Painshill, or Pains Hill, near Cobham in Surrey, was the creation of the Hon. Charles Hamilton. From 1738 he landscaped the valley of the river Mole and decorated his estate with an enchanting array of garden buildings, including this pavilion which is known as the Gothic Temple. In 1953 Barbara Jones wrote that she feared the park was ‘beyond help’, but thanks to an amazing restoration project, which began in the 1980s and continues today, it has been returned to its former beauty and elegance.

The open temple, probably one of the first ornamental buildings to be erected in Hamilton’s park (the earliest reference found to date is 1761), was constructed of wood treated to look like stone. As well as being an eye-catcher from the walks and rides in the park, its location was carefully chosen so that visitors would be led to the building from which they could admire a panorama which featured a Turkish tent, a gothic tower, a bridge, a hermitage and a classical temple. On a circuit of the pleasure grounds the visitor would also encounter a ruined Roman arch and a grotto decorated with sparkling minerals.

Barbara Jones described Painshill in Follies & Grottoes, published in 1953. Her first thought was that Hamilton (1704-1786) was a visionary. She imagined him looking at the ‘naturally pretty’ valley and having the courage to turn it into ‘raw earth, puddles, planks and little naked trees’, knowing that ultimately it was ‘going to be alright’. Whilst Jones mused on the origins of the park, Rose Macaulay, whose Pleasure of Ruins was published in the same year, delighted in the decay, describing the neglected park as a ‘delicious wilderness of follies’.

A photograph of 1937, taken by Herbert Felton for the Architectural Review, shows the temple in reasonable condition. The art historian Osvald Sirén (1879-1966) explored Painshill in the late 1940s, and in his China and the Gardens of Europe, published in 1950, he described the Gothic Temple as being in a ‘better state of preservation’ than many of the other garden features (Sirén was spotted photographing the ruined buildings by a young John Harris (1931-2022). Happily for history, the nascent country-house snooper had ignored the ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ signs.)

Whilst some of the garden buildings were lost because of neglect, others had fallen victim to deliberate destruction: the hermitage was apparently chopped up for firewood in the 1940s. Harris saw the Temple of Bacchus as a crumbling wreck in the 1940s, and it had disappeared when he returned in 1954. When a visitor in around 1960 enquired after the temple he was told that it had ‘got a bit dicey so they took a tractor to it’.

By the 1970s the temple was rapidly falling into dereliction, and in February 1977 Elmbridge District Council served a repairs notice on the owner of the park and sent in a team to support the temple within a scaffolding shell. Two months later came big news when the council confirmed that, after some years of negotiation, they were to purchase 47 acres of the ‘much neglected Painshill Park’.

Heritage societies, including the Georgian Group, the Garden History Society and the Council for the Protection of Rural England had already been working behind the scenes to gather information, and in 1973 the historian Alison Hodges had published the first comprehensive history of the garden in Garden History, the journal of the Garden History Society. The Friends of Painshill was founded in 1975, with support from landscape architects, antiquarians, journalists, M.P.s and local residents.

It took until 1980 for the council to acquire a further 106 acres of the park. In 1981 the Friends issued their second newsletter, in which it was announced that ‘Elmbridge Borough Council have now appointed Mrs. J. Burford as the first full time administrator of the park’. One of the earliest structures to be restored was the Gothic Temple (grade II*), with work complete in 1985.

The Painshill Park Trust was founded in 1981 and work began to raise the required funds. One of the principal sources was the National Heritage Memorial Fund, created in 1980, which by 1988 had pledged £1.4 million ‘towards a management plan and towards continuing restoration work’. In 1988-89 the British Museum hosted Treasures for the Nation: Celebrating National Heritage, an exhibition showing the public how the fund was using taxpayers money to save the UK’s most important heritage treasures. Painshill was featured as an example of a garden rescued with the help of NHMF funds, and the text noted the garden as a rare example of one which ‘did not suffer violent change, but was simply abandoned to the hand of time’.

