Sir Peter Byrne Leicester inherited the Tabley estate in 1742. At that date the mansion and adjacent chapel were picturesquely situated on an island in a lake, but Sir Peter had new ideas. In around 1760 he called in John Carr of York to build a new mansion, in the Palladian style, on higher ground about half a mile from the old. With the new hall complete Sir Peter did not demolish the old hall and chapel on the island, but instead left them standing to be admired as ‘ornamental features in the landscape’ (although he had little choice as the terms of his inheritance compelled him to keep the old mansion in repair). Sir Peter’s son would later add a tower as an eye-catcher and picnic pavilion.

Sir Peter died in 1770 when his son and heir was only 7 years old, and his widow managed the estate until Sir John Fleming Leicester 5th Bart (1762-1827) came of age. Sir John studied at Cambridge before setting off on the Grand Tour, returning in 1786 to his Cheshire estate.

Work to remodel the lake and build the tower was started soon after Sir John’s return and continued until around the end of the eighteenth century. In 1826 William Carey, Sir John’s biographer and art adviser, published some anecdotes of his patron’s life. He wrote that Sir John always had ‘some plans going forward for the embellishment of his domain’ and that he had erected the tower and remodelled the lake to create a ‘fine piece of water’. Sadly he is vague on dates, simply noting that this took place ‘some years ago’.

The lake and tower (it is always simply ‘the tower’) were used for ‘aquatic parties’, with Sir John having a small fleet of ‘ten or twelve pleasure vessels’, all built to his own specifications. He was described as a skilled sailor, making excursions on the lake ‘safe and agreeable’.

Sir John’s great passion was contemporary British art, and in the first decades of the nineteenth century he commissioned many artworks, including a number of views of his new lake and tower.

Perhaps most famous of the views of the tower at Tabley are two works of 1808 by J.M.W. Turner showing the lake and tower on a calm morning and in a ‘brisk gale’. They became separated in 1827 when works from the late Lord de Tabley’s London house (Sir John was created a Baron in 1826) were sold at auction to pay his debts. Lord Egremont purchased the ‘calm morning’ view, and it can be seen today at Petworth House in West Sussex.

Happily, its partner, showing the tower on a windy day, was sent to Tabley House where it remains today.

In 1874 the Old Hall was described as an ‘ivy-clad ruin’, although it was still furnished and could be visited by tourists, and some rooms housed estate staff. At the same date the chapel was recorded as being in ‘excellent preservation’ as it was still in regular use. Around fifty years later the situation changed dramatically when the island on which the buildings stood succumbed to brine subsidence (briefly – the pumping out of liquid brine causes the land above to become unstable). The mansion on the island was damaged and the contents and many of the internal fittings were salvaged before the inevitable total collapse – only a small section still stands today.

To save the chapel Cuthbert Leicester Warren (1877-1954) had it taken down and rebuilt close to the eighteenth century mansion in 1927. Material salvaged from the Old Hall was used to create the Old Hall Room which links the chapel to the mansion. Cuthbert’s son John, who died in 1975, was the last private owner of the Tabley estate (there’s more on him next week).

Tabley House and its collection are now owned by the University of Manchester. The house is leased to a care home, but the state rooms on the middle floor are home to the Tabley House Collection of paintings, furniture and decorative arts. The collection is open regularly between March and October.

The grade II listed tower, once an eye-catcher from the piano nobile, can today only just be made out in the distance as the overgrown trees on the tiny island hide the tower and cast shadows. The University sold the parkland to the Crown Estate in 2007 and sadly there is no public access. Happily we have Sir John’s pictorial record, and there’s the rather more modern medium of a YouTube film here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGU2dnGl_9M

For more on Tabley House http://www.tableyhouse.co.uk

Thank you to the Tabley House Collection and ArtUK for making these wonderful images freely available.

Watch out for part II next week which features a charming period in the tower’s existence. Thank you for reading and do get in touch via the comments section below if you’d like to share any thoughts.

Until the middle of the 19th century visitors to Harewood House, near Leeds, could open the doors of the Saloon (today known as the Main Library) on the piano nobile and ‘walk out upon the fine portico’. From there they could admire the lake and plantations created by the finest landscape designers of the 18th century, and on the horizon they would glimpse a fine domed temple.

