architecture, belvedere, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, Mausoleum, sham castle, Tower, Well

Follies and Freaks: a 1908 view.

In 1908 T.W. Wilkinson submitted an article on ‘Remarkable Follies’ to Wide World Magazine. This popular publication was launched in 1898 and was aimed at men, and in particular what one writer has called ‘armchair adventurers’. It specialised in true-life tales of derring-do with titles such as ‘The Underground Pirates’ and ‘Across Africa by Boat’. One wonders what the readership made of Wilkinson’s article: exciting as follies are, they don’t quite have the drama of ‘A Subterranean Duel’.

Folly, Grotto, West Yorkshire

Happy 65th anniversary ‘Follies and Grottoes’

A great stumbling block in the understanding of follies is the attempt to define what exactly one is. Must it be useless? Wildly expensive? Weird? One of my favourite summaries comes from Barbara Jones, the first person to study the genre in depth in Follies and Grottoes, published by Constable 65 years ago today 

She wrote that a folly ‘is built for pleasure, and pleasure is personal, difficult to define.’