As the festive season approached in 1970, families would have pored over the special edition of the Radio Times to see what treats the three television channels could offer. If on New Year’s Eve had they walked across the room to warm up the set, and twiddled the knob to find BBC One, they would have seen a programme called Follies of the Wise presented by Spike Milligan. The writer, actor and comedian toured Britain looking at follies: ‘strange monuments to our ancestors and their passions’. It must have reached a good audience, broadcast at 6.45pm and sandwiched between Nationwide and The Andy Williams Show.

The programme starts with Milligan on the roof of St Peter & St Paul in Ormskirk, Lancashire. Legend has it that two sisters were unable to decide whether the church should have a tower or a spire, so eventually they built both – it is complete nonsense as the tower and spire were built a century apart, but Milligan liked the tale and composed a limerick which he recited from the rooftop:

A lady in Lancs said a spire
Is what every church must require
But her sis with a glower
Said ‘A church needs a tower’
So they built one with both … and it’s dire.

Milligan then enjoys creating a glorious gallimaufry of characters, real and imagined, to tell the story of folly building, or ‘littering great lumps around the countryside for us to contemplate’, as he calls it. The programme budget must have been generous, as in England Milligan filmed follies as far apart as Somerset and Yorkshire. In Wales he acted out the history of Paxton’s Tower, and in Scotland he visited the monument on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, McCaig’s Tower in Oban and the Pineapple at Dunmore.

At Dunmore a Scotsman (Milligan in the style of Fyfe Robertson) interviews the Earl of Dunmore (Milligan) and asks the question in the minds of all who see the structure: ‘why a pineapple?’. After a pause the earl splutters… ‘well, why not?’.

In Somerset, Milligan became Jack the Treacle Eater, the mythical messenger who climbs down from atop his monument to fortify himself with treacle before running great distances to carry news. Milligan is seen scampering up and down the rocky base to the little turret having gorged on a mug of treacle.

At the Triangular Tower in Northamptonshire Milligan becomes the ghost of Sir Thomas Tresham, and at Dunstan Pillar in Lincolnshire and West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire he plays a troubled Sir Francis Dashwood on the psychiatrist’s couch. In Yorkshire he appears at the top of Wainhouse Tower as the eponymous builder of the huge chimney. And many more follies are visited with the creation of many more characters – the Flâneuse lost count when she reached 36 costume changes.

As one TV critic commented at the time (probably quoting a BBC press-release), ‘Spike’s explanation of why they were built may sometimes be more entertaining than plausible’. Actually, he doesn’t take too many liberties with the truth until he reaches Old John tower in Bradgate Park in Leicestershire.

Here his imagination runs riot, and in the character of a colourful local he tells a gullible American tourist (also Milligan) that the tower is used for ‘fish squirting’, ‘knee-crushing’ and ‘owl riveting’ and also as a ‘nun refinery’. The reviewer for the Leicester Daily Mercury thought the programme ‘delightful’ even though an ‘odd explanation’ was given of the history of the Leicestershire landmark. This is something of an understatement, and in fact a look at the original shooting script reveals that Milligan ad libbed this wacky description.

Bringing things right up-to-date Milligan featured Centre Point, the new 34 storey tower on London’s New Oxford Street. Milligan felt it was a folly as it had cost a fortune, but had stood vacant for some years after completion. The developer was insistent that it should be let to a single tenant, and he could afford for it to sit empty until he achieved this goal. Campaigners thought it would be better used to provide temporary accommodation for London’s homeless: Centrepoint, the charity which supports homeless young people, was named after this cause célèbre. 

Milligan ended the broadcast outside the building dressed as what the BBC called a ‘Hippie’ and singing The Tombs they are a-changing – an adaptation of Bob Dylan’s hit with lyrics about the follies he has visited.

Follies of the Wise was repeated in 1971 and 1972 before disappearing into the BBC archives. The Folly Flâneuse was lucky enough to see the very grainy (hence no stills featured here), and very zany, film.