Harewood was built by John Carr for Edwin Lascelles (1713-1795) who was created Baron Harewood in 1790. In 1780, soon after the house was complete, Lascelles commissioned Carr to design a temple for the elevated ground south of the house. Carr (1723-1807) annotated his elevation drawing with the title ‘Temple of Venus’ and it shows an octagonal central drum surrounded by an arcaded basement and a colonnade around the first floor.

This first suggestion was quickly abandoned and Carr drew a new design with the central tower flanked by two wings ‘to allow a covered way to the upper room’. He was paid for all three drawings in December 1780. The section shows a grand interior, with a domed ceiling with decorative plasterwork. The name ‘Temple of Venus’ probably references the pigeon house which Carr remodelled to create the temple, doves being an attribute of Venus. There is no record of a statue of the goddess being placed in the temple, and in fact, the name disappears completely after the one inscription on Carr’s elevation, and it becomes known simply as ‘the temple’.

After the drawings were presented there was then an unexplained gap of 14 years when nothing seems to have happened. Then in 1794 there was a flurry of work to execute Carr’s designs: the pigeon house was cleaned, stone, timber and lead taken to the ‘temple’, and in 1796 the interior was plastered and a marble chimney piece was fitted. In the midst of all this work Edwin Lascelles, Lord Harewood, died and was succeeded by his cousin Edward Lascelles (1740-1820, created 1st Earl of Harewood in 1812). Once complete the temple became a popular destination for walks from the house.

The temple, whilst still an eye-catcher from the mansion, was later put to a more practical use as a dwelling house. At the time of the 1841 census it was home to John Lister, an ‘agricultural labourer’ and his 2 sons and 2 daughters. By 1851 Lister had died and the temple was home to his daughter Elizabeth, who had formerly been in service at Harewood House, and her siblings.

By 1855 Lord Harewood was considering demolishing the temple and had the materials valued. In 1857 wood and lead were stripped from the building, and in 1859 full demolition began: the earl’s agent wrote that it was ‘exceedingly well built and difficult to pull down’ and it eventually took 145 man-days to dismantle the temple and sort the materials. Much of the stone was reused at John Sawer’s nearby farm at Lofthouse.

The temple was then largely forgotten, although the ground around it remained known as Temple Wood. In autumn 2001 Harewood was the focus of an episode of the BBC’s House Detectives at Large. The BBC filmed archaeologists from the University of Bradford investigating the site of the temple, and uncovering the foundations of the octagonal central block and the two side wings. The clay pipes and pottery found on site were utilitarian, and probably dated from the period when the Lister family were in residence. So thorough had the clearance been in 1859 that a single block of dressed stone was the only remnant above ground.

One fragment of the temple might survive. In the private northern pleasure grounds a substantial stone urn stands as a feature. Its dimensions correspond with the urn on John Carr’s reworked plan, so perhaps this ornamental fragment was salvaged from the demolition in 1859 and given a new home.

John Carr was born in 1723 so this year we celebrate the 300th anniversary of his birth. Whilst the temple is gone, as is the portico on the south front (swept away by Sir Charles Barry when he remodelled the house in the 1840s), Harewood House, its stables and many estate buildings are still very much a monument to Carr’s skill and imagination as an architect.

The site of the Temple of Venus is not publicly accessible, but the view across the lake to the house that it enjoyed can be appreciated from the footpath which enters the park at Lofthouse Lodge, south of the house on the A61.

Also born 300 years ago in 1723 was Sir Joshua Reynolds. Harewood House is marking the occasion with a new look at his many works there, including the chance to see the portrait of Edwin Lascelles at close range and out of its grand frame. Reframing Reynolds can be seen until 28 August 2023, but if you can’t make it by then the portraits are always on display https://harewood.org

Thanks to Susan Kellerman who was the Folly Flâneuse’s partner-in-crime when first researching the temple many years ago, and to Rebecca Burton, Curator and Archivist at Harewood House.

Top image: View in the park at Harewood (detail). An intriguing view attributed to Harriet Lascelles with a design for a bridge (unexecuted) added in an unknown hand. Courtesy of the Harewood House Trust.

Please get in touch if you have any thoughts or further information – scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the comments box. Thank you for reading.