It is impossible to summarise here the vast amount of research, fundraising and building work that took place in the subsequent years (the restored and dazzling grotto alone is a magnificent achievement, and the Temple of Bacchus, toppled by tractor, has been reconstructed), so visit the website to learn more, or better still visit the park itself.

There are some who, whilst full of admiration for the restoration, have a nostalgia for the ‘mystical and wonderful’ ruinous park that they explored as a child, when it was in that condition which the artist John Piper called ‘decrepit glory’. As Henry Parr, who sent the Flâneuse the pre-restoration photographs shown here, wrote: ‘in its ruinous state, Painshill park was beautiful but mysterious, pretty but sinister, lovely but rather unnerving’.

The thrill of pushing through overgrown shrubs and stumbling across an abandoned temple might be gone but, thanks to the amazing restoration project, one once more sees Painshill as Charles Hamilton envisioned it.

There’s lots more on Painshill here. Thanks to historian Cherrill Sands for being an excellent cicerone.

Thank you for reading. As ever, the Flâneuse would be delighted to hear from readers with any thoughts or comments. Scroll down to get in touch.

In 1836 General Loft, a committed church-crawler, visited Fotherby, near Louth in Lincolnshire, and found the ancient fabric of the church of St Mary’s ‘now terribly mutilated’. In the later 1850s a major rebuild was proposed, and the Bishop of Lincoln threw his weight behind the appeal with a donation of £20. James Robson, tenant and later owner of Brackenborough Hall, an attractive moated Georgian house about a mile from the church, was also a donor. As work got underway, he salvaged some of the stone from the old church and used it to build a sham ruin on a mound in the corner of his garden.

James Fowler of Louth was chosen as architect for the new church at Fotherby, and with funds in place it was agreed that work could begin in 1861. The crumbling old church was pulled down and, after a period of worshipping in nearby barns and meeting rooms, the congregation assembled in the new church in May 1863. Fowler was congratulated on the ‘imposing appearance of the edifice’.

At Brackenborough the folly was built on a mound in the corner of the moated enclosure that surrounds the garden. It was probably built contemporaneously with the new church at Fotherby, in the first years of the 1860s, but no records seem to survive to confirm an exact date. Robson (1820-1899) was a churchwarden and contributed to the cost of the new church, but no records of him acquiring the stone have yet been found. The folly no doubt functioned as a belvedere, summerhouse and eye-catcher, and in what was described in 1887 as ‘fine hunting country’ it may also have been a landmark for the hunt. When first built the south elevation was higher than the other sides and incorporated further recycled masonry, as seen in this 1907 view. No architect is associated with the folly: Fowler may have given advice, or it may have been Robson’s own design.

Brackenborough stands in an elevated position (relatively, in the flatlands of Lincolnshire), and before the plantations matured the view from the folly would have taken in local churches: there is still a vista to the elegant parish church of St James in Louth, with its spire said to be the highest of any parish church in Britain (the church was restored by Fowler in the 1760s).

Robson was declared bankrupt in 1887, after a collapse in the prices of agricultural produce, and the estate was put up for sale. Frustratingly, the sales particulars for the auction of the estate that year make no mention of the folly, although it was certainly extant a year later when the 25″ Ordnance Survey map was surveyed (published 1889) and the square tower is shown on its mound. The earliest written description found to date is in the sales particulars when the estate was again put up for auction in 1907. The folly was then noted as a ‘picturesque keep erected from stones from an old Ecclesiastical house’ (with house used in the sense of a church, or house of god). The estate was purchased by Frederick W. Bennett, whose family remain at Brackenborough today.

In the first edition of the Buildings of England: Lincolnshire, published in 1964, John Harris described the garden ornament as a ‘felicitous folly concocted from the remains of Fotherby church’ (for the Lincolnshire volume Nikolaus Pevsner concentrated mainly on churches and left secular buildings to Harris). Harris identified the fragments incorporated into the little tower as a thirteenth century arch, a three light Perpendicular window and a Decorated window ‘all built into a rugged ruin’. Photographs taken by Harris in 1959 during his research (Historic England collection) are similar to that shown above, and show that the south elevation was largely intact at that date.

