John Bligh, 3rd Earl of Darnley of Cobham Hall, Kent, left instructions in his will that a ‘Chapel or Mausoleum’ be built on Williams Hill, an elevated site on his estate. The building was to receive his body, and those of other family members if they should ‘desire it’. It was to be constructed of the finest materials, and the Earl suggested it ‘might be of a kind with four fronts supporting a pyramid in the middle high enough to be conspicuous’.

The earl died in 1781 and was interred in Cobham church. The contents of his will were soon being discussed in polite society, and newspapers across the country reported that the late earl had himself chosen the spot for his resting place, and that the Bishop was to consecrate the ground. The commission to design the structure was given to James Wyatt and his drawings were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1783, but the project was managed, and possibly tweaked, by George Dance the younger. Work took some time, and the Kentish Gazette noted in April 1787 that the ‘Mausoleum at Cobham-hall is at length near finished’ .

Darnley’s heir, his son John, was still a teenager at the time of his father’s death, and came of age in 1788. In 1790 he asked the landscape gardener Humphry Repton to give advice on modernising the grounds at Cobham.

Repton produced one of his famous Red Books, and the section on the mausoleum and its surroundings makes it clear that at that date the building was still intended as a burial place. Repton recommended planting trees of the ‘funereal kind’ to help ‘inspire the solemn ideas which such a magnificent Record of Mortality is intended to awaken’.

In 1793 Samuel Ireland published Picturesque Views on the River Medway, in which he suggests that the 4th earl was unhappy with the building built for his father. Ireland wrote that the ‘pyramid finish is both ponderous and unmeaning’ and added that he was ‘informed that this angular top is to be removed’. Allowing his readers to judge for themselves on the merits of the structure, he included an engraving. Ireland calls the building the ‘mausoleum’, suggesting it was still intended for this purpose. The plans must have changed, for that ‘ponderous’ pyramid roof remains.

Curiously, the completed building was never consecrated, and so could never function as a mausoleum. This was even explained in verse by H.G. Adams in 1836:

Emerging from the grove, now do they stand
Before a pile of architecture, plann’d
To be the Darnley’s last sad resting place,
The Mausoleum! of that ancient race;
But never had the consecrated rite
Been here performed, nor must their bodies rest
On ground, save that by the holy Prelate bless’d.

The stories differ: one says that the Bishop of Rochester refused to consecrate the building as the earl had treated a parish priest badly. Another account states that the earl’s descendants refused to pay the exorbitant fee demanded by the Bishop, and so the building remained empty, and a further story states that the earl and the bishop argued over the payment of tithes. John Thomas, Bishop of Rochester at the time the mausoleum was constructed, is remembered as a moderate man with a love of the fine arts and architecture, and contemporary evidence for a feud is hard to find, so the true history remains a mystery.

But whatever the reason, the 3rd earl remains in his ‘temporary’ grave in Cobham church. His wife died in 1803, and in her will, written three years earlier, she had stipulated that she was to be buried in the churchyard at Bidborough, near Tunbridge Wells, where she had lived since soon after her son reached his majority. The 4th earl and his countess died only months apart in 1831, and they too were interred in the vault in Cobham church, leaving the mausoleum empty.

The Darnley Mausoleum, as it has continued to be known, suffered appalling vandalism after much of the estate was sold in the 1950s (the house is now a school). Without a resident family, mindless damage soon became a chronic problem. There appeared to be a solution in the later 1980s, when a plan to restore the folly as a family home was announced. The very first newsletter of the fledgling Folly Fellowship contained an article with an illustration of the proposal by Sell, Wade and Postins (a second design by Paul Dyson was admired but not thought economically viable). It would have seen two low arcaded wings added to the existing mausoleum, each terminated with a pedimented pavilion. Planning permission was granted after a four day public enquiry, but the ambitious project never progressed.

In 2001 the Cobham Ashenbank Management Scheme was formed with representatives of the family, heritage bodies and local authorities joining forces to save the building. The Heritage Lottery Fund once more saved the day with a £5 million contribution towards the £8 million restoration costs, with the proviso that the property was placed in the care of the National Trust. The exemplary restoration won a number of awards.

The Folly Flâneuse walked to the mausoleum with a friend who was enjoying a stay in another beautifully restored ornamental building on the estate – the exceedingly cosy Cobham Dairy.

