In the middle of the 18th century the Earl of Strafford was embellishing his seat at Wentworth Castle near Barnsley in South Yorkshire. A new wing was added to the mansion and the grounds were decorated with temples, columns and garden seats. Strafford asked his lifelong friend Horace Walpole for advice on an ornament for his menagerie, and this little gothic temple was the result.

The Menagerie, or Menagery, at Wentworth Castle (historically also known as Stainborough) was already well-established when Walpole was consulted. A substantial building, completed in 1717, provided a home for the keeper who looked after the ornamental birds and also provided a space for refreshments when Lord Strafford was taking his guests for tours of the park and gardens. In April 1738 ‘two good fires’ warmed a party who had been out exploring the estate, and an inventory of a few years later shows that the Menagerie House had a settee and cups and saucers for tea.

The menagerie grounds included ponds and cascades as well as homes for the birds (there is no evidence of any other animals). In 1771 there were ornamental pheasants but a poem of 1731 shows that there was an avian presence 40 years before that:

From thence with Pleasure you may see
Strange Birds at the Menagerie,
Some Squeek, Some Cry – Some Sing, Some Squall,
Whose echo Sounds unto the hall;

In 1739 William Wentworth (1722-1791) succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Strafford of the 2nd creation. Two years later he married Lady Anne Campbell (1720-1785) and the couple’s social circle included Horace Walpole (1717-1797), creator of the gothic delight called Strawberry Hill in Twickenham. When his friends asked him to design a building for the menagerie, Walpole suggested a structure ‘in the manner of an ancient market cross’, and in particular that at Chichester in Sussex.

In 1756 Walpole’s friend Richard Bentley (1708-1782), a fellow member of the self-styled Committee of Taste based at Strawberry Hill, produced a drawing for Strafford’s masons and construction of the temple began soon after.

The menagerie was Lady Anne Strafford’s domain, and her passion for the peacocks and ornamental pheasants in the grounds led Walpole (who revered Anne as both a beauty and a wit) to refer to her as ‘the lady of the menagerie’.

Walpole visited in August 1760 to see the finished work and he admired the situation of the temple ‘on a high bank in the menagerie, between a pond and a vale, totally bowered over with oaks’. Walpole’s role in the design must have been pointed out to visitors as a traveller in 1761 noted ‘the Elegant Gothic temple designed by Mr Horace Walpole’.

Whilst Wentworth Castle was very much on the 18th century ‘tourist trail’, and is mentioned in countless travel journals, there are very few accounts of the little temple, but Arthur Young wrote a good account in 1771. He walked across a grass lawn overhung with oaks to find ‘a Gothic temple, over a little grot, which forms an arch, and together have a most pleasing effect’. Behind it was a piece of water with an island and the banks were ‘prettily planted’. The history of the chamber underneath the temple is not clear – it is not mentioned in Walpole’s correspondence and possibly pre-dates the building of the temple.

A little guidebook with the comprehensive title of Stainborough & Rockley, their Historical Associations, and Rural Attractions was published in 1853 (this is the source of the title image). By then the Menagerie wore ‘an air of neglect’ and the shrubs and trees had run wild. Some ‘traces of its former beauty’ were still visible and these included the piece of water and the gothic temple ‘on an elevated basement’, which was ‘beautifully artistic, and of elaborate character’.

Wentworth Castle featured in Country Life in 1924 when the magazine’s Architectural Editor H. Avray Tipping described the feature as ‘somewhat ruinous’, although he was referring in particular to the grotto chamber rather than the ‘mock-mediaeval frippery’ of the temple itself. During the Second World War troops were stationed at Wentworth Castle and the story goes that the temple was used for target practice.

Barbara Jones went to see the temple when she was researching for the first edition of Follies & Grottoes, published in 1953. She described the ‘little summerhouse’ as being ‘of the very best mid-eighteenth century gothic’, and she was saddened to learn that the building had been intact until the Second World War. When she saw it in the decade after the war the elegant pinnacles were gone – ‘wanton destruction’ was her conclusion. By the time the revised edition of her book was published in 1974 the temple was ‘only rubble’. Nikolaus Pevsner called the temple ‘the umbrello’ in the 1959 1st edition of The Buildings of England: Yorkshire the West Riding, and that name seems to have been adopted from that date.