Alexander Davison (1750-1829) of Swarland Park, near Felton in Northumberland, erected this obelisk to Nelson in 1807. A closer look at the inscription reveals that he was not only celebrating the admiral’s victory at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, but more particularly their personal friendship. Davison had made a fortune supplying the government during the wars with America and France, but he was later charged with ‘public peculation’ – in other words the court believed he had his hand in the till.

Davison had travelled to Quebec as a young man and grew rich in the shipping trade and as a merchant during the American War of Independence. It was in Canada in 1782 that he first met Horatio Nelson. Davison further increased his wealth during the war with the French via lucrative government contracts to supply goods to the British Navy. After the Battle of the Nile in August 1798 he became Nelson’s agent, negotiating the best prices for the enemy ships captured as prizes. For this he was paid a commission, some of which he spent on producing medals for all the sailors who took part in the action.

A few years earlier he had bought the Swarland estate, between Morpeth and Alnwick in Northumberland. A new Palladian hall had been built only 30 years earlier, attributed to John Carr of York. Here, as the county historian Mackenzie wrote in 1825, Davison ‘greatly added to the appearance of the house and grounds by planting and other improvements which have rendered it one of the most handsome and commodious seats in the county.’

Things began to go wrong from around 1802 when Davison tried to bribe voters at an election, and was later imprisoned. There were also whispers that he was corrupt and embezzling funds, and in 1808 he was convicted and again sent to jail, leading to social and financial ruin.

In 1806 he had been asked to account for the whereabouts of missing subscriptions collected to erect a column in memory of Lord Nelson, but he denied all knowledge of the funds. It may have been in reaction to this that he commissioned this monument on his Northumberland estate, which was completed by the mason Thomas Robson in the spring of 1807.

The plaque on the needle of the obelisk is engraved with Nelson’s famous words ‘England expects every man to do his duty’, and below on the plinth is the simple wording ‘Victory 21 October 1805’.

But the wording on the pedestal makes clear that this is Davison’s personal tribute:

‘Not to commemorate the public virtues and heroic achievements of Nelson which is the duty of England, but to the memory of private friendship this erection is dedicated by Alexander Davison, Swarland Hall’.

In his inscription Davison was criticising the tardiness of the nation in building a national monument to Nelson. Although there had been appeals immediately after Nelson had lost his life at the Battle of Trafalgar, and individuals had commissioned their own tributes across the country, London would not have the column in Trafalgar Square until the early 1840s. Davison chose to build his obelisk in the most visible position on his estate – close by the Great North Road on the principal route between London and Edinburgh, where it was noted by travellers passing by.

Locally, the obelisk was seen by some as Davison’s attempt to detract attention from his crimes by trading on his friendship with the national hero. Local histories record these lines, said to have been penned at the Northumberland Arms in nearby Felton around the time the obelisk was built:

Can honour grace a mean and sordid mind,
Though slightly veiled in courtly ostentation,
Can patriot worth a kindred spirit find,
In the vile swindler of a freeborn nation.

Shall Nelson’s name thy character defend,
Thou public base calumniator,
The libel’s gross to call the Hero friend,
By the convicted public peculator.

The mansion at Swarland was demolished in the first half of the 20th century, after the estate had been dispersed. By the late 1990s, the owners of the land on which the obelisk stands had agreed to transfer it to Felton Parish Council. Working with the neighbouring Newton-on-the-Moor and Swarland Parish Councils, a successful bid was made for Heritage Lottery funding, and the Grade II listed obelisk was restored. It is easily accessible (subject to ongoing improvement works to the A1) on a short stretch of the old A1 east of Swarland.

With apologies for the shadows on the obelisk. The Folly Flâneuse has returned to this site in all seasons, and at all times of day, without every finding the perfect moment for a photograph.

Thank you for reading. Comments are very welcome – please scroll down to the foot of the page to add any thoughts or further information.

Bretton Hall, near Wakefield, is now best known as the home of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where artworks have been displayed in the open air, and in purpose built galleries, since 1977. But long before these works arrived, the park was home to a collection of ornamental garden buildings, including the enchanting tiered tower called Bella Vista.

Bretton Hall was the seat of the Wentworth family, and in the second half of the 18th century Sir Thomas Wentworth (later Wentworth Blackett, 1725-1792) remodelled the park with lakes, planting and follies, including a double-faced temple (see link below) and a grotto. Bella Vista  (sometimes Belle Vista) was probably designed by John Carr of York, who was active at Bretton in the 1760s and 70s, and representations on estate maps from the early 19th century show that a tiered structure was built, close to this original design.

