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. But see below…

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.

UPDATE JULY 2026 the grotto, pavilion and terrace have been listed at grade II  There’s more here

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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In 1987 Save Britain’s Heritage (SAVE), the charity which campaigns to save historic buildings from needless destruction, published Pavilions in Peril, a report which considered the great number of garden buildings in Britain that faced an uncertain future. Author Julia Abel Smith researched 54 case studies, including a number of groups of follies, across England, Wales and Scotland. The Folly Flâneuse recently revisited the report, and was delighted to find so many buildings had been rescued.

Some of the greatest restoration projects have been thanks to the work of the Landmark Trust, the charity that rescues important buildings that would otherwise be lost, and makes them available for holidays. Indeed their pioneering role in this field was acknowledged in the book, which featured before and after views of The Chateau at Gate Burton, Lincolnshire, on the front and back covers. The Chateau’s restoration was completed in 1984 and two further buildings featured in Pavilions in Peril have been saved since 1987: Mowbray Point at Hackfall in North Yorkshire and Robin Hood’s Hut at Halswell House in Somerset.

Mowbray Point, now called The Ruin, was a derelict shell when the Landmark Trust began work to transform it in the first years of the 21st century. Hackfall is a detached pleasure ground, created by the Aislabies of Studley Royal in the middle of the 18th century. The other follies in the woodland  have also been restored thanks to the work of the Hackfall Trust and the Woodland Trust, amongst others, and there is full public access.

In Somerset, Halswell House is also home to a group of follies. As Pavilions in Peril went to press in 1987 it was announced that grants had been offered to help secure the future of the fanciful cottage called Robin Hood’s Hut, which was in such a ‘deplorable condition’ that it had been delisted, and other structures on the estate. The Somerset Buildings Preservation Trust restored the Ionic Temple, also known as the Temple of Harmony, in 1996, and then began work on the absolutely lovely Robin Hood’s Hut. In 2002 the Landmark Trust began work to fit out the interior as a holiday let, thus securing the building’s future.

At Cilwendeg in Pembrokeshire, Wales, The Temple Trust, which is dedicated to saving garden buildings, has restored the 1820s Shell House. Pavilions in Peril was able to report that this ‘little charmer’ had escaped the attention of vandals, but the building was deteriorating, and there was a threat from falling trees. The Temple Trust (alerted to the need to save garden buildings in part by the SAVE report) acquired the building in 2003, and carried out a full restoration which included replacing the pretty timber verandah and the long-lost coloured glass windows. Blott Kerr-Wilson restored the intricate shell-work interior to its former glory, and the Shell House is now open on designated days each year.

At Enville Hall, in Staffordshire, the owners have restored a number of garden buildings on their private estate. In 1987 the gorgeous gothick Museum was described as in ‘dire condition’, with the roof caved in and the windows gone. Originally built in 1750 as a greenhouse, it later served as a billiard room and a summerhouse, and then in the 19th century it housed a natural history collection, hence its present name. The exterior was beautifully restored soon after the report was published.

Three cheers too for the work of local authorities. In Durham the County Council worked with the Friends of Hardwick Park to save the wonderful 18th century landscape, which had fallen into a really sad state. Thanks to a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the landscape has been restored, important garden structures have been repaired, and the scant remains of others have been consolidated and interpreted. The work was completed in 2010, and visitors can now appreciate the park as Georgian visitors to John Burdon’s estate would have done. Most dramatic of all is the recreation of the fabulous domed Temple of Minerva, designed by architect James Paine. Although largely derelict the columns and most of the materials survived scattered around the central core, enabling rebuilding to take place.

There is not space here to mention all of the buildings that have been saved. Pavilions in Peril is still in print at the absolute bargain price of £5, so if you don’t already have a copy The Folly Flâneuse suggests you buy one, and explore for yourself. You can order the book and read more about SAVE’s work here https://www.savebritainsheritage.org/publications/publications-in-print/3

At the time of writing houses and gardens are still adapting opening hours in line with government guidance. Please check websites for further information.

