survive, and it fails to get mentioned in any visitors’ accounts after 1759 and so probably disappeared soon after.

Enville is a private estate but opens very occasionally for special events. Keep an eye on their website for details https://envilleestate.com

Please get in touch if you have any thoughts or further information – scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the comments box. Please note that your email address will not be published – only your name will appear. Thank you for reading, and thank you to Michael for this guest post.

In the early 18th century Bramham Park, just south of Wetherby in West Yorkshire, was the seat of Robert Benson, 1st Baron Bingley. His laying-out of the park was summarised by Lady Oxford after her visit in 1745: ‘Lord Bingley has adorned a barren country in a most delightful manner with water and wood walks’. The next generation continued his work, and their additions included a little gothic temple which could be seen from different viewpoints in the gardens.

Benson died in 1731, and the title expired with him. Bramham passed to his daughter Harriet, and her husband George Fox, and the couple continued to improve the landscape. In the summer of 1750 the prolific diarist and traveller Bishop Pococke visited Bramham and wrote that there was a ‘Gothick building not quite finished’. The architect of the little temple is not known, but in fact all that Harriet and George really needed was a competent stonemason, for the design was taken directly from a recently published pattern book: Batty Langley’s Ancient Architecture of 1742.

Batty Langley (1696-1751) first dabbled in garden design before switching his focus to architecture. He was an excellent self-publicist, and confidently described his designs as ‘Exceeding every Thing thats Extant’. His brother Thomas supplied the engravings, but seems to have received little of the credit.

Pattern books were guides to the latest taste in architecture, with engraved designs that could be copied by gentlemen and their builders. Sometimes the plates just provided inspiration, and the plans could be tweaked to suit their purpose, but at Bramham however the design was followed very closely.

In the 19th and into the 20th century the building was surrounded by formal flower beds and statuary, as shown in this sketch and watercolour, and in the many postcards views that were printed.

In 1828 there was a devastating fire in the mansion at Bramham, and the house then stood empty for many years (although the gardens were maintained as the family continued to live nearby). In the first decades of the 20th century Col George and the Hon Mrs Lane Fox set to work to restore the house and grounds. They converted the Gothic Temple into a water tower, removing the original pointed roof, and fitting concrete beams on which the tank could sit under a flat roof.

In 1958 the next generation, Col ‘Joe’ and the Hon Mrs Lane Fox (the current owner’s grandparents), restored the interior plasterwork, with the support of the Historic Buildings Council and the expertise of the Plastering Instructors at Leeds College of Technology and Halifax Technical College. The Hon Mrs Lane Fox then commissioned the garden designer James Russell to lay out the grounds around the temple and the adjacent bowling green and dogs’ graves.

In recent years the present owner, Nick Lane Fox, has remodelled the area, and reopened views into the Black Fen parkland, as was originally suggested in John Wood’s 1728 design for the park. All but a couple of the best trees were removed, and the meadows replanted with traditional grasses and wildflowers. Nick is very pleased with the results (although not so keen on the days he had to spend digging out thistles), with the meadows now looking as ‘if they have been there forever’. He has plans to rebuild the roof to the original pointed design as soon as funds are available.

Almost certainly contemporary with the building at Bramham was the Gothic Temple at Davenport House in Shropshire, the seat of Sharington Davenport. The temple, based on the same Batty Langley design, is sadly long gone, but some years ago historian John Harris recognised the temple’s design source when examining a painting of Davenport House by Thomas Robins. Sharington Davenport was laying out his grounds at Davenport House in the same period that the Bramham temple was erected. 

Also based on Langley’s design is the frontage of an ornate cottage in County Kildare in Ireland. Lady Louisa Connolly added the gothic facade to an existing cottage in 1785, creating an eyecatcher from the river walk on her Castletown estate.

Touring Painshill in Surrey in 1761 Horace Walpole, aesthete and social commentator, noted ‘the Gothic building […] taken from Battey Langley’s book’. Unlike the Bramham or Castletown buildings, the Painshill temple is not a literal translation of any of Langley’s published designs, and it is not clear why Walpole made the connection. But it did give Walpole, who was no fan of Langley, an excuse for a moan: he thought the temple an ‘unmeaning edifice’ and objected to the use of the gothic style for a garden pavilion because, he opined, ‘the Goths never built summer-houses or temples’.

The gardens and landscape at Bramham can be explored, but prior arrangement is necessary as the park is sometimes closed for special events https://www.bramhampark.co.uk

Batty Langley Lodge at Castletown is available for holidays via the Irish Landmark Trust https://www.irishlandmark.com/property/batty-langley-lodge/

The temple at Painshill (GII*) is just one of the beautifully restored landscape ornaments in the park https://www.painshill.co.uk

The wonderful Robins painting of Davenport House is on long-tern loan to the Bath Preservation Trust and can be seen at their museum No 1 Royal Crescent in Bath https://no1royalcrescent.org.uk

You can find out more about Thomas Robins and his wonderful views of gardens in Cathryn Spence’s excellent and lavishly illustrated new book on his work: Nature’s Favourite Child: Thomas Robins and the Art of the Georgian Garden https://www.stephen-morris.co.uk

For more on Batty Langley see https://thegardenstrust.blog/2017/08/05/batty-goes-gothick/

Thank you for reading. If you would like to share any thoughts or further information please scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page.