Follies, the magazine of the Folly Fellowship, the charity founded to protect, preserve, and promote follies, grottoes & garden buildings,  is available to consult online thanks to an excellent digitisation project. You can see that very first edition, and many others, http://follies.org.uk/

You can read more about the Cobham Dairy, a Landmark Trust property here https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/cobham-dairy-27098

The exterior of the Darnley Mausoleum can be visited at all reasonable times. For information on seeing the interior visit the National Trust website.

For another mausoleum that never served its purpose see this post on the lost Cranbrook Castle in Essex.

The Folly Flâneuse wishes all readers a jolly festive season. She is now taking a short break, but further folly ramblings will be forthcoming in 2025

In April 1826 a visitor to Bath noted that William Beckford, a ‘wealthy and capricious voluptuary’, had bought land on Lansdown Hill ‘with the design of erecting a magnificent tower with drest grounds about it’. The visitor knew that this had been planned since soon after Beckford’s move to the city in 1822, but he could see no sign of any progress on the project. Had he arrived just a few months later he would have found builders hard at work.

Beckford (1760-1844) had been the subject of gossip and press speculation throughout his adult life. He was initially of interest simply because he was immensely rich from his family’s interests in the Slave Trade. Then, in 1784, came accusations of sexual activity with a 16 year old boy which soon became the talk of the town, and Beckford and his wife fled to the continent. He would later be famed for his exuberant and extravagant building projects.

On his return to England Beckford built the gothic palace called Fonthill Abbey, in Wiltshire, to a design by James Wyatt. The magnificent house was widely known from prints and books, and so there was much interest in December 1825 when the fall of the ‘fine (but flimsy) architectural structure’ was announced in the press. Although Beckford had sold the estate some three years earlier, it would forever be known as his creation, and Wyatt would be blamed for the inadequate foundations.

After selling the Fonthill estate Beckford moved to Bath. In 1823 the newspapers were reporting that Beckford had three or four hundred men enclosing his estate with a wall, and laying out grounds for plantations where upwards of two hundred trees were to be planted. As the finishing touch, Beckford was said to be intending to build a lofty tower. Progress was slow, and in January 1825 the papers were wondering why it had not materialised. In the autumn of 1826, work eventually began to a design by H. E. Goodridge (1797-1864), a Bath-based architect.

There were those who questioned Beckford’s decision to ‘make new efforts to scale the skies’, given his experience at Fonthill, and in October the papers reported that ‘Mr. Beckford, undismayed by the falling of his celebrated tower at Fonthill, has now above a hundred men employed in the erection of a somewhat similar edifice on Landsdown [sic] Bath’. But some lessons had been learned, and work on the tower was paused in November and not recommenced until all risk of a frost was over.

In 1841 the newspapers, interested in every move Beckford made, reported that he was planning to pull the tower down and sell the collection, as he was so fed up of thieves and vandals breaking in. Happily, the tower was given a reprieve, but the contents were dispersed only a few years later following Beckford’s death in 1844. The tower too was sold, but soon afterwards Beckford’s daughter, Susan, Duchess of Hamilton, was horrified to learn that the grounds were being used as a beer garden. She repurchased the tower and presented it to the parish for use as a cemetery and chapel.

The chapel remained in use until the 1960s, when it was deconsecrated and put up for sale. It was bought by Drs Elizabeth and Leslie Hilliard who established a museum of Beckfordiana in the tower and set up the Beckford Tower Trust to secure its future. Major restoration was carried out in 1997-2000, and again in 2022-2024.

William Beckford and his buildings have been the subject of many excellent books and papers, and this brief account is really just an excuse to say that the newly-refurbished tower is well worth a visit. See the fascinating museum, now with many new items of Beckfordiana on show, then limber up and climb the spiral stairs to the belvedere for views over the city and countryside. You can then enjoy wandering in the cemetery to find both Beckford’s and Goodridge’s resting places, and walk down to the newly-revealed grotto tunnel which Beckford built on the carriage drive to his home in the valley below.

There’s lots more on the Beckford’s Tower website and if you’d like to linger a little longer the Landmark Trust has an apartment in the tower to rent.

Comments are always welcome and you can get in touch via the box at the foot of the page. Thank you for reading.

On the banks of the river Orwell in Suffolk there once stood a lofty obelisk. It proclaimed to all the filial piety of Charles Berners, who erected it in 1793 in memory of his father, William. At 96 feet tall, and topped with a golden sun, it was a prominent landmark but sadly it came to a sorry end when it was damaged by fire and then demolished in the middle of the 20th century. But as the image above shows, fragments were salvaged and survive today.

