architecture, Fictional Follies, Folly, Tower

Stark’s Folly and The Girl Who Wasn’t There

Luna and Aurora explore the crumbling folly tower.

Follies occasionally appear in literature, but seldom in works aimed at a younger readership. So it was hugely exciting to find that one of Britain’s best-loved writers of children’s fiction had featured a folly in a recent work. This year, a new work by the acclaimed writer Dame Jacqueline Wilson (100 plus books and counting) was published. The Girl Who Wasn’t There is a ghost story within a tale of family life and is beautifully illustrated by Rachael Dean. The reader is only a few pages in when young Luna and Aurora are first introduced to the dilapidated Stark’s Folly, somewhere on the south coast of England…

architecture, belvedere, East Sussex, eyecatcher, Folly, garden, garden history, landscape, Monument, Tower

Gibraltar Tower, Heathfield Park, East Sussex

The Gibraltar Tower by Chris Broughton (1949-2015) as featured in 'Rockingham Whig Landscapes', New Arcadian Journal 71/72 (2013). Image courtesy of the New Arcadian Press.

In 1791 Francis Newbery, bought Bailey Park, an estate in East Sussex, which he renamed the Heathfield Park Estate. Almost immediately he set to work constructing this elegant tower on high ground in his park. The Folly Flâneuse has joined forces with The Garden Historian to elaborate on its history.