Just over the river Ure from the market town of Masham is this unusual rotunda sitting on top of a rustic grotto. It was designed to take advantage of the view over the river to the church and the attractive little town. An engraved stone near the temple tells us that in 1770 ‘Samuel Wrather built this grotto’.

Samuel Wrather (1727-1806) was a wool-stapler of Masham. In 1773 he married Miss Spence, a ‘young lady of merit and fortune’, and he died in 1806 ‘at an advanced age universally respected’. He was succeeded by his son, Samuel junior (c.1778-1854), who is best known today as the owner of Nutwith, the champion racehorse bred by his late brother, which won the St Leger in 1843. The family had a small estate at Beggars Bush, in nearby Grewelthorpe, and also owned property in Masham town.

The early history of the Grotto Temple is unclear, and apart from the stone near the building there is little to go on. Late 18th century maps show that Samuel Wrather owned the strip of land now called Grotto Plantation, but the Grotto Temple itself is not marked.

The earliest image of the Grotto Temple found to date shows it as the property of Samuel Wrather junior. An engraving after a sketch by the artist George Cuitt (1779-1854), who moved to Masham in 1821, was made in 1837. It was published a year later in a fashionable pocket diary called Le Souvenir, or Pocket Tablet and captioned ‘Temple in the Grounds of S. Wrather, Masham’.

The 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, published in 1859, shows the structure as ‘Pavilion’, within woodland called ‘Grotto Plantation’. At that date there was no house nearby, suggesting that this was a detached pleasure ground (another unnamed building and bridges over a stream can be seen on the map), perhaps to be visited by the ferry which crossed the river not far away. There was certainly inspiration nearby: Hackfall, the famed woodland landscape with buildings created by William Aislabie of Studley in the 1750s and 60s, did not have a principal house attached and is only a short distance away.

A rare lithograph of the pavilion, of which only one copy has been traced, attests to its lost fame. It was published by C. M. Dydynski in around 1850 and was inserted into an extra-illustrated copy of Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s Richmondshire in the collection of Leeds Libraries. Extra-illustration, or Grangerisation, was a fashionable hobby in which prints and original sketches were interleaved into a text to enhance the content. The process took its name from the clergyman and print collector James Granger (1723-1776) who published a biographical history and encouraged readers to embellish it with engraved portraits of his subjects.

The Grotto Temple then featured on a number of picture postcards which were probably produced for the tourists who arrived after the opening of the branch line to Masham in 1875: visitors would have passed the grotto grounds on their way from the station to the town.

Sometime between 1890 and 1905, a house was built which took its name from the existing pleasure grounds: ‘The Grotto’. In the 1910s it was home to Arthur Atkinson, a haulage contractor, but by 1921 it had been renamed ‘The Greens’ and was home to the Burrill family. The engraved stone by the pavilion records that Edward Burrill restored the Grotto Temple in 1935, perhaps in preparation for the wedding of his daughter Lucy in 1936, when the reception was held at The Greens.

A fleeting mention of the ‘grotto in the plantation’ can be found in local novelist and writer Mary Elizabeth Stevenson’s guide to Masham, published in 1919. On Summer Roads in Mashamshire suggests rambles for the visitor to the area, including a walk from Masham town over the bridge towards the weir (since destroyed) to appreciate the views of the church from across the river.

Mrs Stevenson (1853-1935)  introduces the interesting idea that the grotto was a favoured viewpoint of the artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1759-1817), who settled in Masham in 1805. Stevenson wrote that Ibbetson painted ‘many fine views of the Church from this side [of the river]’, and this 1816 view certainly looks to have been taken from within the Grotto Plantation (Stevenson would have known the history of this painting, for it had hung above the fireplace in her childhood home overlooking the Market Place in Masham). The Ibbetson and Wrather families were friends, and in September 1813 they and a party of friends spent a day sketching before partaking of ‘tea and syllabub’ at Wrather’s Beggars Bush home.

Sadly the current condition gives great cause for concern: the pavilion’s pretty roof, with its wide overhanging eaves, has fallen and the grotto is overgrown. The structure is not listed and therefore has little protection, an omission that should be rectified urgently.

Grotto Plantation is private property and there is no public access, but the Grotto Temple can be seen through the trees from a public footpath.

Huge thanks to Alison Brayshaw and Gail Falkingham for their help in compiling the history of the Grotto Pavilion. There are still gaps in our knowledge – do get in touch if you can help.