William Berners (1709-1783) acquired the Woolverstone (or Wolverstone, Woolverston) estate in 1773 when it was described as being ‘capable of great and immediate improvement’. Berners commissioned a new mansion which was built to the designs of the architect John Johnson. The house was described in 1784 as ‘fine enough’, but it was the hilltop location with views of the river Orwell that gave it ‘all its merit’: the numerous small boats which sailed up and down the river brought to life this ‘superb view’.

After his death his son and heir Charles (c.1734-1815) commissioned the architect Robert Mylne (1733-1811) to design an obelisk in memory of his father. The plan was drawn up early in 1791, and the situation decided in September of the same year, with an Ipswich mason called Edward Tovell given the job of erecting the monument.

The obelisk was square in plan and surmounted with a golden metal ball surrounded by sun-rays (possibly inspired by the obelisk to the Duke of Cumberland in the park at Windsor of 1765 or the one at Stourhead in Wiltshire which was topped with a gilded bronze sun in 1748). But unusually it had a hollow centre which contained a wooden staircase, and presumably the circles near the top of the shaft were peepholes through which to admire the view, although as the engraving above shows the view was pretty impressive even from ground level.

Old postcards record how the obelisk looked, and show it to have been decorated with decorative roundels. These are very likely products of the Coade artificial stone manufactory in Lambeth, as that the company is known to have supplied the huge plaque featuring Diana the huntress which adorns the pediment of the mansion, as well as vases, urns, consoles and capitals. There were two inscriptions which were recorded on a pen and wash drawing by Issac Johnson of Woodbridge.

The first inscription translates as ‘In memory of William Berners Esq., best of fathers and well meriting the building of this obelisk by his son Charles Berners 1793’. The second plaque recorded that William was born on July 10 1709 and died on September 18 1783.

Sadly it was the internal void which brought an end to the obelisk. In July 1943 a fire was started at the foot of the wooden stairs which quickly spread (naval ratings returning from the pub were blamed). Considered beyond repair, the monument was demolished with explosives soon after.

But all was not lost: a few lucky villagers salvaged ornamental fragments which survive in private gardens, including what seem to be some of the Coade stone plaques from the obelisk.

The keen-eyed will have spotted two further landscape curiosities in the earlier illustrations to this post, both of which were once part of the Woolverstone estate. The map shows Freston Tower (top left), a ‘tall, imposing and picturesque bit of Tudor brickwork’ now a holiday home in the care of the Landmark Trust.

The engraving of Woolverstone Park shows a small ornamental building (bottom right): this ‘pretty little lodge’ became known as the Cat House, with the tale told locally that a stuffed cat was displayed in the window to warn local smugglers that the authorities were in the area. It has since been substantially extended and is now in the grounds of the MDL Woolverstone Marina.

Woolverstone Hall (grade I) was requisitioned during the Second World War and has been in use as a school since the 1950s. The views which the obelisk once enjoyed can be seen from a public footpath.

The Woolverstone obelisk is a sad loss, but the obelisk in Windsor Great Park, also topped by a golden sun, was recently restored by Cliveden Conservation, and looks rather handsome on a bright day.

The Folly Flâneuse wishes to thank Simon Pearce of Woolverstone for sharing his research and for being an excellent guide to the area. Thanks also to the owners of the surviving plaques for permission to view.

Woolverstone Hall is currently home to Ipswich High School. There are excellent views of the house on its website https://www.ipswichhighschool.co.uk

Thank you for reading and please scroll down to the foot of the page to share any thoughts or comments.

In the middle of the 20th century books featuring the adventures of the Lockett children captured the imaginations of young readers. One title in particular appealed to the Folly Flâneuse: what ghastly goings-on could have taken place at the ‘half completed and abandoned tower’ known as Steeple Folly? And which real clifftop folly might have been the inspiration for it?

The author of this tale was Mary Evelyn Atkinson (1889-1974), who published as M.E. Atkinson. She was born in London, the daughter of a schoolmaster at Highgate School, but when a small child the family removed to Swanage in Dorset, where her father founded the Durlston Court Preparatory School in 1903. This county would provide the setting for the books in which Bill, Jane and Oliver Lockett roam, free from adult supervision, encountering one adventure after another.