Bella Vista stood high above the mansion, with sweeping views across the Bretton parkland and beyond, and was backed by woodland called the Bella Vista Plantation. Although constructed to this elaborate design as an eye-catcher from the house and pleasure grounds below, Bella Vista was also a belvedere, a destination for carriage rides and picnics, and it it also had a more practical function as a lodge.

By 1881 it was home to a family of 11 – George Wilkinson, a labourer, his wife, and 9 children between the ages of 2 months and 24 years of age called Bella Vista Lodge their home. This remarkable feat was achieved by covering in the open arcade at ground level (which originally housed the stairs to the upper stories), and creating a series of small rooms to augment the existing internal spaces. An ingenious use of space, but it must still have been a bit of a squeeze. The upper tiers were probably removed at the time of this conversion.

Bella Vista fell into disrepair after the Second World War when Bretton Park had been requisitioned, and was demolished as unsafe in the 1950s. Only the entrance drive and gate piers survive.

The lost building was recreated a few years ago by two of the Folly Flâneuse’s favourite artists. In 2017-2018 the Yorkshire Sculpture Park held an exhibition of work by Ed Kluz, called Sheer Folly: Fanciful Buildings of Britain. To accompany the show Ed produced this delightful limited edition screen print of Bella Vista by moonlight:

Complementing Ed’s work, the exhibition also featured an exquisite miniature silver model of the folly by Vicky Ambery-Smith, who creates jewellery and small decorative pieces in silver and gold.

Bretton Hall is currently being converted into a hotel by property developers Rushbond (let’s hope they name a bedroom the ‘Bella Vista Room’, as was the case when it was a family home).

The gardens and pleasure grounds of Bretton Hall are home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park https://ysp.org.uk. The site of Bella Vista is not within the YSP but can be seen from a public footpath.

For more on Ed Kluz see https://www.edkluz.co.uk and you can buy the screen print here https://penfoldpress.co.uk/products/bella-vista

You can see more of Vicky Ambery-Smith’s work here http://www.vickiamberysmith.co.uk

If you would like to share any thoughts or information, please scroll down to the comments box. Thank you for reading.

‘An ill-treated folly’, wrote folly supremo Barbara Jones of the Carnaby Temple in 1953. The late 18th century landscape ornament, on high land above Boynton Hall, was by then disused and dilapidated, but remarkably intact considering the years of neglect. And so it remains.

The temple was built in the early 1770s by Sir George Strickland, 5th Bart (1729-1808) of Boynton Hall near Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The design is attributed to John Carr of York, who worked at Boynton in this period. Contemporary accounts note that it was called the Temple of Aeolus, or the temple of the winds, after the original in Athens, but Barbara Jones thought it had ‘absolutely no resemblance to it’. That’s perhaps a little harsh, as the tower is octagonal in form, and the lantern was originally topped with a weather-vane, but it does not carry the carved decoration so admired in Athens. The name may have been partly in homage to the antique, but was probably also an erudite family joke, as the site is exposed to the winds coming in off the North Sea. The name did not stick and the building became known as the Carnaby Temple, or just ‘the temple’.

The basement housed a kitchen, and the upper floor was a ‘beautiful Octagon room’ with extensive views of the Boynton estate and out to sea. The Strickland daughters decorated the room with Grecian figures after the antique. Transparent figures, painted onto tissue paper, decorated the windows, and the furniture featured figures cut from black paper or drawn in Indian ink. The walls were painted with trophies, foliage, and grotesque heads in oil paint, and one visitor in 1801 thought she had never seen a room ‘so completely pleasing’. Sadly, no trace remains today.

The pleasure house was used for picnics, and as a retreat for the ladies of the house. It was also a belvedere with an extensive vista across the Wolds and Bridlington Bay – the reverse view also became important and ‘Carnaby Temple’ soon became an official landmark for mariners.

The tower was originally surrounded by a freestanding arcade, but this was gone by the middle of the 19th century when the temple was extended to form a dwelling for workers on the estate: the census returns show families living there until early in the 20th century. It was a popular attraction, and visitors walked across the fields to explore the curious structure visible from the road. In 1890 one group of ramblers were disappointed to find it had been converted into a labourer’s cottage and ‘with a sigh for its departed grandeur’ retraced their steps.