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

Studley Royal, near Ripon, stays comfortably in the upper reaches of the list of most-visited National Trust properties, helped by the fact that the landscape garden features that epitome of eye-catchers, Fountains Abbey. But only a few miles away from Studley’s shops and scones is Hackfall, a tranquil vale* which is sublime, romantic and wild – and totally devoid of facilities. Both were created in the 18th century by the Aislabie family of Studley.

Hackfall was created in woodland on the bank of the river Ure and was dotted with follies, each with vistas – to the river, to Masham church spire, or to the other ornamental buildings. There was no house at Hackfall, as it was a pleasure ground that could easily be reached by carriage from Studley, and as one contemporary postulated:  ‘It is experimentally known that a long residence, even in the most romantic scenes, is apt to cloy: so the owner wisely has prevented all risk of satiety, by adapting his edifices to a visit only of a few hours.’

Today you have to visit the Village Hall in nearby Grewelthorpe for (excellent) refreshments, but in the 18th century Hackfall’s pavilions and alcoves provided shelter where light meals could be taken. If something grander were required, two of the follies had detached kitchens in which meals could be prepared. The remains of that by Mowbray Point, high above the valley, can still be seen.

The second kitchen, now lost, serviced Fisher’s Hall – one of The Folly Flâneuse’s favourite buildings. The ‘rotund room in which the family often dine’ was thatched in 1749 and completed in 1750 – a stone above the entrance bears that date and the initials of William Aislabie. It was lined with ‘that sort of stone which is commonly called petrifyed moss and roots which they dig near it’, and thatched with ling (heather). Guests sat at a horseshoe shaped table inside the octagon, from which there were ‘the finest and most picturesque views’, through the pointed gothic windows and door.

Hackfall soon became very popular and the earliest tourists (only the rich and influential were able to take tours at this date) could gain admission by calling at a cottage where the gardener, a Mr Hardcastle, would show them around. One visitor was moved to write some lines, and in this extract imagines the rustic summerhouse as a hermit’s retreat:

Fast by this stream, and in the thickest shade,
A straw-roofed cot appears with ivy bound,
The walls with cells and vary’d moss overlaid,
And rough-hewn altars mark’d the hallow’d ground.

Here haply dwells some hoary-headed seer,
Far from the guilty clouds’ tumultuous din,
Here lost in soft musings wears the silent year,
Estrang’d alike to passion and to sin.

The reality was that you were far more likely to bump into elegant travellers having ‘PicNic parties’  – in 1786 one visitor was delighted to bump into William Wilberforce drinking tea.

The inns in the closet towns of Harrogate and Ripon arranged transport by carriage to Hackfall, and stabling was provided both inside and outside of the grounds. However, it’s not clear how many visitors took their lead from The Hon. Miss Cust who arrived by donkey in 1840.

The woodland garden remained a favourite destination throughout the 19th century. By this date visitors taking tea at the Mowbray Point ‘refreshment house’ had another attraction to enjoy, Hackfall being ‘celebrated for its cream cheese’. With the advent of the motor engine further visitors arrived by car and Groups by charabanc.

Descendants of the Aislabies sold the pleasure ground in the 1930s. Hackfall was forgotten, and fell into disrepair as the 20th century progressed: the buildings became ruined, paths became overgrown and the trees were felled. In the 1980s the Hackfall Trust was formed, and it worked with the Woodland Trust and the local community and councils to halt further damage. Grants from various bodies, especially the Heritage Lottery Fund, allowed the partial restoration of Hackfall during the 1990s and the first decade of the current century. Fisher’s Hall and the other abandoned structures were consolidated to ensure their survival, whilst Mowbray Point, the banqueting house overlooking the woods and river, was beautifully restored by the Landmark Trust as a holiday let, now called The Ruin.

If you are in the area before 4 November there’s a lovely little exhibition at the nearby Masham Gallery celebrating Hackfall in a variety of media. http://www.mashamgallery.co.uk/hidden-hackfall.html

For Hackfall information http://www.hackfall.org.uk

And the Village Hall cafe http://www.grewelthorpe.org.uk/Village-Hall

Mowbray Point aka The Ruin is a Landmark Trust property and there’s more here https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/ruin-10176#Overview

* if you avoid weekends and school holidays

Exploring the tranquil ruins of Jervaulx Abbey, near Masham, ones eye is drawn up to a village on the skyline. Hazarding a guess at the location, The Folly Flâneuse arrived at the fascinating little hamlet of Thornton Steward.