Steeple Folly was published in 1950, and like the others in the series received a warm welcome in the press, with the Western Times writing that the ‘adventures of the Locketts never fail to enthrall’. Beautifully illustrated by writer and illustrator Charlotte Hough (1924-2008) the story, full of nursery teas, housemaids, and gymkhanas, was aimed at a middle-class readership: to the modern reader Atkinson comes across as a complete snob, letting her protagonists patronise the servants and sneer at children who are schooled at ‘some rotten little local outfit’. And to make matters worse she doesn’t even approve of follies! With a rather limited vocabulary she calls the tower ‘that absurd erection’, ‘absurd Steeple Folly’, ‘that stone absurdity’ and, in case anyone has missed her point, adds that at close range the ‘the folly looked positively immense- but just as absurd as ever’.

The folly is largely incidental to the plot, which won’t be explored further in case anyone wishes to read the story, but the Folly Flâneuse wondered what genuine hilltop tower might have inspired Steeple Folly. The most obvious suggestion is the Clavell Tower, aka Kimmeridge Folly, on the Dorset coast which Atkinson would have known as it is only 10 miles or so from Swanage, near the hamlet of Steeple. It is close to landmarks that feature in the book, such as the famous Blue Pool, and like Steeple Folly it is perched on an eminence with extensive views. To be clear: this is pure supposition, but it does give the Folly Flâneuse an excuse to feature this marvellous building.

The tower was built as an observatory, or belvedere, by Revd John Clavell (c.1760-1833) of Smedmore House in 1830. It continued to be a seaside retreat for his heirs, the Mansel family, and in 1852 the cannon that surrounded the tower were fired and flags hoisted to mark a family wedding. Later it served for a period as a coastguard look-out shelter, but meanwhile the soft cliffs of the Dorset coast were slowly eroding and edging ever closer to the tower.

By 1926 the tower itself was deteriorating, and in that year vandals were prosecuted for ‘dislodging and throwing down stones of which the tower is built’. In 1948 the artist John Piper wrote an essay on ‘The Nautical Style’ in which he admired the ‘absolutely sound’ condition of the ancient chapel on St Alban’s Head, in Dorset. He compared this to the Clavell Tower: ‘ a pretty but pathetic attempt at folly building on the coast, six hundred years younger than the Romanesque chapel, but crumbling to bits’.

A 1959 article in Country Life reported that the ruined Clavell Tower was now dangerously close to the edge of the cliffs. It was the tower and the adjacent perilous precipice that the author P.D. James chose as one of the settings for her 1975 murder-mystery The Black Tower, in which her fictional folly has a rather gruesome history. The tower has subsequently appeared on the cover of various editions of the book, as well as playing itself in the 1985 TV adaptation.

The tower continued to moulder until the end of the 20th century, when the Mansels of Smedmore set up the Clavell Tower Trust and took advice from English Heritage. After much analysis and discussion it was agreed that the only option was to dismantle the folly and rebuild it further inland.

This was beyond the means of the Clavell Tower Trust, and a conversation was started with the Landmark Trust to see if they could take on the project and rebuild the tower as a holiday let. The charity’s trustees were understandably concerned about the complexity of the process, but in 2002 gave ‘cautious acceptance’ to the plans. With Heritage Lottery Funding in place to augment funds from a public appeal, and donations from a vast number of charitable trusts, work began in 2006, and the first of many eager guests arrived in August 2008.

Visit the Landmark Trust’s website for details of visiting the tower on open days in September, or to find out about staying in this fabulous folly https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/news-and-events/upcoming-events/clavell-open-day-22/

And for a full history of the tower, including the restoration, see the Landmark Trust’s excellent history album https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/about-us/history-albums/#C

John Piper’s essay was first published in 1938 but revised in 1948 for inclusion in the anthology Buildings and Prospects. His photo’ of the deteriorating tower is in the collection of Tate https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/items/tga-8728-1-10-44/piper-photograph-of-clavell-tower-kimmeridge-wareham-dorset

If you would like to share any thoughts or information please comment using the box at the bottom of the page. To receive a folly story in your inbox every Saturday morning please click on the Subscribe link. Thank you for reading, and please share this post if you know someone who might be interested.

In 1771 the agriculturalist and country house afficionado Arthur Young visited Halswell in Somerset. He admired the house, but admitted that what ‘chiefly attracts the attention of strangers, are the decorated grounds’. Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte (1710-1785) ornamented his park with temples, rustic shelters and elegant bridges, all of which fell into disrepair, or disappeared completely, after the Second World War. Happily, recent years have seen a major programme of restoration, which continues apace.