By the time Barbara Jones was researching the temple for the 2nd edition of Follies and Grottoes in 1972, the temple had been sold by the Boynton estate, and the new owner was said to be ‘not really interested in it’. Raymond Fieldhouse, a Scarborough historian and artist, wrote to Jones about the temple : ‘I think it will stand for years deteriorating only gradually’. He was spot on: the temple does indeed still stand strong, and creates a very picturesque backdrop to the nearby farm’s giant muck heap (bottom).

In 1975 a campaign began to get the temple restored. There was support from the Bridlington MP The Rt Hon Richard Wood, as well as from the Georgian Society for East Yorkshire and the Bridlington Civic Society. The owner, Mr Watts, was keen to see it restored, and offered to lease it to a charitable body for a ‘v small rent’, but he was understandably reluctant to meet the substantial costs of renovation himself. The Landmark Trust was approached in 1975, but it declined to take the building on.

Things dragged on, and in April 1978 the local authority, the Borough of North Wolds, served Watts with a Repairs Notice. By this stage the Bridlington-based architectural practise of Francis Johnson and Partners had been asked to help, and in 1977 Francis Johnson had drawn up plans to convert the temple into a holiday home. As he wrote ‘if they got the place in order they could get a good little rental for holiday use every summer. In any case it is far better to have the building in use than merely standing idle with consequent inevitable deterioration’. But Johnson remained sceptical, and ended the letter ‘We shall see’.

And as we can indeed see, only essential repairs to protect the building from vandals and the elements were carried out. There is still potential to restore the temple for residential use, and just think how fertile the garden would be…

The temple is on private land, but stands beside a public footpath.

Although the Carnaby Temple plans did not come to fruition, Francis Johnson & Partners has designed or restored many lovely garden buildings. You can see a selection here https://www.francisjohnson-architects.co.uk/projects/garden-buildings/

Please scroll down to the comments section if you would like to share any thoughts on the Carnaby Temple. Thank you for reading.

Driving through South Yorkshire on the A1, it is possible to catch a glimpse of a small square structure just off the south-bound carriageway. This is Robin Hood’s Well, near the village of Burghwallis, and it is probably the smallest structure in the canon of the great architect Sir John Vanbrugh. It was commissioned by the Earl of Carlisle and Vanbrugh probably dashed off the design from his carriage, en route between London and the earl’s seat of Castle Howard in North Yorkshire.

A well had existed on the spot long before the earl decided to cover it over early in the 18th century. No doubt the earl, like other travellers, had been unimpressed with the dusty roadside waterhole and commissioned Vanbrugh to offer it some protection. In 1725 a traveller in the party of the Earl of Oxford saw the  ‘new stone building’, but thinking it a little plain suggested that it be adorned with statues of Robin Hood and Little John. He also composed a few lines on the subject of the well:

If parch’d with toil, or heat, thou burn
Invited taste this limpid flood;
And boast wherever thou sojourn,
Thou once hast drank with Robin Hood.

Originally the well was built against a park wall and there were steps down to the water. An elderly retainer was on hand to serve water to travellers, although there was also an inn, ‘at the sign of the Robin Hood’, for those wishing for more sophisticated refreshments.

In the early 1960s the road was converted to a dual-carriageway, and the well cover was carefully dismantled with the stones numbered ready for re-erection. The Earl of Ross, of nearby Womersley, stored the stones in his stables until the works were complete and the building could be reconstructed. In 1964 it was rebuilt around 300 metres away from its original position at the water source. In 1993 a stainless steel frame was inserted to support the roof and safeguard the well’s future.

This view of Robin Hood’s Well by S.H. Grimm shows another ornamental building in the background (look closely). This is the Barnsdale Lodge, or Summer House, still a prominent eye-catcher high above the road when heading north on the A1, especially when it catches the sun. This landscape feature was designed by John Carr of York for Bacon Frank of Campsall Hall in around 1784, and its ‘extensive and beautiful prospect’ was much admired.

Incidentally, Barnsdale also gave its name to the nearby Barnsdale Bar services, once one of chic roadside eateries pioneered by the Forte family. Like the well it too has disappeared, and today’s motorists thunder by in search of refreshment elsewhere.