The stone fragments were recorded by the National Monuments Record in 1965 and nature then covered over the remains. In 2006 Archaeological Services WYAS were commissioned to survey the collapsed structure. Happily, the masonry was found to be largely extant, and we can hope that one day the funds might be found to enable a restoration.

Much restoration work has already taken place under the auspices of the Wentworth Castle and Stainborough Castle Heritage Trust which was established in 2001. The site of the Gothic temple is not publicly accessible but a sham castle, temples, obelisks, a column and extensive gardens make a visit to Wentworth Castle (not to be confused with neighbouring Wentworth Woodhouse) more than worthwhile. The house is home to the Northern College but opens for monthly tours. In 2018 the National Trust took over the management of the gardens and park https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/wentworth-castle-gardens

No feature on Wentworth Castle is complete without a mention of the pioneering research of Dr Patrick Eyres and Dr Michael Charlesworth: their work is gratefully acknowledged.

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The hamlet of Racton, in a quiet corner of West Sussex, is little more than a church and a cluster of cottages. What catches the eye is the dramatic ruin, with tapering central tower, that stands above the settlement. This is the belvedere erected by George Montagu Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, as an ornament to his Stansted Park estate.

The earl’s principal seat was at Horton in Northamptonshire, and Stansted (sometimes Stanstead) came to him via his mother’s side of the family in 1766, around the time this portrait was painted. Lord Halifax (1716-1771) must have built the tower soon after he inherited the estate, for it was seen by Horace Walpole in 1770. Walpole was no admirer of the new building, dismissing it simply as ‘very ugly’. Three early views survive, so readers can decide for themselves if they agree with Walpole’s judgement.

The tower is triangular in form, with a central round tower flanked by three smaller turrets. Fragments of moulding and plasterwork seen in the 20th century suggest that the interior was very fine. The work is now attributed to the architect Henry Keene: he designed a spire for Westbourne church for Lord Halifax in 1770, and was also working on a prospect tower at nearby Uppark around the same date. But it seems likely he was assisted by his son Theodosius, who was still a youth when the tower was built, for it was Theodosius who submitted a finished drawing (above) to the exhibition of the Society of Artists in 1772 under the title A view of Stanstead Castle, near Emsworth.

An unknown artist sketched the tower in 1771 (above). Although the tower is known to have been complete at that date, and the artist noted detailed dimensions, this drawing does not show the tower as built. The dimensions are only partially correct, so the only explanation that comes to mind is that the artist produced this finished sketch from rough drawings and measurements made on-the-spot and, basically, got it wrong. Two watercolours by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm, executed in 1782, confirm that tower was built to the original design by Henry Keene.

From the top of the tower there were views down to the coast and out to sea over the naval base at Portsmouth, and to the Isle of Wight and the bustle of ships in the English Channel. There was also a fine view of Chichester Cathedral. But these views could also be appreciated from the house and from Lumley Seat, a temple in the garden at Stansted, so a writer in 1784 was somewhat disgruntled that having climbed all the steps there was ‘little variety in the prospect’. He concluded that ‘the elegance […] of this edifice is in no means proportionate to the prodigious expense which the raising of it cost his lordship’.

The earl had little time to enjoy his new tower, as he died in June 1771. However lurid local legends suggest he packed a lot into his brief period of ownership (remembering he also had a busy life in Northamptonshire and London). When he wasn’t indulging in wild orgies at the tower he was up on the roof frantically signalling the all-clear to ‘the big smuggling gangs who swarmed the coast’: apparently the earl was ‘the head of one of the biggest gangs’. A writer contributing to a local paper in 1938 was told that the folly was built by the earl so he could watch for Napoleon’s armies landing. Thankfully, the journalist had a better grasp of British history than his informant, and did not pass on this anachronism. He concluded instead that the ‘tower is another good instance of how legend gains momentum with the passing of time’.