In May 1950 the estate was dispersed at auction ‘by direction of Lord Wharton & his trustees’. Lot 26 was 750 ‘Well Grown Trees’ standing in Mill Wood. The purchaser, E.C. Wyatt & Sons of Taunton, paid £18,700 for the lot, and promptly felled the trees, leaving the ornamental structures vulnerable in a bare landscape. The Druid’s Temple, a rustic timber rotunda, is now known only from photographs, although archaeologists have discovered its site. And only one pier remains of an open arch which once sheltered a giant statue of Neptune.

There was a happier future for the Temple of Harmony, which was restored by the Somerset Building Preservation Trust in 1995-96 (in 1997-98 they restored Robin Hood’s Hut, high above the house, which is now offered as a holiday let by the Landmark Trust).

In December 2013 the house was purchased by Edward Strachan, who quickly bought back other parcels of the former estate and embarked on a huge project to bring the house and landscape back to life. The once roofless rotunda, which stands close to the house, was the first landscape feature to be brought back to its original elegant state, and more recently another ambitious scheme has seen the restoration of the beautiful and unusual Bath Stone Bridge in Mill Wood.

According to an account by the estate steward of the time, the bridge was built in 1755. Architectural historian Gervase Jackson-Stopps attributed it to the architect and polymath Thomas Wright of Durham, on the basis of a very similar sketch design in Wright’s papers.

Research continues as part of the project, and undoubtedly there will be more to report in due course, but for now we should celebrate the outstanding quality of the restoration of the bridge, which was overseen by architect Robert Battersby of Bristol based Architecton, working with the enthusiastic Halswell team.

By the time work began a fair chunk of the bridge, which is actually a dam controlling one of the series of ponds that are a feature of Mill Wood, had been toppled into the water. One of the two curious carved figures that once terminated the wings of the bridge was lost (happily the torso has since been recovered and is displayed nearby), and the other needed some serious beauty treatment. Stonemason Mike Orchard and sculptor Tom Waugh take the credit for the new stonework and carving, which blends beautifully with the old.

Waugh also included a very modern detail. The laurels planted as a backdrop to the bridge will slowly mature, and it will be hidden. In centuries to come garden historians will discover it, and ponder its meaning.

The work was recognised in the prestigious Georgian Group Awards, winning the 2021 prize for the Best Restoration of a Georgian Structure.

To see the delights of Mill Wood you will need to visit on a Sunday afternoon in summer. Halswell House and its grounds can be seen via the Invitation to View tours operated by Historic Houses. Or to have the place to yourself the Folly Flâneuse can highly recommend a stay at the beautifully restored Tudor House at the heart of the estate.

Lots of links this week, but all worth a look…

The excellent Halswell Park website has loads of interesting information, including more on staying on the estate https://halswellpark.wordpress.com

For tours of Halswell visit https://www.historichouses.org/house/halswell-house/tours/

The Temple of Harmony reopens in spring https://www.templeofharmony.org.uk/

Robin Hood’s Hut can be booked here https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/robin-hoods-hut-11228/#Overview

Please scroll down to the very bottom of the page to share any thoughts or comments. Thank you for reading.

With St Valentine’s Day approaching, the Folly Flâneuse wondered which were the most romantic garden buildings. The most famous expression of love in an architectural form is surely the Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jahan as a tomb for his favourite wife. But closer to home are three equally enchanting buildings built as monuments to lost loves – two real, and one imaginary, and each likened to the marble mausoleum in India. 

Near Abergavenny in Wales is the Clytha estate. In 1787 William Jones retired there following the death of his wife, Elizabeth, who was buried in nearby Llanarth churchyard. A long inscription on her monument in the church was composed by her ‘most afflicted and grateful husband, as a feeble effort to do justice to the memory of the best of wives’.

A few years later Jones began work on another ‘memorial to my wife’, but this time on a monumental scale. Work began on the ‘Castle’ in 1790, with Jones project-managing the construction himself, and a plaque records that:

This Building was erected in the Year 1790 by
WILLIAM JONES of Clytha House Esq
Husband of ELIZABETH […]
It was undertaken for the purpose of relieving a mind
sincerely afflicted by the loss of a most excellent Wife
whose Remains were deposited
in Llanarth Church Yard A:D: 1787
and to the Memory of whose Virtues
this Tablet is dedicated.

Only a few years later Sarah Anne Wilmot, who was touring Wales in 1802, was shown around by the ‘pensive owner’. She wrote in her journal that the Castle was a ‘united mausoleum and gazebo to his late wife’. Having been taken on a complete tour of the grounds, her party was treated to fine fruit from the hothouse, but nothing could lift the ‘air of melancholy’ which Sarah Anne felt pervaded the house and garden.