En route, the first curiosity is the discovery of a lake bustling with boats, incongruously situated on top of a hill. This turns out to be Thornton Steward reservoir, home to a sailing club. Entering the village a small sign points to the church, but where is it? The lane continues on, and on, through woodland, far from the village, until suddenly there is the exquisite St Oswald’s, in peaceful solitude on the side of a hill.

But for The Folly Flâneuse there is a further treasure: Fort Horn. Looking out across the valley of the Ure is a curious house with a castellated tower at its centre. This was built by George Horn Esq., who responded to the threat of invasion by the French in the last decade of the 18th century and joined the Volunteer Militia. Under the command of Turner Straubenzee (sometimes Strawbenzie) of nearby Spennithorne a company of local men was mustered, and Horn was recommended to serve as a Lieutenant. Fears of an invasion were abated to a degree after a series of naval victories, and the Peace of Amiens of 1802 saw a temporary end to hostilities.

But war with the French resumed in 1803 and an invasion by Napoleon was considered a real threat. Aristocrats and the gentry again took the lead, and embodied local men into volunteer militia to support Britain’s army. Horn was promoted to Captain and took command of one of the 15 companies within the Loyal Dales Volunteers.

Fort Horn was apparently constructed in this turbulent period as an armoury and store room for the corps of volunteers ‘during the troublous times of the French war’. No doubt the upper room would also have been an observation post, with watchers ready to the raise the alarm if Napoleon’s army was spotted marching into Masham.

After hostilities ended in 1815 Fort Horn was converted into a dwelling. But with its martial name and bold crenellations it continues to commemorate Horn’s patriotic gesture.

Last week’s brief post on the sham Druid’s Temple, near Masham, was something of a preamble to The Folly Flâneuse sharing this wonderful letter written by Barbara Jones in 1949. Jones is, of course, the doyenne of folly-spotters, and in this missive she shares the ups and downs of researching for the first edition of Follies & Grottoes. It is a delight to read: camping at the Druid’s Temple, finding Hackfall, and best of all a run-in with the formidable Captain Fordyce, Agent to Lord Hothfield at Skipton Castle. Here’s the unadulterated letter in full:

The Follyhenge. Sunday a.m.
Dearest Tom
Yesterday was one of those days that happen to somebody else, not us. So much work on such follies never never before. I got up at six, rewrote article for Ambassador and made a fair copy (later in the day, it was actually registered and posted). Down to breakfast at 7.30: we were just out of Pateley Bridge SETTLE, last flop folly of a day of follies not only flop but WET, and were in a C.T.C. B&B, dirty beds, nothing to eat but bread & butter, gloomy sitting room to write in, all pure hell but 7/6 supper b&b — cheapest yet! Breakfast was more heavy starch food but we made a magnificent start to Skipton, straight into the risen sun, all gold and dew and long shadows of geese in the meadows. Skipton was PO, that touch of acidity that a good day needs: The wonderful Scaife follies resolved themselves into one shell room in the castle gate. Not open till 10.30. Draw? Without permission from Captain Fordyce? So I swep [sic] up to the Estate Office, which is cunningly arranged at the top of a vast spiral of medieval stairs so that one enters the prescence [sic] breathless. Oh, he is only the Agent, not God. I send in a card — impossible to see him, impossible to send a message, perhaps if I write permission might be given for a week hence. He is busy, he isn’t here, he’s going to a wedding. I leave card with request and Constables letter shall return in half an hour. Last thought — can I phone the actual owner. Enormous po. Back in half an hour, all smiles, JesusC has said YES, on condition that Lordie is sent a complimentary copy through the office. TOP PO from me. J.C has really left by now and cannot withdraw permission, so we go to the Shell House made by Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke. I only knew about her very nice ‘Arcadia’ — she built Yorkshire too. The shell house is charming, tiny and rough but  EARYL EARLY, dear, EARLY. A rough little female figure with a head like a football with cats’ ears is known as ‘Father Neptune’. Made drawing locked ourselves in, took long exposures with Syb. and away into the town. Coffee, pies for lunch, and a new racket — you take 3lbs of sugar to a stall and he sells you toffee (delicious) and fudge (smashing) for 1 11d a lb and the sugar, pound for pound. Toffee is controlled at 2 4d lb & they knock off the 5d you paid the grocer. Exit from Skipton, eating pies and giving Captain Fordyce a last loving Shugborough:

On thro’ superb moorland country to the hills above Pateley Bridge, where is the easiest & loveliest of hilltop follies — Yorke’s. You suddenly see across the bracken and heather 2 great shafts of stone, the remains of a folly of arches; a pleasant walk across the hilltop from the road and there it is. Photos & on. Awful recce by me with lipstick rubbed of [sic] from Congregational Minister, an old poppet but hopeless. Further try in P.B. Hopeless too. (While I am writing this, Bill is Syb Sibylling our 4th new & utterly unrecorded folly in 2 sq miles — one at every bend of the road. Culture-carrier — I am looking for a tall white-haired man in every bush. Little red open Austin goes by — everyone waves paws.)