Lord Halifax left no legitimate issue, so the title expired. His natural daughter, Anna Maria Montagu, was the beneficiary of the estate, but it was sold soon after Halifax’s death to raise capital. The new owner was a wealthy merchant called Richard Barwell (1741-1804) and the tower was regarded as an elegant object during his ownership. After his death the estate changed hands a number of times, before becoming dispersed in the early years of the 20th century.

The tower stood in attractive landscaped grounds, and became a popular destination for day trippers. The earliest accounts call it the ‘Stansted Tower’, or ‘Stansted Castle’, and in 1826 it was described as standing upon ‘a piece of land called Castle Field’. This name was soon lost and on 18th century county maps it is named simply as ‘Tower’. The First Series Ordnance Survey map of 1810 calls it ‘Stansted Tower’, and the First Edition map of 1875 marks it as ‘Racton Monument’, with the ominous words ‘in ruins’ in parentheses.

By 1862 the tower was described as ‘the old ruin’, suggesting it had been in decay for some time by that date, and an account of 1888 noted that the three turrets ‘were gradually diminishing in height from the effects of storms’. The staircase and windows had by then gone, and there were only vestiges of the old garden.

Inevitably there were issues with damage to the tower, and in 1933 the then owners threatened to ban public access if the problems didn’t stop. Sadly, the wilful damage has continued over the decades, and fences and ‘keep out’ signs have been pulled down as quickly as they were erected. A solution was proposed in 2020 when architect Mark Talbot, who bought the tower in 1987, attempted to obtain planning permission to restore the grade II listed tower as a private house (planning permission had been granted some years before he bought the tower, but had expired). The application was rejected on the grounds that it was ‘an unsympathetic form of development’ which would detract from the tower’s special architectural and historic interest.

The tower is on private land but can be seen from the lovely track called Monument Lane: there are good views of the tower across arable land as one ascends. The tower is in a sorry state, but somehow remains dignified and undeniably dramatic.

Perhaps the best way to appreciate the design of the tower today is from high above, as Nic Orchard did in 2019 when she soared over in her light aircraft.

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Newstead Abbey is best known as the seat of the Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, but it was equally famed in the middle of the 18th century as the home of his great-uncle, William, the 5th Baron, known as the ‘Wicked Lord’. It was William who built sham forts and castles around the estate’s Great Lake, on which sailed his fleet of boats.

William (1722-1798) became notorious when he killed a man in a duel in 1765, and after his death countless stories were told of the Wicked Lord’s licentiousness, his feckless approach to money, and his murderous tendencies – many of the tales were wildly exaggerated, but whatever his vices he had the virtue of knowing how to erect a good gothic folly.

The sham castle on a hill above the lake was built in 1749, the date being inscribed above the door, although no records of a designer seem to survive. The Battery on the shore of the lake below the Castle must have been constructed around the same date, as it is shown in an engraving published in October 1749.

The Castle, as it is named on the earliest Ordnance Survey map of 1838, was built as a belvedere, from whence ‘the views of the lakes, the abbey and its fine arch, the plantation and the park […] form a very noble landscape’. It was also a banqueting house, and in the basement were servants quarters for the preparation of food. The upper storey was an ‘Octagon Gothic Room’ with a coved ceiling. This space was fashionably fitted out with a polychromatic Gothic fire surround, a sofa, blue and gold ‘Chinese’ chairs, and statues including Venus and Flora. No doubt great parties were held there, although little contemporary evidence can be found. But such is the Wicked Lord’s reputation that Emily Brand, in her recent book on the Byron family, surmises that ‘beyond that great oak door William and his dishonourable friends supposedly sank into depravity and staged drink-fuelled orgies’.