The Monmouthshire historian William Coxe also visited soon after completion, and he too admired the ‘ornament’, and admitted that he could not ‘retire from the building without sympathising with the regret, and applauding the gratitude, affection, and taste of the owner’.

Writing about the grade I listed Clytha Castle in Follies: A Guide to Rogue Architecture (co-written with Wim Meulenkamp and published in 1986), Gwyn Headley memorably called Clytha the ‘Taj Mahal of Wales’, which set the Folly Flâneuse wondering if other British buildings had been given a similar epithet. Two notable examples came to mind…

James Williamson, 1st Baron Ashton (1842-1930), fabulously rich from the production of oilcloth and linoleum, built the Ashton Memorial in the early years of the 20th century. His architect was Sir John Belcher (1841-1913), who was president of the Royal Institute of British Architects at the time of the commission. Belcher was a prolific architect of domestic and municipal buildings in a flamboyant Edwardian Baroque style. His works included Colchester Town Hall and London’s elegant Mappin and Webb building, which was controversially demolished in the 1990s to enable the development of No.1 Poultry, but a hilltop palace for a client with very deep pockets is unsurprisingly unique in his oeuvre. As Pevsner wrote in the 1969 edition of his volume on Lancashire, Belcher was ‘put into the position of designing the most sumptuous building in all his career for no utilitarian purpose whatsoever.’

The building is said to commemorate Ashton’s 2nd wife, Jessy, who died in 1904. A plaque actually dedicates the building to all of his family, but the people of Lancaster have always maintained that the loss of his wife was the driving force behind construction on this mammoth scale, and it was quickly dubbed ‘The Taj Mahal of the North’ (although less romantic Lancastrians prefer to call it ‘The Structure’).

Opened in 1909, the monument stands in Williamson Park, the public space created by Lord Ashton, and his father before him, for the people of Lancaster. At around 50 metres high the memorial can be seen from miles around, and whilst Ashton himself was said to be shy and shun the limelight, the same can not be said of the Ashton Memorial.

Meanwhile overlooking the Stour estuary in Essex, there’s a much more recent cenotaph, but this time to a fictional lost love. In 2010 Living Architecture’s Creative Director Alan de Botton met artist Grayson Perry and the idea for A House for Essex was born. Perry worked with architect Charles Holland (then of FAT Architecture) to bring the project to fruition, and it was completed in 2014.

Essex-born Perry created Julie Cope, an ‘Essex every-woman’, whose story is told through a series of artworks in (and on) the House. In brief: Julie finds herself pregnant and marries when still young, she divorces, and when the children have grown she gets the qualifications she missed out on as a teenager. She meets new love Rob, and settles into a comfortable middle-class life. Her life ends abruptly in a tragic accident, and Rob builds the house at Wrabness as her memorial, or as Perry puts it ‘a Taj Mahal upon the Stour’.

You too can stay in the monuments to Elizabeth Jones and Julie Cope, as both properties are holiday homes. Clytha Castle was restored by the heritage charity The Landmark Trust, and The House for Essex is a property of Living Architecture, which exists to create thought-provoking houses which inspire discussion about modern architecture. The Ashton Memorial is open to the public, and to continue the theme of romance, is a popular wedding venue.

There’s more on Clytha Castle here https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/clytha-castle-6088/#History

And for A House for Essex see https://www.living-architecture.co.uk/the-houses/a-house-for-essex/overview/

The Ashton Memorial is freely accessible https://www.lancaster.gov.uk/sites/williamson-park/ashton-memorial

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A building that needs little, if any, introduction: the ne plus ultra of follies. But one that continues to perplex, as no architect has ever been identified for this the most ornate and glorious of garden buildings, erected in 1761 for Lord Dunmore. Very few early accounts can be found, but in 1768 a visitor wrote of emerging from woodland to find a pleasure house of which the ‘top part is built exactly in the form of a pineapple’.

The flanking walls supported glasshouses, and were heated to enable the growing of fruit – including pineapples, presumably. Adjacent to the ‘beautiful Pine-apple Summer house’ were four lodging rooms for the gardeners. A visitor in 1783 described the ‘Pine-apple Cupola’ as ‘highly gilded’, so it must have been a breathtaking and unique experience to see it in that period.

The Pineapple was presented to the National Trust for Scotland by the Countess of Perth in 1974. As the NTS’s year book for 1976 recorded, acceptance of the ‘bizarre structure in shape of pineapple’ was only made possible by the ‘co-operation of the Landmark Trust’. The Landmark Trust planned to make the elaborate centrepiece ‘habitable once again so that people may stay in this outstanding vegetable’.