In the 1760s Sir Thomas Wentworth* (1726-1792) of Bretton Hall, near Wakefield, set about landscaping his park. Initially, he employed Richard Woods, a professional landscape designer, but soon decided he could manage just as well on his own. In the 1770s he added to his grand design without recourse to even the most eminent landscaper of the age: Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. A second lake would, he told friends, be completed without the help of ‘Capability or any such pretending Rogues’.

In 1769 the first lake was embellished with an island on which Sir Thomas built ‘a little Gothic Temple … where a dozen might be sociable’, shown here in a sketch by the itinerant artist and drawing master J.C. Nattes. The Temple was the centrepiece when Sir Thomas threw a grand party in 1771. A ‘genteel cold collation’ was served at the building, which was illuminated with lamps. As guests sailed up the lake in Sir Thomas’s boat, The Aurora, a band played, fireworks were set off and a huge bonfire blazed at the end of the lake.

Although Sir Thomas described the temple as gothic it had in fact two facades, one gothic and one with a pediment. This classical front is known only from another sketch by Nattes in the collection of the National Trust at Stourhead. The architect was probably John Carr of York.

Sir Thomas wrote that he intended to dedicate the temple to Bacchus, god of wine, and Venus, goddess of love, and planned to erect statues of the two deities on the island . The building housed a pantry and kitchen and a bedroom above; the former presumably the haunt of Bacchus and the latter the domain of Venus. The baronet was a rake, who vowed never to marry, but kept a mistress and, in the manner of the age, exercised his droit de seigneur. He fathered a number of children, four of whom lived in his household and were accepted by polite society.

If only Sir Thomas had crossed paths with the French architect Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826) he might have been tempted to build a more daring structure in which to conduct his dalliances. The Folly Flâneuse was very sorry to miss a recent exhibition in Paris which featured Lequeu’s exotic output. Sir Thomas might have been tempted by this garden pavilion with its ‘Hammock of Love’, complete with ecstatic couple.

There’s more on all of Lequeu’s erections here https://gallica.bnf.fr/html/und/images/jean-jacques-lequeu

Already ruinous when it was photographed by Country Life in 1938, the temple at Bretton was demolished as unsafe after the mansion became a college in the later decades of the 19th century. The park at Bretton is now home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park https://ysp.org.uk and the mansion is currently being restored as a hotel http://www.rushbond.co.uk/our-projects/bretton-hall-estate-wakefield/

*He took the name Blackett in 1777.

Now near neighbour to a Rotherham housing estate, Keppel’s Column originally stood in open ground on the edge of Scholes Wood on the Wentworth Woodhouse estate. An obelisk had been proposed for the site as early as 1769. Its original purpose was as an eye-catcher to terminate the southern vista from the new principal front of the Wentworth House mansion, balancing the pyramidal Hoober Stand to the north which is dated 1748. Keppel’s Column was clearly visible from the top of Hoober Stand, as was the Lady’s Folly, which featured here recently https://thefollyflaneuse.com/ladys-folly-tankersley-south-yorkshire/.  All three ornamental buildings could be seen from each other, and when guests were taken by carriage to climb a tower, or take tea in a summer house, they served to display the vast size of the Marquis of Rockingham’s estate.  

Rockingham originally asked his architect John Carr to build an obelisk on a pedestal base. This early design was to incorporate one of the four obelisks which stood on the lawn by Wentworth House. Carr designed a 45 foot tall tower on which the obelisk would sit. This obelisk-topped plan was abandoned with work not far advanced.*

The next iteration of the eye-catcher was discussed in 1776. By this date it had been decided to add another 78 feet to the structure as it currently stood and to finish it with a balustraded viewing platform. This became known as the Great Column or the Scholes Column.

In 1779 Rockingham asked Carr to remodel the Great Column as a ‘Naval Column’ to commemorate ‘Naval Honour and Naval Integrity’. The impetus for this change was the inconclusive battle of Ushant on 27 July 1778 following which there was a dramatic dispute between Keppel and one of his commanders, Sir Hugh Palliser. This led to Keppel being court-martialled on charges including undue haste in quitting a battle and failing to pursue the enemy. Keppel was a Whig and Palliser a Tory and the court-martial was as much, if not more, about Tory and Whig political rivalry as it was about the events at sea, and both parties used it to gain political advantage.

Keppel was acquitted and the charges against him dismissed as malicious. Rockingham was a friend and political colleague of Keppel, and had attended his trial in the company of other prominent Whigs who claimed Keppel as a hero. Prints, coins and gold boxes were circulated celebrating the acquittal and hailing it as a victory for justice.