Below the Castle was a rampart with gateways at each end on which 4 guns were mounted, and at the foot of the slope was the Battery, ‘a small Fortification with about Twenty Cannon’ and a flagpole with boathouse alongside. Once the Castle and Battery were complete William ordered a number of boats, and in September 1753 a friend of the family noted in her diary that ‘ye ships came today to Newstead’. As well as craft described simply as yachts and boats, there was a rather more impressive gunship equipped with 20 cannon. This vessel fired a gun salute which was returned from the fort and battery. The accounts for 1755 show that a sailor and an assistant were paid to maintain the fleet and crew the ships. It has been assumed, with the arsenal of cannon on the boat and at the forts, that mock naval battles (naumachia) were enacted at Newstead, and whilst that seems likely, no first-hand accounts of such antics have been found.

By 1759 William had already embellished a mill across the lake from the Battery with turrets and battlements. In that same year it was reported that he was planning to add kennels and stables in a similar style. In 1767 a visitor noted that the building was known as ‘Moro Castle’, suggesting that it was complete by 1762, the year the British stormed the Moro Castle in the Siege of Havana during the Seven Years War. But this is the sole mention of it by that name, and it was better known as the Fort.

All of this investment, as well as William’s extravagant lifestyle in general, led to financial difficulties, and he had to sell off wood to pay his debts. In 1760 Horace Walpole wrote to his friend George Montagu to say that Lord Byron had ‘lost large sums, and paid part in old oaks, five thousand pounds worth of which have been cut near the house’.

Walpole may have exaggerated a little for dramatic effect, as other visitors in the 1760s admired the ‘fine park’, and the ‘fine oaks’. The trees in the immediate vicinity of the Castle were certainly reprieved, as in 1768 a visitor admired the ‘large plantation’ each side of the folly. These woods are shown in an engraving of 1780 after a painting by Paul Sandby, above, and in the anonymous watercolour taken from the same viewpoint.

The Castle survived into the 20th century, being used for a time as a schoolroom, but it was demolished in 1921, with only traces now visible above ground.

The Battery (listed grade II* as ‘the Cannon Fort’) and the Fort (grade II) can still be seen: the former was restored a few years ago and can be visited, and the latter, the abbey’s tea-room in the middle of the 20th century, can be admired from across the lake.

Newstead Abbey was bought by the philanthropist Sir Julien Cahn and presented to the City of Nottingham in 1931. The fort and stables were later sold and converted to private housing but the abbey and park have continued as a popular tourist destination ever since. Read more https://newsteadabbey.org.uk

For more on Naumachia see the essay by Michael Cousins (who is thanked for his help with this post) and Patrick Eyres in the New Arcadian Journal https://www.newarcadianpress.co.uk/product/naumachia/

For more on Newstead see the excellent Newstead Abbey: a Nottinghamshire Country House: its Owners and Architectural History 1540-1931, by Rosalys Coope & Pete Smith.    http://www.thorotonsociety.org.uk/publications/recordseries/newsteadabbey.htm

In the middle of the 18th century, Viscount Bateman of Shobdon Court decided to remodel the Romanesque church on his estate. Demolishing all but the tower, he created an enchanting building with exquisite interiors in the fashionable gothick style. Although later accused of ‘wanton destruction’, Bateman did at least recognise the value of fragments of the earlier church, and had them re-erected as an eye-catcher at the end of an avenue in the park.

John Bateman (1721-1802), a viscount in the Irish peerage, was kept busy at court, and actually can’t take much of the blame/credit for the work. He delegated the planning of the church to his uncle Richard ‘Dickie’ Bateman (1705-1773) who had a history of building follies, and was friends with that great exponent of the gothick, Horace Walpole.

Uncle Dickie also masterminded the creation of the Arches eye-catcher, which was complete by 1752, whilst work on the new church continued. The folly was created out of the chancel arch, flanked by two further arches of carved masonry featuring many different motifs. The arches either side of the main arch are topped with carved panels which were tympana (overdoors) in the ancient church; their subjects are Christ in Majesty and the Harrowing of Hell. The pinnacles, pediments and castellations are 18th century embellishments in the same gothick taste as the new church.