The folly was ‘toppling precariously’ by the time Barbara Jones saw it in around 1970. The building was listed at grade II in 1986, by which time the upper section of the south elevation must have collapsed and it is not mentioned in the description. For years afterwards the folly was smothered in ivy and brambles and a large sycamore had taken root within the structure: it had become what Jones called a ‘ruinous sham ruin’ (Follies & Grottoes, 1974).

In 2015 Paul and Flora Bennett commissioned a structural survey from Capstone Consulting Engineers which concluded that the options were to repair and consolidate the folly as a ruin, or to repair and restore the folly creating a more ‘robust structure’. In 2020, after discussions at local and national levels, the Bennetts were given listed building consent to dismantle and reconstruct the badly listing folly under the supervision of Historic Building Consultant Liz Mayle.

The folly was dismantled, the stones numbered, and the folly rebuilt on secure foundations with new oak lintels and steel ties to support the structure. Flora even trawled the moat in search of stones that had toppled from the folly. In 2023 the restoration was recognised by a Pride of Place award from Louth Civic Trust.

Brackenborough Hall is a private residence, but the folly can be seen from a public footpath through the park. Or you could celebrate your wedding there, with the folly as a backdrop to your photographs, or stay in one of the holiday lets on the estate (which include an apartment featuring both the workings of the Coach House clock and a grain winch). To find out more visit brackenboroughhall.com.

Thanks to Steffie S. for alerting the Flâneuse to the restored folly, and to Paul, Flora and Poppy the exuberant labrador for a tour and a welcome coffee on a frosty morning.

Thank you for reading. To share any thoughts please scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page. If you would like a complimentary folly story in your inbox each Saturday morning please click on the ‘subscribe’ tab.

In 1738 Langley Park was purchased by the 3rd Duke of Marlborough (1706-1758), and one of his first projects was the construction of an elegant casino with views to Windsor Castle. In the middle of the 19th century that temple was demolished, and replaced by an equally charming monumental column. That too survived for only a century, but happily a pictorial record helps tell the story.

With Blenheim Palace still home to the formidable Sarah, Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, the Duke made Langley Park his home. A new house does not seem to have been a priority, but he began working on the landscape only a couple of years after he bought the estate. The pavilion is known from a sketch taken by the gentleman architect Sir Roger Newdigate, of Arley Hall in Warwickshire, on one of his peregrinations. Horace Walpole was not impressed by the parkland feature (‘it is by no means gracious’), but Lady Newdigate found it an ‘elegant temple’ and its elevated position allowed for ‘beautiful prospects’ from the first floor banqueting room. It was extant when the Ordnance Survey drawings were made in 1811, but must have been taken down before the 1860s when a monumental column was built in its place.

In 1788 Langley Park was sold to Sir Robert Bateson Harvey, recently created a baronet in Ireland. His grandson (via Harvey’s illegitimate son), another Robert Bateson Harvey (1825-1887), succeeded to the estate in 1863. This was a big year for Harvey: not only did he inherit Langley Park from his father, but he was also elected Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire. So this 30m high column, completed in 1865, may ostensibly have commemorated his late father, but on its elevated site it must also have been a symbol of his achievements and status. The latter was further enhanced when he was created a baronet in the English baronetage in 1868.

The monument was designed by Frederick Pepys Cockerell (1833-1878), and the original design, shown above, survives in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. The builders were Fassnidge & Sons of Uxbridge, and their accounts survive showing that the tower cost £1646.12.3. The two side wings contained rooms, and the column contained a staircase up to a viewing platform, where a grand panorama included Windsor Castle. As this old view shows, Cockerell’s original design was modified and simplified in a number of ways – no doubt for reasons of economy.

