Pictured above is Creech Grange Arch in Dorset and that, the Flâneuse feels she must confess at once, is almost all you will hear about follies this week, for she has been busy gallivanting in search of gazebos and grottoes. But if you are a folly fan who is also something of a cruciverbalist then read on.

Regular readers will know that the Flâneuse loves a tangent and can’t resist throwing in the odd random, but fascinating (hopefully), fact. In July 2022 she wrote about an article in an 1898 issue of Pearson’s magazine in which Edward le Martin-Breton wrote a rather dismissive article about follies. For example, Creech Grange Arch, aka Bond’s Folly, which was erected as an eye-catcher in the middle of the eighteenth century, was described as ‘a piece of useless architecture’.

Pearson’s, as the Flâneuse mentioned at the time, has a rather special claim to fame – in 1922 it is said to have featured the first ever crossword, then called a ‘word square’, to appear in a British publication. This reference was spotted by Yves Cunow, a French crossword compiler and historian, who was researching for a new book: Un Siècle de Mots Croisés. He contacted the Flâneuse, who was happy to pass on what she knew of this now forgotten title.

With his research complete, Yves has now generously shared the pages from Pearson’s featuring that very first ‘word square’ and the solution from the subsequent issue, so you can give it a go. Sadly there is no prize motor-car on offer. Bon courage!

Before you check your answers here’s one of the few follies that Mr le Martin-Breton actually liked: Conygar Tower at Dunster in Somerset. He described it as ‘sufficiently picturesque enough to escape the censure that has been given to so many similar erections’.

And here is the solution, plus a new puzzle if you require ‘an hour’s most interesting entertainment’.

For the article on follies in Pearson’s see https://thefollyflaneuse.com/famous-follies-a-nineteenth-century-view/

For more on the new book by Yves Cunow and Yves Dupuis see https://boutique.lemonde.fr/mots-croises/3238-un-siecle-de-mots-croises.html

After that diversion the focus will return to follies and landscape ornament next week. Thank you for reading.

In 1896 a new publication was launched in Britain. Pearson’s Magazine was a miscellany of fact and fiction, and is best known today for a landmark event of 1922: the appearance of the first ever crossword puzzle in a British publication. Only a year after it first appeared on newsstands the magazine was attracting writers of the highest calibre, including H.G.Wells whose The War of the Worlds was serialised in 1897. But of course what caught the eye of the Folly Flâneuse was an article from 1898 when Edward le Martin-Breton, wrote an illustrated article on ‘Famous Follies’.

Mr le Martin-Breton declared the raison d’être of follies to be the desire of men who are ‘possessed of more money than they know what to do with’ to proclaim their ‘wealth and position’. Whilst this is unarguably the case with some follies, le Breton-Martin seems to have been almost totally immune to the romance, charm or glorious eccentricity of the genre.

At Leith Hill Tower (Surrey) le Breton-Martin read the Latin inscription claiming the edifice was built not only for the enjoyment of the owner, Richard Hull, but also for his neighbours and ‘for all’. But he remained sceptical: here, he thought, was a tower that perfectly fitted his definition of folly, and he suspected Mr Hull of ‘vainglorious motives’.

He found the view from Broadway Tower (Worcestershire) impressive, but dismissed the folly as ‘a monument to a woman’s whim’. Meanwhile, the panorama from the belvedere at Powderham (Devon) was thought not worth the effort of the climb.

And he described Bond’s Folly, aka Creech Arch (Dorset), an eye-catcher built by Denis Bond in the middle of the 18th century, as ‘a piece of useless architecture’ (surely the reason why so many of us are fascinated and delighted by it?).

He wondered if the builder of the Ammerdown Column (Somerset) could not have found a better way to spend his money, and declared the Sham Castle on the Bath skyline to be a ‘hollow fraud’.

The obelisk at Woolverstone (Suffolk) seems to have particularly irked him. The obelisk was erected in 1793 by Charles Berners in memory of William, ‘the best of fathers’.  Whilst admiring the structure itself, our hard-to-please Mr le Martin-Breton did not find this a noble gesture. Instead he wrote: ‘Filial piety is a very beautiful thing, but at the same time I fail to see why such piety should be made the excuse for perpetuating such a useless object’. Sadly, we can’t visit and judge for ourselves, as the obelisk was pulled down in 1943 after being damaged by fire. This was a particularly sad loss, as this most interesting obelisk contained a staircase leading up to a ‘huge globe’, representing the sun.