Cilwendeg Shell House http://www.thetempletrust.org.uk

Enville (private)  https://envilleestate.com

Hackfall http://www.hackfall.org.uk

Halswell (private)  https://halswellpark.wordpress.com

Hardwick Park https://www.durham.gov.uk/hardwickpark

The Landmark Trust https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk

To comment on this post, please scroll down to the comments box at the bottom of the page. Thank you for reading.

As the nation settles into staying at home, forgoing a social life and, more practically, visits to the hairdresser and beauty salon, the Folly Flâneuse got to thinking about those fashionable landscape ornaments called hermitages, in which men (presumably women had more sense than to apply for the vacancy) lived in isolation. With ragged clothing, long fingernails, and unkempt beards, the hermits animated the landscape, whilst creating a little drama for the visitors who caught a (staged) glimpse of the recluse.

Hermits in the landscape garden have been considered at length elsewhere, so only a brief summary is necessary here. In the 18th century hermitages sat alongside grottoes, temples, belvederes and sham ruins as essential components of a voguish pleasure ground. Hermitages were created from natural materials – tufa from nearby streams, tree trunks and branches, and moss and heather for the roof. The buildings had to look as if a hermit could have built them himself, using only what he could find locally. Most were designed as rustic retreats, the name ‘hermitage’ suggesting a place where the visitor could be at one with nature and pause for quiet reflection, the word hermit being ultimately derived from the Greek for ‘solitary.’

But some estate owners went a step further and recruited ‘real’ hermits – legend has it via the classified ads in the local newspaper. In return for their basic accommodation and meals, the applicants would eventually receive a pension. But the small print insisted that they made commitments such as remaining for 7 years, not cutting their hair or nails, and making a vow of silence. Needless to say, there are few records of anyone staying the course, but many a story of the hermit being caught having a good natter in the village pub only a few weeks into his contract. Much more reliable were the (albeit rare) waxwork hermits, who seldom strayed, or the automata under the control of a hidden estate retainer.

Whether there is much truth in the hermit tales is debatable, but there were certainly plenty of hermitages. There were examples across Britain and although many have been lost because of the organic nature of their construction, there’s a particularly lovely surviving example at Brocklesby, the seat of the Earl of Yarborough in Lincolnshire. Accounts show it was constructed as part of a scheme of improvements proposed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, who last visited Brocklesby in 1780 shortly before work on the shelter started.

The approach to the hermitage is through a grotto tunnel which was once decorated with fossils and curious minerals. Venturing into the dark space created a frisson of trepidation, but on coming out into the light the visitor’s spirits would rise at the sight of the pretty little rustic temple in front of them. Created out of tree trunks, gnarled branches, and rough stone, around a brick core, the little octagon is entered by an arch beautifully formed of two curving branches. The interior was decorated with rustic latticework made of entwined branches, of which traces remain, and furnished with a table made out of a ‘lump of elm disease’ (as Barbara Jones unromantically described it in her notes), a rustic seat, and four chairs each hewn out of a single piece of wood.

So was it ever home to a hirsute and terrifyingly-taloned anchorite, dressed only in rags? Rumour has it that a hermit was occasionally to be found at home, but evidence seems hard to come by. Although there was certainly a very shabby and shifty individual in residence when the Folly Fellowship visited in 1999.

Hermits may have endured their spartan surroundings, but most people were just too keen on their creature comforts to linger in root houses, which by their nature were ‘not very dry’. James Plumptre toured Yorkshire in 1799 and was enamoured with William Aislabie’s landscape garden at Hackfall, near Ripon. Hoping to be able to return and spend more time there, he wished for a cell to be built where he might ‘hermitize’. But remembering the northern weather he added the caveat ‘at least for the summer half year.’

One man who wasn’t afraid of the colder seasons was William Wordsworth, born 250 years ago this week on 7 April 1770. In the early 19th century he built a rustic shelter in his garden at Dove Cottage in Grasmere, inspired by an example he and his sister Dorothy had seen in Scotland. The ‘Moss House’ was used all year round, including as a retreat ‘for quietness on warm days in winter’. The Folly Flâneuse had intended to feature the Wordsworth Trust’s plans to create a modern day successor to the lost structure, which were at an advanced stage when the current situation escalated. Obviously, that’s all on hold but there will be further news here in due course, and a visit to see it is on the flâneuse’s increasingly long list of ‘Things To Look Forward To’.