The gardens at Langley were further developed in the early years of the 20th century. The Pulham practise created a rock garden from 1909, a Japanese garden was introduced, and in 1912 new planting was laid out around the monument. The death of the 2nd baronet without issue in 1931 was followed by the Second World War, and Langley Park was requisitioned. The estate became home to Polish troops who are reputed to have used the column for mortar practice. In 1944 the last baronet’s heirs sold the estate to Buckinghamshire County Council, with the house being put into institutional use and the grounds becoming a country park. By the late 1950s the column was thought to be a risk to public safety, and the County Planning Officer ordered that it be taken down.

Architectural Historian John Harris was among the crowds who gathered to watch the ‘spectacular demolition’ by explosives in January 1959. He chastised the local authority for sanctioning the destruction of the monument, but saw a glimmer of hope that one day it could be rebuilt, as the original plans survived. Sadly this hope remains unrealised, and only a plinth and haha survive in the park as a memorial to two exquisite garden features.

But as a consolation prize a similar column by Cockerell does survive, and in fine condition after restoration early this century. Soon after completing the Langley Park monument, Cockerell was one of four architects invited to submit a design for a monument to the 7th Earl of Carlisle (1802-1864) of Castle Howard in Yorkshire, and he won the commission. Erected on high ground a couple of miles from the mansion, it features garlands tumbling down the shaft, similar to that at Langley Park. Unlike at Langley, there is no internal staircase in the column of the Carlisle Monument, as its elevated position already enjoyed an extensive prospect.

For more on the temple see the paper by Gervase Jackson-Stops in the Georgian Group Journal. Top marks to the Georgian Group for making the newly digitised journals available to all https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2020/10/GGJ_1994_03_Jackson-Stops_0001-2.pdf

For Langley Country Park see https://countryparks.buckscc.gov.uk/langley-park/

The Langley Park mansion is now a hotel https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/loniv-the-langley-a-luxury-collection-hotel-buckinghamshire/

In 1947, the British Government decided to mark the 100th anniversary of the Great Exhibition of 1851 with a Festival of Britain, scheduled to open 100 years to the day since the launch of the Great Exhibition, on 3 May 1951. The focus was an exhibition in London, and the area we now know as South Bank was chosen as the venue for the celebration of British achievements past, present and future. A little upriver at Battersea were the complementary Festival Pleasure Gardens. Whilst the tone on the South Bank was ‘intellectual seriousness’, at Battersea all was colour and whimsy, and a highlight was the sparkling grotto, sponsored by Schhh, you know who…

A site at Battersea comprising of ‘thirty-eight acres of allotments […] and a cricket pitch’ was chosen as the venue for the Pleasure Gardens. The project was overseen by James Gardner, a noted exhibition designer, who beat Oliver Messel to the job. He recruited designers, including Osbert Lancaster and John Piper, to help create the gay scene in ‘the English tradition of elegant follies’.

Gardner gave the commission for the proposed grotto to Guy Sheppard (1912-1990), a set and costume designer, who also created the site’s Riverside Theatre where Leonard Sachs presented ‘old-time Song-Saloon shows’. The company set up to run the Pleasure Gardens approached major companies for their support, the best remembered deal produced the famously wacky Guinness Clock, by design partnership Lewitt Him. Drinks manufacturer Schweppes were approached to sponsor the Grotto, perhaps suggesting some rather creative thinking by the team, as the festival had promised to be ‘a tonic to the nation’.

The Grotto consisted of chambers, representing the four elements of Wind, Fire, Earth and Water. In the ‘Temple of the Winds’ Sheppard engineered breezes blowing in from the four points of the compass, accompanied by appropriate sounds. So the north wind carried the tinkling of sleigh bells and the howling of wolves, whilst that from the east brought the chiming of temple bells. The south wind brought the sounds of the jungle, and the west the boom of fog horns to conjure up vast oceans. Completing the sensory experience were aromas wafted in on the moving air – pine from the north, flowers from the south, rich spices from the east, and seaweed from the west. These olfactory delights were provided by ‘Atkinsons’, presumably the long established Mayfair perfume house.