Days and days later — forcing the pace. You are getting a most inadequate number of cards, & never never this pretty letter. Today I shall post it whatever. To revert to Good Saturday. Hackfall woods — a Tom Pot — was the next; by some miracle we gave ourselves times to decipher the hand of the master and didn’t cut it out — you arrive in the indicated village — Grewelthorpe, we think — and ask for the H. woods. “Why, there they are.” At last we realise that “there” is a gate into a field. Very dim. After 3 fields a little wood begins to straggle. Suddenly there is a lovely gothic stone folly and behind it, with no warning, the woods — great gorges packed with trees, no paths, and five more follies. We went down 60° screes covered with scrub and marsh underneath, & little flowers and ferns six feet high, and burdock three feet across and old man willowherb seven feet high and Kew fern house smell and everything. Really key. Supper brewed at sunset inside last folly.

Then Bill got the bit absolutely between his teeth & bashed on to Masham in the dale — lovely village built round a huge planted square — pub recce, and then he says he knows where Stonehenge is. We bash up dark lanes and he says “In that copse”. We cross moonlit stubble fields and enter a sold black wall of conifers. Hand in terrified hand we creep tho’, owls with daggers in their belts in every tree.

At last even Bill has had enough; it isn’t here. More recce and more recce and at last a cottage with a light on in the moors. 11pm. I knock & say “I’m sorry to disturb you so late — would you please tell me where the Druids’ Circle is” Why, yes, explicit directions & never a hair turned. Up the English. We go along a rising lane, leave the car, take to the open moor seeing here & there a tall stone and finally by a pine wood, flanked by monoliths, lies the stone circle, in full moonlight on the moors. Bill has been brewing up this one secretly all day. All effort, all gloomy Grisels are justified. It is smashing. We are so impressed that we rush back to the car for the things and living in the circle on gorgeous turf like a feather bed. Wake in the morning to watch the sun rise over the circle — all in the wrong place, bless them, and have breakfast on the sacrificial stone.

And that’s where this letter began. The other little bit was written later. I’m in Stamford now, hotel bedroom, C&N are living somewhere in the night. Today we do Exton, which we saw yesterday evening — bark architecture, full of black nails; the ultimate architecture of blood and pain, the most neurotic and awful folly yet. Its so terrifying we can’t bear to touch the bark. I saw it years ago & never forgot it; so did Harry Bentinck — which explains his letter! Wait till you SEE it. Coo. We shall be back in London on Sunday evening. Could pick up a card Wednesday at IPSWICH. Im so upset about 4 months plaster, Tom — will you read all the Folly literature for me?                                    Much love Barbara

…………………..

The letter is addressed to Tom Ingram (1924-2007) a writer friend who accompanied Jones, and Bill Howell (1922-1974), architect, on the first of her 1949 first folly-spotting forays after she was commissioned to write Follies & Grottoes by the publishers Constable. As the letter was found in Barbara Jones’s papers it is unlikely it ever reached him, and he must have made do with the postcards. After a couple of trips the trio had been involved in a car crash in the Midlands, leaving Ingram with a badly-damaged arm, so Jones and Howell made the northern excursion whilst he recuperated. Ingram was usually the photographer and his expertise was clearly missed – note the finger over the lens in the photo’ above.

As Jones wrote of the thrill of a night at the temple in the published book: ‘Does the Englishman exist who never to himself has sworn to see Stonehenge just once at dawn? It occurred to us that here was a nobler opportunity, to see the sun rise, not over that common circle in Wiltshire where charabanc parties stand bewildered under a sky of solid cloud, but over a private Stonehenge, in perfect weather, in peace.’

Notes: Sibyl is a camera made by Newman and Guardia, CTC is the Cyclist’s Touring Club. Some in-jokes remain unexplained.

The current owner promises a much warmer welcome at Skipton Castle, and the grotto is a delight https://www.skiptoncastle.co.uk

To visit the Druid’s Temple https://www.swintonestate.com/bivouac/

If you missed the previous post on the Druid’s Temple scroll down.