The carvings are the work of what has become known as the Herefordshire School, a workshop that produced flamboyant sculpture for churches in the 12th century (best seen today at the Church of St Mary & St David in Kilpeck). Such work was out of fashion in the middle of the 18th century, and in 1756 a visitor saw the folly and declared the two relief panels to be ‘in a very bad taste’.

But by the middle of the 19th century the style was back in vogue, and of great interest to antiquarians. In 1852 George R. Lewis, an expert on the ancient churches of the area, published an account of Shobdon Church which he dedicated to Lord Bateman. He described the ‘highly interesting remains’, which had been placed in the park, as the most ‘interesting and important collection of Ecclesiastical Sculpture and Architecture’ in the county. His publication also makes clear that the arches were already firmly on the tourist trail as the ‘chief attraction of the neighbourhood’ for lovers of art and architecture.

Lewis’s publication brought the carvings to a wider audience, and they were represented at one of the most important events of the 19th century: the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace. Visitors to the 1854 exhibition were able to appreciate how the ‘richly adorned doorways’ might once have looked. Casts of the tympana had been made (and restored so that the eroded carving was in pristine condition) and were on display in the Fine Arts Courts. One of the casts survived the great fire at Crystal Palace, and was later donated to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, where it can be seen today.

The last of the Bateman descendants to live at Shobdon died in 1931, and soon afterwards it was announced that the mansion was to be demolished and the service wing converted into a more manageable home. The contents were sold at auction, and then the house was pulled down: a sale of the building materials disposed of every last brick.

The Woolhope Naturalists Field Club (its members being the heroes of this tale) feared ‘that the arches will be lost as well’, and in 1933 a plan to re-erect the stones as a lych-gate to the church was explored, and then dismissed. The club continued to lobby the Ministry of Works, and in 1947 their officer suggested moving the arches to Hereford Cathedral, a plan that was voted down by the Woolhope Club members. The Society of Antiquaries was in favour of moving the stones, but most people were strongly in favour of keeping the Arches in situ if at all possible, and some kind of shelter was proposed instead. This was still under discussion in 1954, when Ivor Bulmer-Thomas, the great champion of church preservation, suggested a ‘brick and tiled building’ be constructed. Nothing happened, but the idea was revived again in May 1989 and was reported in the Observer: as a solution to the continued erosion of the stones, an English Heritage architect suggested erecting an enormous glass pyramid, 45 feet high, over the Arches. But no-one had the money to pay for a giant cloche, and the idea was quietly dropped.

A programme of recording and consolidation of the Arches was completed in 1997, and the folly remains settled in its idyllic setting. The eye-catcher is less prominent than originally intended because of the flanking trees, but some of these were planted with the express purpose of protecting the arches from the elements.

Visitors continue to ponder whether Bateman’s 18th century work was brutal or brilliant: Shobdon gained a magnificent church in the gothick style and a wonderful eye-catcher, but lost a 12th century church with carvings of the highest order. Folly expert Barbara Jones, writing in the 1970s, called this dilemma a battle between ‘crime and creation’, and although her ‘heart sank’ when she saw the quality of the carving in the eyecatcher, she concluded that the outstanding interiors of the new church were ‘worth any vandalism at all’.

The Arches are on private land, but there is public access on a path from the church http://shobdonchurch.org.uk

The Woolhope Club has been ‘exploring Herefordshire’s history, natural history and geology since 1851’ https://www.woolhopeclub.org.uk

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The Ruined Castle in the grounds of Hagley Hall, near Stourbridge in Worcestershire, was built by Sir Thomas Lyttleton (1685-1751) in 1747-48 as a feature to be visited, and seen as a prospect, on a walk around his park. His eldest son, George Lyttelton (1709-1773), was probably a driving influence, and together they created one of the most perfect sham ruins in Britain.

Designed by gentleman architect Sanderson Miller, the Castle takes the form of a ruin, with one intact tower and three others in varying stages of decay. Originally, loose blocks of stone were placed artfully around the building to appear as if they had just tumbled down from the ruin. Horace Walpole, not always easy to please, famously found the castle a convincing sham, declaring it had the ‘true rust of the barons’ wars’.

