Just outside Little Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire stands a lofty circular brick tower which sits on an octagonal base. It was built towards the end of the eighteenth century by the Stratton family and has, appropriately, a tall tale attached. The eye-catcher was a popular subject with artists, and a number of very pretty views survive.

Barbara Jones described the tower in Follies and Grottoes (1953) as the creation of one Admiral Stratton who wished to see the ships on the Thames: a story which had been told in print since at least 1888 (a variant story has the builder as a wealthy ship owner). As there is no possibility of seeing the Thames from the top of the tower, Jones concluded that this part of the story might be fanciful. In fact little of the tale was true, and there never was an Admiral Stratton.

In 1790 the house called Gays (sometimes The Gaze, but now The Gage) was home to John Stratton (c.1751-1811) who is said to have built the tower in 1789. He was the son of a wealthy merchant and although he was apprenticed to a London attorney in 1787, he later seems to have enjoyed life as a gentleman of independent means. Little is known about Stratton’s life. He was living in ‘Little Berkhamstead’ when he married Charlotte Lucadon in a Church of England ceremony in 1794, but he died in Bromley, Kent, in April 1811 and was buried in the nonconformist cemetery at Bunhill Fields in London.

The tower was built using bricks recycled from an earlier building which stood on the site, and in 1890 it was reported that the building cost was £3,000. Information on the date and cost seems to have been supplied by Col. John Heathfield Stratton (1837-1925), who lived at The Gage at the turn of the nineteenth century and presumably had family papers in his possession. Sadly no designer or architect’s name is ever mentioned.

A drawing in Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies (above), executed some time before 1805, is annotated with a description of the tower. It tells that it was built ‘for a pleasure house, and has several apartments in the different stages of altitude’. The Strattons and their guests could admire the ‘fine prospects’ from the ‘flat lead roof’ behind the battlements.

Although marked on the 1856 1st series Ordnance Survey map as ‘Observatory’, at some point early in its existence the tower was given the alternative name of ‘The Monument’, and it is marked as such on the 1838 tithe map and on later Ordnance Survey maps. In 1830 there was a steeplechase to ‘the monument in Little Berkhamstead’ and the name was also used on early picture postcards. There is no explanation for the name or what the tower might commemorate.

The tower was maintained until the middle of the nineteenth century. The key was held locally and visitors were permitted to climb the tower (except on Sundays). We know there was a library on the second floor because one George Shepherd was caught stealing books from the tower in 1868. In court he confessed, admitting he planned to sell the books to ‘buy myself some bread, because I was hungry’.

By 1888 the tower was described as dilapidated. The decaying tower stayed in Stratton family ownership until the middle of the last century, and in the 1960s the then owner, architect William Tatton Brown (1910-1977), tried to get planning permission to convert the tower for residential use and save it from further decay. After a battle with Hertford Rural Council he eventually got the go-ahead, but not before one particular aspect of the case had been enjoyed by the press. In 1968 Sir Ian Orr-Ewing, Member of Parliament for Hendon North (Conservative), objected to the application stating that he sometimes sunbathed naked in his garden and did not wish to be overlooked.

A further extension has since been added to the base of the tower (listed grade II*) and it remains a private residence. The top of the tower can be seen from roads and footpaths within the village, which is understandably proud of the grade II* listed folly.

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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.

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