Keppel himself visited Wentworth in August 1779. By that date the column must have been practically complete and the Admiral ascended the ‘true Doric column’ with Rockingham and John Carr to admire the view of ‘rivers, towns, gentleman’s seats’ as well as the ‘smoke from the foundries on the Don’. The column is described as being ‘inscribed to Naval Justice’, but if this was a literal inscription, in the form of a tablet on the column, it has been lost.  In December of that year it was decided that the column was to be terminated by a 30 foot high statue of Admiral Keppel, and the base embellished with carved ships’ prows in in the style of the rostral, or victory, columns of ancient Greece and Rome. For reasons unknown, the statue and prows were never added and the column shows the scars today of the constant changes to the design. When calculating the height of the column John Carr would have planned the entasis, a technical term for the slight bulge in a column which allows the eye to see the sides as parallel (if built straight, the sides of the column would have appeared to be concave). Because the column was terminated at a lesser height than originally planned the column appears to bulge as the entasis is not correct.

The formal event to ‘christen the Naval Column in honour of the Admiral’ took place in October 1780 when a ‘number of the nobility and gentry assembled’. As they approached a 21 gun salute was fired, and three cheers were raised by the gathered crowd. A band played and an ‘elegant cold collation’ was served. The party then ascended the 220 steps and a number of loyal toasts were drunk. The union flag was flown along with the words ‘Admiral Keppel for ever, the pride and glory of Great Britain’.

Newspaper reports of the monument and celebrations frustrated the Tory press, as lines published in response show:

Heroic deeds immortal are,
And need nor Stone nor Brass;
But Keppel’s must be told by these,
Or in Oblivion pass.
Do let the Stone, Good Rockingham!
A trust for once declare;
His Party Deeds, and not his brave,
By you recorded are.

The column was publicly accessible well into the 20th century, but was boarded up in the 1960s as unsafe. Sadly it became separated from the Wentworth Fitzwilliam estate and current owner, Rotherham Borough Council, urgently needs to address the building’s future. Thanks to the advent of drone photography there are short films on You Tube that show both the stunning views that were once to be enjoyed and worryingly the poor condition of the building. Despite occasional repairs the grade II listed structure is now urgently in need of restoration and is on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register.

UPDATE October 2021: In March 2021 listed building consent was granted conditionally for works to repair the column and restore access. In October 2021 the column was one of the beneficiaries of a grant from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund. Work is now underway.

UPDATE September 2021. Work on the column is now complete. Public access to the interior is by pre-booking only from April to October.

The column can be accessed from the nearby road, the heroically named Admiral’s Crest. Lady’s Folly is gone but you can read more here https://thefollyflaneuse.com/ladys-folly-tankersley-south-yorkshire/Hoober Stand, the Rockingham Monument and the other estate follies can be visited in the summer season https://wentworthestate.co.uk/visiting/monuments-follies/as can the Wentworth Woodhouse mansion, now in the care of a preservation trust https://wentworthwoodhouse.org.uk

*Rockingham’s heir, Lord Fitzwilliam, was determined to recycle the obelisks, and after an aborted plan to incorporate one into his monument to his uncle, Fitzwilliam eventually relocated all four obelisks to form a sort of guard of honour around the Rockingham Monument.

Born 200 years ago this month, on 8 February 1819, John Ruskin was a polymath; an artist, writer and critic who believed that culture should be available to all, not just the elite. As a new exhibition in London beautifully illustrates, Ruskin had strong opinions on most subjects. As he thought the architecture of Palladio ‘virtueless and despicable’, and the Houses of Parliament ‘effeminate and effortless’, we can probably assume that garden ornaments such as classical temples and gothic towers would not be his ‘thing’.

As a precocious child, however, one caught his attention:

Belle-view is a summer house on a crag high above Windermere. It was constructed in the last years of the 18th century as a picnic spot and belvedere on an outcrop of rock that was already established as one of the key viewing points, or stations, around the lake. From its high vantage point there were views up and down the whole length of the lake, and clambering up the slope produced that frisson of fear beloved of early tourists. Designed by John Carr of York, it became one of the essential sights on a tour of the Cumberland and Westmorland lakes – although until the 1960s county boundary changes it was actually in Lancashire.

