In the middle of the eighteenth century William Aislabie began to create a landscape garden on the banks of the River Ure, near the village of Grewelthorpe. In contrast to his grand estate at Studley, a few miles away, there were few manicured lawns or geometric pools, and instead Hackfall was a ‘sequestered and most romantic place’. Dotted around the grounds were summerhouses and shelters, including a dramatic hilltop tower called Mowbray Castle.

Word soon spread that Hackfall was a place worth seeing, and early visitors recorded their admiration for the place: ‘never was there seen a finer assemblage of wild and variegated nature’ wrote a tourist in 1785. Although visitors frequently refer to the ‘imitations of ruins’ in the pleasure grounds (there’s also a sham-ruin banqueting house), the earliest specific reference by a visitor to ‘Mowbray Castle’ found to date is from the 1780s, which tallies with an account in the archive suggesting work was ongoing in 1778.

By 1801 the gardener, who gave tours of the grounds, estimated that around two hundred parties visited each season. The Yorkshire weather was not always kind, but it didn’t spoil the experience. In 1792 Lord Torrington found ‘so much to admire, so much to celebrate’, despite the rain falling ‘in buckets’. And in 1799 another tourist wrote that he knew of no other place that gave so much pleasure’ even though it ‘rained the whole time’.

When first built Mowbray Castle could be seen from almost every spot within the pleasure grounds, and its ‘isolated situation’ was described as having an ‘extremely happy effect’. William Gilpin, whose comments on landscape were widely-read, criticised the buildings at Hackfall, but few were in agreement. In 1796, the Duke of Rutland wrote that ‘We did not find any room for censure’.

A poem written in 1859 suggested that the castle was an ancient fortification:

Now turn thy steps towards the right,
And view that grand imposing sight –
Tis Mowbray Castle, in decay,
The relics of a bygone day.

But Georgian visitors recognised it as a sham, a ‘very excellent imitation of an ancient ruin’, and praised its natural appearance.

Aislabie’s descendants sold Hackfall to a timber merchant in 1933, and much of the woodland was felled. Happily, the folly survived this period of neglect (although the short section of wall with an arch seen in the early images is lost), and was consolidated as part of a masterplan to restore the pleasure grounds and buildings after Hackfall was purchased by the Woodland Trust in 1989 (with strong support from the Hackfall Trust and other local groups). Sadly the vistas to and from the castle are now largely lost because of tree growth.

Around the time the folly was under construction a boy was born who would grow to great fame as an artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on 23 April 1775, 250 years ago this week. He visited Hackfall in 1816, and later worked up one of his sketches into a watercolour now in the Wallace Collection, London.

Hackfall is in the care of the Woodland Trust and is freely accessible to walkers.

J.M.W. Turner clearly admired follies – he painted/sketched the tower at Tabley in Cheshire, Cook’s Folly near Bristol and the Gibraltar Tower in Sussex amongst many others. Click the link in red for events planned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Turner’s birth in 1775.

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Just over the river Ure from the market town of Masham is this unusual rotunda sitting on top of a rustic grotto. It was designed to take advantage of the view over the river to the church and the attractive little town. An engraved stone near the temple tells us that in 1770 ‘Samuel Wrather built this grotto’.

Samuel Wrather (1727-1806) was a wool-stapler of Masham. In 1773 he married Miss Spence, a ‘young lady of merit and fortune’, and he died in 1806 ‘at an advanced age universally respected’. He was succeeded by his son, Samuel junior (c.1778-1854), who is best known today as the owner of Nutwith, the champion racehorse bred by his late brother, which won the St Leger in 1843. The family had a small estate at Beggars Bush, in nearby Grewelthorpe, and also owned property in Masham town.

The early history of the Grotto Temple is unclear, and apart from the stone near the building there is little to go on. Late 18th century maps show that Samuel Wrather owned the strip of land now called Grotto Plantation, but the Grotto Temple itself is not marked.