Follies of the Wise was written by Sandy Brown and Martin Pawley after an original idea by R.G.Payne, and was directed by Jim Franklin. The Costume Designer, Barbara Lane, is to be commended for providing Milligan with outfits for his many characters.

The Folly Flâneuse has made a donation to Centrepoint in recognition of the help she received with this post https://centrepoint.org.uk

A fellow folly fan remembers racing off to visit Jack the Treacle Eater in Somerset after seeing it in Milligan’s broadcast. Does anyone else remember watching? Please scroll down to the comments box to share any thoughts. Thank you for reading.

The Round Tower, aka Guy’s Folly, stood on high ground to the west of what is now the A424 between Stow on the Wold and Burford. Sadly, this lovely little folly was demolished in the 1970s to make way for a B.B.C. transmission mast. Both Napoleon and Kitchener make an appearance in its rather hazy history…

In the first edition of Follies and Grottoes (1953) Barbara Jones wrote that the tower was built in 1805, although a descendant has stated that the tower was dated 1810. Maps show it was extant by 1815, but it is first named in 1824 when marked on Bryant’s map of Gloucestershire as ‘observatory’ and on Greenwoods’ map as ‘Guys Monument’. A few years later it was named on the 1st Series Ordnance Survey map as ‘Guys Tower’,  but on later maps it is called the ‘Round Tower’. The poor structure must have had a real identity crisis. To add to the confusion the tower also managed to stand in two counties at once…

By some historical quirk a small part of the parish of Icomb, in which the tower stands, was once in Worcestershire, although it was transferred to Gloucestershire in 1844. The tower was built straddling the the two counties, with the border apparently passing through the middle of the fireplace. This led to the peculiar circumstance, reported in the local paper in 1871, that within the tower it was possible to ‘boil your kettle in Gloucestershire and drink your tea in Worcestershire’. This sounds like another bit of folly fancifulness, but the earliest ordnance survey maps do indeed show the county boundary with the tower sitting astride.

The history of the tower is equally confusing, with Jones being informed that it was (a) a lookout tower in case of invasion by Napoleon’s forces (b) a watchtower where Farmer Guy could keep an eye on his workers and (c) the tower used by Kitchener to watch his troops on manoeuvres before the Boer War. What can be agreed upon is that the tower gave a ‘fine view’ of the surrounding countryside.

Actually, there may be some truth in all three tales. Local histories suggest that a Mr Guy built the tower to look out for French invaders: that there was a local gentleman farmer of this name is confirmed by a newspaper report of ‘Farmer Guy’ of Icomb exhibiting a magnificent ewe at Smithfield Market in 1822. This was John Guy (1773-1837), ‘rather an eccentric man’, who later settled near High Wycombe. He was buried in Hughendon churchyard, and his gravestone is featured in many a volume on unusual epitaphs:

In coffin made without a nail,
Without a shroud his limbs to hide;
For what can pomp or shew avail,
Or velvet pall to swell the pride;
Here lies John Guy beneath this sod,
Who lov’d his friends and fear’d his God.

He certainly sounds like a folly builder. Visitors later wrote of the ‘magnificent panorama which the spot commanded’, even if Napoloeon’s army never did march in to enliven the view.

As for the idea that Field Marshal His Excellency The Right Honourable The Earl Kitchener climbed the tower… his presence may be hyperbole, but in 1909 the British army did carry out large scale manoeuvres in the area, with one unit stationed near the folly.

By the second half of the century the tower was in use as a dwelling for farm labourers, and there was a detached kitchen and a garden. There was great excitement for the residents in June 1887 when a ‘flight of fireworks’ was launched from the roof, the highest spot in the area, to mark Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee. But by 1913 the tower was out of fashion, and a county history dismissed it as ‘a round tower in the sham Gothic taste of the early 19th century’. Its charm was also lessened by an unattractive coating of pebble-dash.