A ramp led to the ‘cave of Fire’, where a bridge carried visitors over what seemed to be the crater of a volcano that bubbled and boiled with molten lava, and next was the chamber dedicated to Earth, where carefully designed lighting shone on stalactites and glittering minerals, whilst a musical fountain glowed ‘pale phosphorescent blue’. Finally there was the ‘magical luminous world’ of Water, built as a coral reef where fish and sea creatures glowed in pools. Passing beneath a waterfall the visitor exited the ‘wonderfully eerie grotto’ in another part of the gardens. Echoing the 18th century experience of the beautiful and the sublime, visitors remembered being enchanted one moment, and then fearful the next as they passed from a gaily lit chamber onto an apparently rickety bridge over a fiery pit.

A note about historic grottoes also appeared in the guidebook. It mentioned Pope’s Grotto at Twickenham, Goldney’s Grotto in Bristol, and the grottoes in the parks at Wimborne St Giles, Stourhead, Pain’s Hill [sic] and Oatlands. One must wonder if this information came from Gardner’s friend Barbara Jones, also busy on both festival sites with ‘various capers’. At that date she was accumulating the information that would appear in Follies and Grottoes only 2 years later in 1953*.

This potted history concluded with a prominent plug for the sponsor: ‘But, as we see in the Pleasure Gardens, the spirit that built and enjoyed these grottoes, the cave-dweller in each of us, still Schweppervesces’ (Schweppes was at this date running an ad campaign with the slogan ‘Schweppervescence lasts the whole drink through’).

The Pleasure Gardens were scheduled to open with the main Festival site on 3 May 1951, one hundred years to the day since the launch of the Great Exhibition, but bad weather delayed the installation, and the gardens did not open until later in the month. The project was a great success with Country Life writing: ‘here is the festive spirit realised with a mixture of landscape, fantasy, flowers and fun which really delights’.

The grotto was a huge draw and visitors were happy to pay the additional 6d to enter (at the end of the 1951 season the proceeds of £9,300 were donated to the National Playing Fields Association). Celebrity visitors included the actor Douglas Fairbanks, and the Yorkshire cricket team, who called in for a visit before playing Surrey at the Oval (it was a draw). But surely the greatest praise came from the British Speleological Association (in brief: people who like caves), whose journal recommended that ‘all cave explorers make an effort to see this […] masterpiece of ingenuity’.

The initial estimate of visitor numbers was 6,000,000, and this figure was comfortably passed with 7,750,000 people enjoying the gardens in 1951. The gardens were originally to be dismantled at the end of the festival, but the public enthusiasm was such that it was agreed to keep them open for another two years, and legislation had to be passed to allow this. In 1952, the soon-to-be architectural historian John Harris found employment manning the entrance to the grotto, and recorded in his memoirs that the then operators were somewhat lacking in scruples, and that perhaps not all the entrance sixpences found their way to the management. In 1953 private operators took a 21 year lease on the gardens, which operated for a number of years before becoming run down, and tarnished by tragedy when a ride collapsed with fatalities in 1972. Thereafter the gardens were gradually diminished until little remained.

An exact date for the demolition of the grotto has not been found, and sadly few photos survive. What a wonderful, vivid experience it must have been. Sadly this post has been rather monochrome, and fails to do justice to the gardens, so to cheer everything up here is the joyous cover of the Festival Guide.

UPDATE February 2023: The Folly Flâneuse was absolutely delighted to hear from Peter Maggs who remembers visiting the Festival Pleasure Gardens on more than one occasion as a child. Here he is in the grotto, and his memories can be found in the comments section at the foot of the page.

* Gardner would continue to talk follies with Barbara Jones, and the second edition  of Follies & Grottoes, published in 1974, featured his drawing of the root house at Spetchley.

For the Guinness Clock see https://www.guinness-storehouse.com/Content/pdf/archive-factsheets/advertising/festival_clock.pdf

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