The earliest image of the Grotto Temple found to date shows it as the property of Samuel Wrather junior. An engraving after a sketch by the artist George Cuitt (1779-1854), who moved to Masham in 1821, was made in 1837. It was published a year later in a fashionable pocket diary called Le Souvenir, or Pocket Tablet and captioned ‘Temple in the Grounds of S. Wrather, Masham’.

The 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, published in 1859, shows the structure as ‘Pavilion’, within woodland called ‘Grotto Plantation’. At that date there was no house nearby, suggesting that this was a detached pleasure ground (another unnamed building and bridges over a stream can be seen on the map), perhaps to be visited by the ferry which crossed the river not far away. There was certainly inspiration nearby: Hackfall, the famed woodland landscape with buildings created by William Aislabie of Studley in the 1750s and 60s, did not have a principal house attached and is only a short distance away.

A rare lithograph of the pavilion, of which only one copy has been traced, attests to its lost fame. It was published by C. M. Dydynski in around 1850 and was inserted into an extra-illustrated copy of Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s Richmondshire in the collection of Leeds Libraries. Extra-illustration, or Grangerisation, was a fashionable hobby in which prints and original sketches were interleaved into a text to enhance the content. The process took its name from the clergyman and print collector James Granger (1723-1776) who published a biographical history and encouraged readers to embellish it with engraved portraits of his subjects.

The Grotto Temple then featured on a number of picture postcards which were probably produced for the tourists who arrived after the opening of the branch line to Masham in 1875: visitors would have passed the grotto grounds on their way from the station to the town.

Sometime between 1890 and 1905, a house was built which took its name from the existing pleasure grounds: ‘The Grotto’. In the 1910s it was home to Arthur Atkinson, a haulage contractor, but by 1921 it had been renamed ‘The Greens’ and was home to the Burrill family. The engraved stone by the pavilion records that Edward Burrill restored the Grotto Temple in 1935, perhaps in preparation for the wedding of his daughter Lucy in 1936, when the reception was held at The Greens.

A fleeting mention of the ‘grotto in the plantation’ can be found in local novelist and writer Mary Elizabeth Stevenson’s guide to Masham, published in 1919. On Summer Roads in Mashamshire suggests rambles for the visitor to the area, including a walk from Masham town over the bridge towards the weir (since destroyed) to appreciate the views of the church from across the river.

Mrs Stevenson (1853-1935)  introduces the interesting idea that the grotto was a favoured viewpoint of the artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1759-1817), who settled in Masham in 1805. Stevenson wrote that Ibbetson painted ‘many fine views of the Church from this side [of the river]’, and this 1816 view certainly looks to have been taken from within the Grotto Plantation (Stevenson would have known the history of this painting, for it had hung above the fireplace in her childhood home overlooking the Market Place in Masham). The Ibbetson and Wrather families were friends, and in September 1813 they and a party of friends spent a day sketching before partaking of ‘tea and syllabub’ at Wrather’s Beggars Bush home.

Sadly the current condition gives great cause for concern: the pavilion’s pretty roof, with its wide overhanging eaves, has fallen and the grotto is overgrown. The structure is not listed and therefore has little protection, an omission that should be rectified urgently.

Grotto Plantation is private property and there is no public access, but the Grotto Temple can be seen through the trees from a public footpath.

Huge thanks to Alison Brayshaw and Gail Falkingham for their help in compiling the history of the Grotto Pavilion. There are still gaps in our knowledge – do get in touch if you can help.

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Studley Royal, near Ripon, stays comfortably in the upper reaches of the list of most-visited National Trust properties, helped by the fact that the landscape garden features that epitome of eye-catchers, Fountains Abbey. But only a few miles away from Studley’s shops and scones is Hackfall, a tranquil vale* which is sublime, romantic and wild – and totally devoid of facilities. Both were created in the 18th century by the Aislabie family of Studley.