The Round House remained a home until sometime around the Second World War, but thereafter it stood empty, although photographs from 1966 show it in a fairly good condition.

Thereafter the tower began to decline quite rapidly, and in 1972 it was described as being ‘very dilapidated’ with a ‘large crack down the middle’. Although the owner, Icomb Proper Estates Ltd., did attempt to find a tenant willing to take on the tower, none was forthcoming.

It was initially suggested that the BBC might restore the tower, and place a mast on top, but this wasn’t to be. The Planning Committee and Parish Council, no doubt looking forward to an evening watching a less fuzzy episode of The Generation Game, raised no objections when the B.B.C. built a mast alongside the crumbling tower and then sought permission to demolish the tower.

Happily, the Royal Commission for Historic Monuments made a photographic record of the tower before it was taken down, and a basic archaeological investigation was carried out to look for evidence of iron age activity. None was found, although the site yielded clay pipes, china and glass from its years as a family home.

The BBC continues to transmit from Icomb Hill. The pylon may not be as beautiful as the tower, but it is useful.

Update September 2022: thanks to Mel Osmond for getting in touch to share this photo, taken when her grandmother lived in the tower.

Thank you for reading. Please scroll down to share any thoughts or comments on this post.

Hail, Castle Howard! Hail, Vanbrugh’s noble dome
Where Yorkshire in her splendour rivals Rome!

Thus wrote John Betjeman in a poem composed for Bird’s-Eye View: The Englishman’s Home, a documentary scripted and mellifluously-narrated by Betjeman, which was first shown on BBC2 in April 1969. Many great houses are featured in the film, but a highlight for the Folly Flâneuse is Castle Howard, in North Yorkshire.

The ‘bird’s-eye view’ was from a helicopter, an Alouette 3, which the BBC had rented for three years for use by programme makers. The first flight didn’t get off to a good start: it was misty, and the intercom failed, leaving the team unable to communicate. Betjeman soon found he was not at all keen on being airborne. Ever resourceful, he passed producer Edward Mirzoeff a note which said ‘Please can we go home now?’ He remained largely desk-bound from then on.

Mirzoeff worked with editor Ted Roberts to create the films (there was a whole series of Bird’s Eye Views), which Betjeman then watched before writing the commentary, often in verse. When he needed peace and quiet to write he retreated to a glorified cupboard, used for making tea, which he called his ‘composition cell’. It was in this spartan space that the mock-heroic ode ‘Castle Howard’ was written.

In the film, the helicopter swoops over the rooftops of the mansion before lingering over the magnificent mausoleum, built to a design by Hawksmoor in the early 18th century, whilst Betjeman drawls in his inimitable sombre style:

But what are wealth and pomp of worldly state?
To yonder mausoleum soon or late,
Up those broad steps will go great Howard’s dust –
A journey no man makes before he must.

‘Castle Howard’ was first published in The Listener, 2 June 1977. It was recently republished in a Betjeman anthology, Harvest Bells: New and Uncollected Poems, edited by Kevin J. Gardner, Bloomsbury, 2019.

Thanks to the wonderful BBC iplayer you can watch Bird’s-Eye View, and hear the poem in full. Castle Howard is about 17 minutes in, but watch the whole film for glimpses of Stowe and Hadlow Castles, Stourhead, Blenheim, Portmeirion and much more https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p013ypx0/birds-eye-view-the-englishmans-home

The house and landscape at Castle Howard need little introduction, but you can read more on the website, which gives the latest information on visiting. There is also some more recent stunning aerial footage of the house and mausoleum https://www.castlehoward.co.uk

Mirzoeff’s recollections of working with Betjeman were published in Standpoint magazine. You can read the whole article here https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/january-february-2015/text-january-february-2015-travels-with-john-betjeman-edward-mirzoeff-metro-land/