Two follies built within his lifetime failed to impress, either. Turner’s Tower (Gloucestershire) ‘built within the last ten years’ was ‘hideous’ and a ‘monstrosity’ and Peterson’s Tower at Sway (Hampshire) elicited the response ‘Beautiful the tower can hardly be said to be’.

Happily two follies did meet with his approval. Conygar Tower on the Dunster Castle estate in Somerset was deemed to be ‘sufficiently picturesque enough to escape the censure that has been given to so many similar erections’. Top marks went to the sham ruined castle at Hagley (which he called Miller’s Folly, after its architect) and it was declared an ‘excellent example of the pseudo-antique’.

Edward le Martin-Breton would go on to write numerous articles for magazines, as well as publishing poetry and producing radio broadcasts. He was best known though to generations of Boy Scouts: his Boys of the Otter Pool was serialised in The Scout magazine in 1908 and it and its sequels were later published in book form with translations into French and Finnish.

Turner’s Tower (which featured in these pages recently) was demolished in the 1960s and Woolverstone Obelisk is gone. Happily, all of the other follies mentioned here survive to be appreciated today.

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

The tower on Willett Hill tantalises with a glimpse above the trees when approaching by road, before disappearing completely as one begins the ascent on foot – which makes it all the more exciting when after a stiff climb the folly eventually bursts into view.

Willet Hill is in the Brendon Hills, near the village of Elworthy on the edge of Exmoor National Park. The tower was built in around 1774 and paid for by a group of local landowners. As the annotation to the sketch above records, James Bernard of nearby Crowcombe Court subscribed £80 of the total cost of £130, but sadly the other donors are not recorded. The land was owned by Rev. Bickham Escott of Hartrow, so that was presumably his contribution to the project, but nowhere is it recorded why this group of gentlemen decided to erect a building  ‘to represent an old Ruin’ on the hilltop, and there is no inscription to help. Probably there was a hunting connection, with the room in the tower acting as belvedere and picnic parlour, and it was certainly an eye-catcher from the various gentlemen’s seats in the area. Hopefully there was also a large dollop of whimsy in their decision, and they built it because they liked the idea of enlivening the landscape with a sham ruin, then very much in vogue.

The architect of Willet Hill Tower was Richard Phelps (c1710-1785), who was better known as a portrait painter. He was based in Dunster, a few miles away on the coast, where he painted members of the Luttrell family and designed follies for their seat at Dunster Castle, including the tower and sham ruined gateway on Conygar Hill.

Collinson’s history of Somerset, published in 1791, described the ‘lofty smooth knowl’ on which the tower was ‘a fine object to the country many miles round’. The tower, on the bare hillside, is also shown on an 18th century map.

Collinson wrote that the folly was 80 feet in height, but incorrectly describes it as ‘a hexagonal embattled tower’, whereas it is actually a square tower with an adjoining short section of curtain wall cut through with an arch. A corresponding stretch of wall to the north, shown in the sketches above, has collapsed.

In 1840 the Elworthy parish was surveyed to produce the tithe map, and by then the hillside had been planted with firs which gradually obscured the view of the tower. The tower has emerged occasionally when the timber was felled, but is currently tucked away in a clearing in dense woodland managed by the Forestry Commission, who are happily committed to managing the land around the grade II listed tower to ‘ensure that the views or the structural integrity of the building are not diminished’.

Lofty follies are often borrowed for more practical purposes: the hilltop site was used as a trigonometrical point by the Ordnance Survey early in the 19th century, and in the middle of the 20th century the Royal Ordnance Corps had a lookout point at the folly – their concrete bunker survives close to the tower.

There is a parking place just off the B3224 at the bottom of Willet Hill, and then paths spiral up to the tower – but it is worth checking a map if you want to be sure of the direct route to this enchanting spot.

The follies Phelps designed for Conygar Hill on the Dunster Castle estate can also be visited https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/dunster-castle-and-watermill/trails/conygar-tower-from-dunster-castle-walk-

Thank you for reading. As ever, your thoughts are very welcome: please scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page to share information or ideas.