The restored Pineapple quickly became a very popular Landmark Trust property. The grounds and walled garden remain in the care of the National Trust for Scotland, and are in need of a little love and attention when funds are available.

A brief post this week as the Folly Flâneuse is taking a week off to catch up after a Scottish sojourn (so expect more delights from that trip) and will then be heading off once again in pursuit of pavilions and on the trail of towers. Thank you for reading.

For stays in the Pineapple see https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/pineapple-10726/#Overview

To visit https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/the-pineapple

‘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.

In 1987 Save Britain’s Heritage (SAVE), the charity which campaigns to save historic buildings from needless destruction, published Pavilions in Peril, a report which considered the great number of garden buildings in Britain that faced an uncertain future. Author Julia Abel Smith researched 54 case studies, including a number of groups of follies, across England, Wales and Scotland. The Folly Flâneuse recently revisited the report, and was delighted to find so many buildings had been rescued.

Some of the greatest restoration projects have been thanks to the work of the Landmark Trust, the charity that rescues important buildings that would otherwise be lost, and makes them available for holidays. Indeed their pioneering role in this field was acknowledged in the book, which featured before and after views of The Chateau at Gate Burton, Lincolnshire, on the front and back covers. The Chateau’s restoration was completed in 1984 and two further buildings featured in Pavilions in Peril have been saved since 1987: Mowbray Point at Hackfall in North Yorkshire and Robin Hood’s Hut at Halswell House in Somerset.

Mowbray Point, now called The Ruin, was a derelict shell when the Landmark Trust began work to transform it in the first years of the 21st century. Hackfall is a detached pleasure ground, created by the Aislabies of Studley Royal in the middle of the 18th century. The other follies in the woodland  have also been restored thanks to the work of the Hackfall Trust and the Woodland Trust, amongst others, and there is full public access.

In Somerset, Halswell House is also home to a group of follies. As Pavilions in Peril went to press in 1987 it was announced that grants had been offered to help secure the future of the fanciful cottage called Robin Hood’s Hut, which was in such a ‘deplorable condition’ that it had been delisted, and other structures on the estate. The Somerset Buildings Preservation Trust restored the Ionic Temple, also known as the Temple of Harmony, in 1996, and then began work on the absolutely lovely Robin Hood’s Hut. In 2002 the Landmark Trust began work to fit out the interior as a holiday let, thus securing the building’s future.

At Cilwendeg in Pembrokeshire, Wales, The Temple Trust, which is dedicated to saving garden buildings, has restored the 1820s Shell House. Pavilions in Peril was able to report that this ‘little charmer’ had escaped the attention of vandals, but the building was deteriorating, and there was a threat from falling trees. The Temple Trust (alerted to the need to save garden buildings in part by the SAVE report) acquired the building in 2003, and carried out a full restoration which included replacing the pretty timber verandah and the long-lost coloured glass windows. Blott Kerr-Wilson restored the intricate shell-work interior to its former glory, and the Shell House is now open on designated days each year.

At Enville Hall, in Staffordshire, the owners have restored a number of garden buildings on their private estate. In 1987 the gorgeous gothick Museum was described as in ‘dire condition’, with the roof caved in and the windows gone. Originally built in 1750 as a greenhouse, it later served as a billiard room and a summerhouse, and then in the 19th century it housed a natural history collection, hence its present name. The exterior was beautifully restored soon after the report was published.

Three cheers too for the work of local authorities. In Durham the County Council worked with the Friends of Hardwick Park to save the wonderful 18th century landscape, which had fallen into a really sad state. Thanks to a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the landscape has been restored, important garden structures have been repaired, and the scant remains of others have been consolidated and interpreted. The work was completed in 2010, and visitors can now appreciate the park as Georgian visitors to John Burdon’s estate would have done. Most dramatic of all is the recreation of the fabulous domed Temple of Minerva, designed by architect James Paine. Although largely derelict the columns and most of the materials survived scattered around the central core, enabling rebuilding to take place.

There is not space here to mention all of the buildings that have been saved. Pavilions in Peril is still in print at the absolute bargain price of £5, so if you don’t already have a copy The Folly Flâneuse suggests you buy one, and explore for yourself. You can order the book and read more about SAVE’s work here https://www.savebritainsheritage.org/publications/publications-in-print/3

At the time of writing houses and gardens are still adapting opening hours in line with government guidance. Please check websites for further information.