In the first years of the 19th century Belle-view passed into the ownership of John Christian Curwen of Belle Isle, the largest island on Windermere. His quirky round mansion, likened to a tea canister, was another ‘must see’ and visitors were allowed to land and see the pleasure grounds which covered the island. Curwen extended the summer house, which was an eye-catcher from his island home, and decorated the upper room with prints of picturesque scenes and windows edged with coloured glass (downstairs was a parlour and apartments for servants). The Station, as it now became known, was used for picnic excursions and as a grandstand for watching regattas held on the lake.

Ruskin visited the Lakes on a number of occasions en route to his father’s homeland of Scotland. In 1830, aged 11, he described The Station in his diary, recording its distinctive glazing:

‘It is a large tower in which is a large apartment with various painted windows. The people tell you that on looking through the light blue it represents the appearance of winter. The green represents spring the yellow summer the purple a thunderstorm and the orange autumn. Each window of this place presented a different prospect of the lake and all were equally beautiful.’

High-minded as he was, the boy was not above being moved by a dog of ‘very wise and venerable appearance […] we all gave him a pat which he was graciously pleased to acknowledge with a wag of his tail.’

The London exhibition John Ruskin: The Power of Seeing at Two Temple Place on the Thames, next to Middle Temple was held in 2019. Writing in the Financial Times art-critic Jackie Wullschläger described the building as a folly. Whilst perhaps stretching the definition, Two Temple Place is certainly an unusual structure. It was built in the early 1890s as an estate office for the super-rich American William Waldorf Astor, and was designed by John Loughborough Pearson in a wonderfully ornate style which is impossible to categorise. Betjeman thought it ‘a little masterpiece’ and Pevsner a ‘perfect gem’. What is very clear, inside and out, is that Astor’s architect acted according to instructions and built ‘a perfect building irrespective of cost’.

The Station, sadly ruinous and with the original painted windows long gone, is now in the care of the National Trust who have consolidated the structure. The trust has built a viewing platform on the first floor and is clearing the slopes to reopen the views and allow visitors to understand how the building was designed to function. Coloured glass has recently been reintroduced as shown above https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/claife-viewing-station-and-windermere-west-shore

A 1770s map of the Wentworth Woodhouse estate marks a building called ‘The Marchioness’s Summer House’. The noble lady in question was Mary Bright, wife of the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, twice Prime Minister of Great Britain. The summer house was situated on high ground in Tankersley Park which was home to a large herd of red deer.

Architect John Carr designed the building in 1763. He visited with one of his nieces in 1795 and she wrote that the views from the temple were ‘the most beautiful and extensive in the Kingdom’. The panorama included two other prominent eye-catchers on the Wentworth estate: the Hoober Stand and Keppel’s Column.

As the local ironstone mining industry encroached on the designed landscape in the 19th century, the building lost its raison d’être as a gazebo and ceased to be used by the family. The deer herd was moved closer to the mansion and the abandoned folly became a hangout for local youths. In 1864 five ‘lads in their teens’ were charged with trespassing and causing considerable damage to the ‘rural temple…known as the Lady’s Folly’. The temple was a focal point for local galas, and old photos show it decked in bunting, but its decline continued.

In the late 1950s an open-cast coal mine was opened close to the folly as the land had been requisitioned by the Ministry of Power under the legislation passed during the Second World War. The spoil was piled up almost to the base of the temple, and the foundations of the already crumbling structure were further weakened. By the time the Ministry announced it would ‘quit and give up possession’ in August 1960 the temple was in a parlous condition and it was demolished that same year.

Its site is marked by a stone which records

ON THIS SITE A SUMMER HOUSE OR
OBSERVATORY OF GRECIAN DESIGN WAS
ERECTED SOMETIME BETWEEN 1760-1770
BY DIRECTION OF THE 2ND MARQUIS
OF ROCKINGHAM FOR HIS WIFE MARY
FOR TWO CENTURIES THE LADIES FOLLY
AS IT WAS POPULARLY KNOWN WAS
AN OUTSTANDING LANDMARK AND VIEWPOINT
ERECTED CIRCA 1760
DEMOLISHED AS UNSAFE AND PAST RESTORATION
1960

Ask for ‘Lady’s Folly’ today and you will be shown to Hole 3 on Tankersley Golf Course.

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