Tag: Horton Tower

architecture, belvedere, Column, Folly, garden history, landscape, Tower

Follies Can Be Fun

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Cranmore Tower, c.1920. Postcard reproduced courtesy of the Dave Martin Collection.

‘Follies Can Be Fun’. So read the headline of an article in the Times in October 1959. But apparently not all follies: the anonymous author* dismissed sham ruins, grottoes and shell rooms, and expressed a preference for towers and columns. The Folly Flâneuse, who wholeheartedly agrees with the headline, thought it might be ‘fun’ to revisit some of the follies featured in the piece, to see how they had fared more than 60 years later.

architecture, Folly, Tower

Towers and Telecommunications: follies as ‘phone masts.

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Inkberrow Folly, Worcestershire.

For centuries tall towers have been used for communicating: first via flags, beacons and semaphore, and then later by radio waves. In the late 20th century came the rapid expansion of mobile phone technology, with the service providers keen to find lofty locations to mount masts. Most are a simple metal pylon, whilst others are disguised (with varying degrees of success) as trees. And some have found a home in a folly – ancient or modern.