Hackfall was created in woodland on the bank of the river Ure and was dotted with follies, each with vistas – to the river, to Masham church spire, or to the other ornamental buildings. There was no house at Hackfall, as it was a pleasure ground that could easily be reached by carriage from Studley, and as one contemporary postulated:  ‘It is experimentally known that a long residence, even in the most romantic scenes, is apt to cloy: so the owner wisely has prevented all risk of satiety, by adapting his edifices to a visit only of a few hours.’

Today you have to visit the Village Hall in nearby Grewelthorpe for (excellent) refreshments, but in the 18th century Hackfall’s pavilions and alcoves provided shelter where light meals could be taken. If something grander were required, two of the follies had detached kitchens in which meals could be prepared. The remains of that by Mowbray Point, high above the valley, can still be seen.

The second kitchen, now lost, serviced Fisher’s Hall – one of The Folly Flâneuse’s favourite buildings. The ‘rotund room in which the family often dine’ was thatched in 1749 and completed in 1750 – a stone above the entrance bears that date and the initials of William Aislabie. It was lined with ‘that sort of stone which is commonly called petrifyed moss and roots which they dig near it’, and thatched with ling (heather). Guests sat at a horseshoe shaped table inside the octagon, from which there were ‘the finest and most picturesque views’, through the pointed gothic windows and door.

Hackfall soon became very popular and the earliest tourists (only the rich and influential were able to take tours at this date) could gain admission by calling at a cottage where the gardener, a Mr Hardcastle, would show them around. One visitor was moved to write some lines, and in this extract imagines the rustic summerhouse as a hermit’s retreat:

Fast by this stream, and in the thickest shade,
A straw-roofed cot appears with ivy bound,
The walls with cells and vary’d moss overlaid,
And rough-hewn altars mark’d the hallow’d ground.

Here haply dwells some hoary-headed seer,
Far from the guilty clouds’ tumultuous din,
Here lost in soft musings wears the silent year,
Estrang’d alike to passion and to sin.

The reality was that you were far more likely to bump into elegant travellers having ‘PicNic parties’  – in 1786 one visitor was delighted to bump into William Wilberforce drinking tea.

The inns in the closet towns of Harrogate and Ripon arranged transport by carriage to Hackfall, and stabling was provided both inside and outside of the grounds. However, it’s not clear how many visitors took their lead from The Hon. Miss Cust who arrived by donkey in 1840.

The woodland garden remained a favourite destination throughout the 19th century. By this date visitors taking tea at the Mowbray Point ‘refreshment house’ had another attraction to enjoy, Hackfall being ‘celebrated for its cream cheese’. With the advent of the motor engine further visitors arrived by car and Groups by charabanc.

Descendants of the Aislabies sold the pleasure ground in the 1930s. Hackfall was forgotten, and fell into disrepair as the 20th century progressed: the buildings became ruined, paths became overgrown and the trees were felled. In the 1980s the Hackfall Trust was formed, and it worked with the Woodland Trust and the local community and councils to halt further damage. Grants from various bodies, especially the Heritage Lottery Fund, allowed the partial restoration of Hackfall during the 1990s and the first decade of the current century. Fisher’s Hall and the other abandoned structures were consolidated to ensure their survival, whilst Mowbray Point, the banqueting house overlooking the woods and river, was beautifully restored by the Landmark Trust as a holiday let, now called The Ruin.

If you are in the area before 4 November there’s a lovely little exhibition at the nearby Masham Gallery celebrating Hackfall in a variety of media. http://www.mashamgallery.co.uk/hidden-hackfall.html

For Hackfall information http://www.hackfall.org.uk

And the Village Hall cafe http://www.grewelthorpe.org.uk/Village-Hall

Mowbray Point aka The Ruin is a Landmark Trust property and there’s more here https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/ruin-10176#Overview

* if you avoid weekends and school holidays