The hermitage at Brocklesby is grade I listed in recognition of its status as a rare survivor of the genre. ‘Damp and in disrepair’ when seen by Barbara Jones in the 1970s, it has since been restored. The pleasure grounds at Brocklesby are strictly private but have historically been open to the public at certain times of the year. Once the current restrictions are lifted a call to the estate office should elicit the necessary information https://www.brocklesby.co.uk

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

Last week’s brief post on the sham Druid’s Temple, near Masham, was something of a preamble to The Folly Flâneuse sharing this wonderful letter written by Barbara Jones in 1949. Jones is, of course, the doyenne of folly-spotters, and in this missive she shares the ups and downs of researching for the first edition of Follies & Grottoes. It is a delight to read: camping at the Druid’s Temple, finding Hackfall, and best of all a run-in with the formidable Captain Fordyce, Agent to Lord Hothfield at Skipton Castle. Here’s the unadulterated letter in full:

The Follyhenge. Sunday a.m.
Dearest Tom
Yesterday was one of those days that happen to somebody else, not us. So much work on such follies never never before. I got up at six, rewrote article for Ambassador and made a fair copy (later in the day, it was actually registered and posted). Down to breakfast at 7.30: we were just out of Pateley Bridge SETTLE, last flop folly of a day of follies not only flop but WET, and were in a C.T.C. B&B, dirty beds, nothing to eat but bread & butter, gloomy sitting room to write in, all pure hell but 7/6 supper b&b — cheapest yet! Breakfast was more heavy starch food but we made a magnificent start to Skipton, straight into the risen sun, all gold and dew and long shadows of geese in the meadows. Skipton was PO, that touch of acidity that a good day needs: The wonderful Scaife follies resolved themselves into one shell room in the castle gate. Not open till 10.30. Draw? Without permission from Captain Fordyce? So I swep [sic] up to the Estate Office, which is cunningly arranged at the top of a vast spiral of medieval stairs so that one enters the prescence [sic] breathless. Oh, he is only the Agent, not God. I send in a card — impossible to see him, impossible to send a message, perhaps if I write permission might be given for a week hence. He is busy, he isn’t here, he’s going to a wedding. I leave card with request and Constables letter shall return in half an hour. Last thought — can I phone the actual owner. Enormous po. Back in half an hour, all smiles, JesusC has said YES, on condition that Lordie is sent a complimentary copy through the office. TOP PO from me. J.C has really left by now and cannot withdraw permission, so we go to the Shell House made by Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke. I only knew about her very nice ‘Arcadia’ — she built Yorkshire too. The shell house is charming, tiny and rough but  EARYL EARLY, dear, EARLY. A rough little female figure with a head like a football with cats’ ears is known as ‘Father Neptune’. Made drawing locked ourselves in, took long exposures with Syb. and away into the town. Coffee, pies for lunch, and a new racket — you take 3lbs of sugar to a stall and he sells you toffee (delicious) and fudge (smashing) for 1 11d a lb and the sugar, pound for pound. Toffee is controlled at 2 4d lb & they knock off the 5d you paid the grocer. Exit from Skipton, eating pies and giving Captain Fordyce a last loving Shugborough:

On thro’ superb moorland country to the hills above Pateley Bridge, where is the easiest & loveliest of hilltop follies — Yorke’s. You suddenly see across the bracken and heather 2 great shafts of stone, the remains of a folly of arches; a pleasant walk across the hilltop from the road and there it is. Photos & on. Awful recce by me with lipstick rubbed of [sic] from Congregational Minister, an old poppet but hopeless. Further try in P.B. Hopeless too. (While I am writing this, Bill is Syb Sibylling our 4th new & utterly unrecorded folly in 2 sq miles — one at every bend of the road. Culture-carrier — I am looking for a tall white-haired man in every bush. Little red open Austin goes by — everyone waves paws.)