From its inception the Castle was designed to have a practical purpose as well as an aesthetic one. At the top of the main tower there was an elegant room where visitors could take tea. The windows were filled with painted glass and specially-commissioned ‘Gothick’ chairs were designed to complement the architecture. There was also a telescope to admire the prospect. The rest of the building provided a home for the Keeper, and the three ruined towers became a Cow House, Coal House and Poultry House.

Intriguingly, in 1697 Sir Charles Lyttleton (1629-1716), a man who employed an interesting phonetic approach to spelling, wrote to a friend to announce that ‘I phancy a Tower wth Battlements’. His tower was built that same year on high ground in the park, and was used as a place where he could rest on his daily walk, as well as being a lodge for the Keeper. Half a century later, his son and grandson followed his lead and created the castle we see today, presumably sweeping away any remains of the earlier building.

Over the centuries the Castle continued to have a practical purpose, and as the craze for sham ruins waned its principal role became that of an extremely sophisticated shed. This can be seen in this mid-20th century view by Lyndon Goodwin Harris. Harris, RI, RWA, RSW (1928-2006) was born in Halesowen to an amateur artist father whom accounts paint as a domineering man. Sidney Harris collected the works of Albert Goodwin (1845-1932), and such was his admiration for the artist that he gave his son ‘Goodwin’ as a middle name. Harris senior pushed his son into practicing art from a young age, and whether he worked under duress or not, the boy clearly had talent. In 1942, when barely into his teens, his father suggested they ‘try their luck’ at submitting one of his works to the Royal Academy Summer Show. The work was accepted, and ‘Midland Boy Artist, 13, Has Picture In Academy’ was the boast in the local papers.

Harris’s view of the castle at Hagley, which was just a few miles from Halesowen, was painted four years later in 1946. At that date Harris was planning his future, and considering his love of painting buildings, it is not a surprise to learn that he considered a career as an architect, and was awarded a valuable Leverhulme scholarship to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture. But instead he continued to train as an artist, and took up a scholarship at the Slade School of Art.

Harris produced many works featuring local scenes, including these two views of Halesowen Abbey, a genuine ancient ruin, which by the middle of the 20th century was somewhat swamped by a farm. Ironically, its poor condition may in part be because, according to tradition, masonry was purloined for incorporation into the fake ruin at Hagley. A 19th century account claims that windows from the mediaeval abbey were incorporated into the curtain walls of Lyttelton’s Ruined Castle. In 1750 the poet and gardener William Shenstone tried to beg a couple of Halesowen Abbey’s windows to ‘terminate ye Vista’ in his wood at The Leasowes, just outside Halesowen. There’s no evidence that Shenstone’s wishes were met, but he did incorporate mediaeval fragments into a mock ruined priory (now lost) which he added to his park in 1757.

Although talented, painting does not seem to have made Harris happy, and he is believed to have given up painting after his father died in 1971. He became increasingly reclusive and lived quietly in the family home until 2006. After his death his father’s valuable collection was ‘discovered’ in the house, and the local paper was able to trot out the usual phrases: ‘forgotten art stash’, ’treasure trove’, ‘eccentric bachelor’ and ‘astonished family’.

The history of the Ruined Castle at Hagley included here is entirely based on the work of The Garden Historian, aka Michael Cousins, and The Folly Flâneuse thanks him for generously sharing his research (including the new discovery that there was an earlier castle building). His full account of Hagley was published by The Gardens Trust (formerly the Garden History Society) and you can find out more here https://www.jstor.org/stable/40219948?seq=1

Lyndon Goodwin Harris deserves to be better known, and the Folly Flâneuse is grateful to Neil Jennings for introducing her to his work. Neil Jennings Fine Art has a number of works by Harris available. Contact neiljennings20@gmail.com

Hagley Hall hosts weddings and functions and there is a programme of events, including house tours. Visit the website for further details https://www.hagleyhall.com

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