‘The desire for knowledge and the love of mystery are two of the most powerful human impulses and Stonehenge satisfies both at once. That is why it has never lost its hold over our imagination or our curiosity’.

So wrote Rosemary Hill in her erudite and entertaining history of Britain’s most enigmatic ancient monument. If people were enthralled with this famous site in Wiltshire, how did they react when they found just such a monument in a quiet corner of Yorkshire?

William Danby (1752-1833) of Swinton Park, near Masham, was a learned man, publishing volumes such as Thoughts, Chiefly on Serious Subjects. In creating the Druid’s Temple on his Swinton Park estate he was displaying his credentials as a man of the enlightenment. During the 18th century there was a movement away from a view of the past in which untamed men erected dolmens and henges whilst mythological creatures skipped at their feet: in its place came a reverence for the creators of such monuments as a civilised people, early pioneers in such fields as geometry, astrology and architecture.

Danby would have wanted the temple to excite such high-minded thoughts. Of course if there was just a hint of demonic slaughter too, to cause a shudder of fear amongst the oh-so delicate ladies, then that was all well and good.

The tale soon spread that Danby had tried to recruit a hermit to live in the temple, but this was dismissed by the local writer Robert Hird, who composed a history of the area around Bedale in verse. Sometime in the 1830s he wrote:

‘Twas said to be an hermit’s cell,
And that for seven years,
Where Danby wanted one to dwell,
With all his nails and hairs.

And folks believ’d the idle tale,
And told it off quite pat,
With Englishman such doth prevail,
They’re chronicle’d for that.

By the Victorian era things had changed. The generation that loved melodrama was more than happy to believe that dark rituals were enacted therein. In 1871 a gentleman wrote to the Leeds Mercury in great excitement having ‘discovered’ the temple and inside it a ‘huge block, probably for sacrifice’. He found everything in the ‘highest state of perfection and preservation’; unsurprising really, as the folly was not yet a century old.

The temple was probably constructed in the early 19th century (it was there by 1810) as an act of philanthropy to give employment to destitute soldiers returning from the Napoloenic wars. What is curious is that it is not discussed in early tourist guides and there seems to be few mentions in contemporary letters, diaries, or newspapers. Did Danby deliberately keep it hushed up to add to its lure, or was it just too far out of the way for genteel tourists to visit?

The designer is not known, but it may have been John Foss of Richmond (1745-1827) who is recorded as having created ‘numerous formations and improvements’ on the Swinton estate.

It was mentioned in a guide to Mashamshire in 1919. The author dismissed the idea that it was built for religious purposes, pointing out that the structure was equipped for picnics with a stone table and chairs and an adjoining kitchen. She suggested that Danby built it because he was interested in the engineering challenges and wanted to replicate the challenge of stone-moving faced by the ancients, whilst also creating employment at a ‘time of distress’.

Anyway, today’s visitors are in for a treat. The Druid’s Temple can be accessed via a public footpath and permissive footpaths allow further exploration courtesy of the Swinton estate, which also offers excellent sustenance at the nearby Bivouac cafe. https://www.swintonestate.com/bivouac/

Rosemary Hill’s Stonehenge was published in 2008 and is available from your local independent bookshop.

Thank you for reading. Comments are always welcome, please scroll down to the foot of the page to get in touch. If you would like a folly story in your inbox each Saturday, please click on ‘subscribe’.

She wrote that a folly ‘is built for pleasure, and pleasure is personal, difficult to define.’

Whilst fascinated by follies from far and wide this site has a bias towards Yorkshire, where The Folly Flâneuse has lived for more than three decades. Jones recognised the abundance of follies in the area when she wrote that ‘Yorkshire has dozens of beauties’. The Yorkshire Post reviewed Follies and Grottoes soon after publication on 6 October 1953 and took pride in the dominance of ‘God’s Own County’:

‘Follies and Grottoes… includes a gazetteer of follies listed by counties. And which do you think has the longest list? The fact that Yorkshire is credited with most is not merely because it is the biggest county but also because it was rich in men with a poetic, fanciful turn of mind, and wealth enough to indulge it.’

The paper picked out the Castle Howard follies, St David’s Ruin at Bingley and the Druid’s Temple at Masham as examples of the county’s buildings that Jones featured. Yorkshiremen have often been caricatured for their reluctance to part with their ‘brass’, so it’s good to see them being celebrated for spending it on some of Britain’s best follies.