Days and days later — forcing the pace. You are getting a most inadequate number of cards, & never never this pretty letter. Today I shall post it whatever. To revert to Good Saturday. Hackfall woods — a Tom Pot — was the next; by some miracle we gave ourselves times to decipher the hand of the master and didn’t cut it out — you arrive in the indicated village — Grewelthorpe, we think — and ask for the H. woods. “Why, there they are.” At last we realise that “there” is a gate into a field. Very dim. After 3 fields a little wood begins to straggle. Suddenly there is a lovely gothic stone folly and behind it, with no warning, the woods — great gorges packed with trees, no paths, and five more follies. We went down 60° screes covered with scrub and marsh underneath, & little flowers and ferns six feet high, and burdock three feet across and old man willowherb seven feet high and Kew fern house smell and everything. Really key. Supper brewed at sunset inside last folly.

Then Bill got the bit absolutely between his teeth & bashed on to Masham in the dale — lovely village built round a huge planted square — pub recce, and then he says he knows where Stonehenge is. We bash up dark lanes and he says “In that copse”. We cross moonlit stubble fields and enter a sold black wall of conifers. Hand in terrified hand we creep tho’, owls with daggers in their belts in every tree.

At last even Bill has had enough; it isn’t here. More recce and more recce and at last a cottage with a light on in the moors. 11pm. I knock & say “I’m sorry to disturb you so late — would you please tell me where the Druids’ Circle is” Why, yes, explicit directions & never a hair turned. Up the English. We go along a rising lane, leave the car, take to the open moor seeing here & there a tall stone and finally by a pine wood, flanked by monoliths, lies the stone circle, in full moonlight on the moors. Bill has been brewing up this one secretly all day. All effort, all gloomy Grisels are justified. It is smashing. We are so impressed that we rush back to the car for the things and living in the circle on gorgeous turf like a feather bed. Wake in the morning to watch the sun rise over the circle — all in the wrong place, bless them, and have breakfast on the sacrificial stone.

And that’s where this letter began. The other little bit was written later. I’m in Stamford now, hotel bedroom, C&N are living somewhere in the night. Today we do Exton, which we saw yesterday evening — bark architecture, full of black nails; the ultimate architecture of blood and pain, the most neurotic and awful folly yet. Its so terrifying we can’t bear to touch the bark. I saw it years ago & never forgot it; so did Harry Bentinck — which explains his letter! Wait till you SEE it. Coo. We shall be back in London on Sunday evening. Could pick up a card Wednesday at IPSWICH. Im so upset about 4 months plaster, Tom — will you read all the Folly literature for me?                                    Much love Barbara

…………………..

The letter is addressed to Tom Ingram (1924-2007) a writer friend who accompanied Jones, and Bill Howell (1922-1974), architect, on the first of her 1949 first folly-spotting forays after she was commissioned to write Follies & Grottoes by the publishers Constable. As the letter was found in Barbara Jones’s papers it is unlikely it ever reached him, and he must have made do with the postcards. After a couple of trips the trio had been involved in a car crash in the Midlands, leaving Ingram with a badly-damaged arm, so Jones and Howell made the northern excursion whilst he recuperated. Ingram was usually the photographer and his expertise was clearly missed – note the finger over the lens in the photo’ above.

As Jones wrote of the thrill of a night at the temple in the published book: ‘Does the Englishman exist who never to himself has sworn to see Stonehenge just once at dawn? It occurred to us that here was a nobler opportunity, to see the sun rise, not over that common circle in Wiltshire where charabanc parties stand bewildered under a sky of solid cloud, but over a private Stonehenge, in perfect weather, in peace.’

Notes: Sibyl is a camera made by Newman and Guardia, CTC is the Cyclist’s Touring Club. Some in-jokes remain unexplained.

The current owner promises a much warmer welcome at Skipton Castle, and the grotto is a delight https://www.skiptoncastle.co.uk

To visit the Druid’s Temple https://www.swintonestate.com/bivouac/

If you missed the previous post on the Druid’s Temple scroll down.