Cilwendeg Shell House http://www.thetempletrust.org.uk

Enville (private)  https://envilleestate.com

Hackfall http://www.hackfall.org.uk

Halswell (private)  https://halswellpark.wordpress.com

Hardwick Park https://www.durham.gov.uk/hardwickpark

The Landmark Trust https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk

To comment on this post, please scroll down to the comments box at the bottom of the page. Thank you for reading.

This weekend the country celebrates the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Thinking of the events of 1939-45, the Folly Flâneuse was reminded of a wartime project to document the changing rural and urban face of Britain. At a time when the future seemed uncertain,  ‘Recording Britain’ commissioned artists to portray the country as it then was, creating a visual history for future generations.

The ‘Scheme for Recording the Changing Face of Britain’ was initiated by Sir Kenneth Clark, then Director of the National Gallery, soon after the outbreak of the Second World War. Financial support from the Pilgrim Trust enabled him to recruit artists for the project, which soon became known by the snappier title of ‘Recording Britain’*. Although the threat of destruction, or devastation, as a result of war was one of the stimuli to collect images of a life that might be lost, Clark and his Committee were also responding to an age of rapid change, when industrial and residential development was encroaching on the countryside. There was also a philanthropic aspect, as artists were seen to be struggling to make a living in wartime.

Many artists were commissioned, and the list includes some who went on to become very well-known, John Piper perhaps foremost, but there are others who are barely known today. The scenes they were asked to portray included castles and canals, townscapes and topiary, inns and industry, and all aspects of the British landscape in the early 1940s. In a move to boost patriotism and morale during the war, selections from the collection were exhibited at the National Gallery, London, and the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts organised provincial tours in conjunction with local arts groups.

Of the 1549 topographical works that were collected, a number of follies and landscape ornaments were included, and three are featured here: Freston Tower in Suffolk, the Pagoda at Alton Towers in Staffordshire, and the Dashwood Mausoleum in Buckinghamshire.

Freston Tower, overlooking the River Orwell in Suffolk, was the chosen subject of Russell Reeve (1895-1970), an artist who painted many Suffolk scenes. The tower had been standing since the 1570s, making it one of the oldest follies in Britain. Such tall coastal structures were seen as vulnerable, both as hinderances to British aircraft in a time of war, and as prominent objects to guide the enemy. Happily, the tower survives today and is a Landmark Trust property, available for lofty holiday lets.

A decade before she would publish Follies and Grottoes in 1953, Barbara Jones (1912-1978) chose to paint a view of the pagoda at Alton Towers in Staffordshire, one of many works she contributed to the scheme. Jones preferred the pagoda at Alton Towers, built in the early 1830s, to the more famous example at Kew, which she thought ‘a little pedestrian’. At Alton Towers, she later wrote, the ‘pagoda supports its winged roofs and bells on open lattice work of the most airy elegance’. Her ‘vivid’ watercolour of the pagoda was admired by the Yorkshire Post’s art critic when it went on display in Menston Methodist School, Yorkshire, in April 1945. Country houses and their parks were a focus for the project as there was a fear, ultimately justified, that many would be abandoned after the war, or become institutions. Alton Towers was not typical, as it had passed out of the family’s hands in the 1920s, and was operated as a pleasure ground by a local consortium. It was however requisitioned during the war, and returned in poor condition in 1951. A gradual restoration and development from that date eventually culminated in the hugely successful Alton Towers theme park.

The prominent mausoleum and eye-catcher on the West Wycombe estate in Buckinghamshire, was built in the 1760s for the Dashwood family. It was sketched for the project by Elliot Seabrooke (1886-1950), and remains today a striking feature of the landscape.

The Pilgrim Trust gave the collection to the V&A Museum, London, a partner since the early days of the project. The fabulous collection can be explored on their website https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?listing_type=&offset=0&limit=15&narrow=&extrasearch=&q=recording+britain&commit=Search&quality=0&objectnamesearch=&placesearch=&after=&before=&namesearch=&materialsearch=&mnsearch=&locationsearch=

And there is an excellent book about the scheme, Recording Britain, edited by Gill Saunders https://www.vam.ac.uk/shop/recording-britain-110127.html

*actually a misnomer as Northern Ireland was not represented. Scotland was excluded and had its own ‘Recording Scotland’ project. Wales was represented by only a few works, and within England there was a distinct southern bias with Northumberland and Durham excluded entirely and only 3 works featuring Cumberland.