In 1987 Save Britain’s Heritage, the charity which campaigns to save historic buildings from needless destruction, published Pavilions in Peril, a report into the great number of garden buildings in Britain that faced an uncertain future. In drawing attention to historic buildings that are vacant and whose future is uncertain, the charity hoped to identify new owners able to repair and/or find a new use for the structures, thus securing their future. 33 years after that report was written The Folly Flâneuse is delighted to write that there have been some fabulous restorations (see link below to an earlier post), but read on for the not-so-good news…

The report’s author, Julia Abel Smith, researched 54 case studies, and sadly two of the featured structures have disappeared forever. The classical Temple to Pitt at Coleby Hall in Lincolnshire, was described in 1987 as being ‘a very sad sight’, and it was demolished in the 1990s. Although it looks fairly substantial in this postcard view, it was actually wood plastered to look like stone, and therefore less able to withstand the elements.

The Bark Temple at Exton in Leicestershire, a rustic wooden summerhouse which had been deteriorating for some years, finally collapsed in 1997. There will be more on this fascinating lost building in a forthcoming guest post.

Two years after the report was published SAVE introduced a Buildings at Risk Register, and two of the buildings featured in Pavilions in Peril remain on that list today.

Despite attempts to secure its future, the Umbrello, on the privately-owned Great Saxham estate in Suffolk, has spent 33 years in peril. It is of particular interest as not only is it an unusual design, but it is built of Coade Stone, the celebrated artificial stone developed by Mrs Coade at her factory in Lambeth. Originally constructed in the late 18th or early 19th century, its design is based on a Batty Langley pattern and a Historic England report of 2001 concluded that Great Saxham may not have been its first home. There’s a link to the full report below.

Near Chichester in Sussex, stands the derelict Racton Tower, which is also on SAVE’s Buildings at Risk Register. It was designed by Theodosius Keene for the 2nd Earl of Halifax and complete by around 1770. The hilltop folly (described by Horace Walpole as ‘a very ugly Tower’) was built to take advantage of extensive views across the downs to the Isle of Wight and beyond, and as an eye-catcher from Lord Halifax’s seat at Stansted House. In the year Pavilions in Peril was published it was bought by a private owner who planned to turn it into a private house. Planning permission was granted some years ago, but has since expired, and at the time of writing a new application, from the same very patient owner, is being considered by the South Downs National Park Planning Authority.

Other buildings featured in the report remain in need of rescue. In 1987 the Belvedere at Sketty, near Swansea, was unlisted and derelict. Probably designed by the architect William Jernegan in the early 19th century, the folly contains a lovely vaulted chamber with its roof supported by a single column (likely inspired by the nearby Chapter House at Margam).

The building has the inscription ESTO PERPETUO (May it stand forever), which is somewhat ironic given its current condition, although nicely relevant when one learns that when it was conveyed to Swansea City Council there was a covenant attached forbidding demolition. The house at Sketty was demolished in 1975 and the belvedere is now surrounded by the modern housing that was built in its park. In 2015 the cash-strapped Swansea Council sold the building at auction; the sum realised was reported to be £130,000. However plans to restore the (now grade II listed) folly as a dwelling have been scuppered by a colony of bats, and it remains boarded-up and neglected.

In Yorkshire the temple at Whitley Beaumont, near Huddersfield, was thought to have a bleak future as it had lost its roof, and the fine chamber beneath was filling with rubble. Happily it still stands, although it has continued to slowly deteriorate under the combined force of vandals, the elements, and total loss of raison d’être: the estate was requisitioned for mining during the Second World War and the mansion demolished in 1952 . Attributed to James Paine, the temple was probably constructed in the early 1750s when the Beaumont family’s mansion was being remodelled. A grand terrace walk, edged with flowering shrubs, terminated at the temple from which there were extensive views. In the 1770s the building was home to a telescope and visitors were invited to admire the distant views from the elevated site, which (as reputed of every prospect tower in Yorkshire) included a view to York Minster. When invited to admire the view one guest, clearly an old hand at dealing with the boasts of owners, announced that he could most certainly see the mighty church: experience had taught him that when he found his hosts ‘resolutely determined that I shall see a thing, I always see it immediately to save trouble.’ The temple now stands rather forlornly on the edge of a quarry, as a reminder of how great the estate once was.

If you are feeling a little despondent now, see last week’s post for the good news https://thefollyflaneuse.com/pavilions-in-peril-part-i-pavilions-preserved/

This is only a selection from the buildings featured in Pavilions in Peril, but it is still in print at the absolute bargain price of £5 and is well worth the investment. You can buy it and learn more about SAVE here https://www.savebritainsheritage.org/publications/publications-in-print/3 

For the full report on the Umbrella at Great Saxham follow this link https://research.historicengland.org.uk/Report.aspx?i=15025&ru=%2FResults.aspx%3Fp%3D549

Feedback is always welcome, please scroll down to find the comments section. Thank you for reading.