Skelton Tower stands high above Levisham in the North York Moors National Park. Once a moorland retreat, it is now a remote and romantic ruin.

The Revd Robert Skelton (1791-1877) was appointed Rector of Levisham in 1818, the Patron of the living being his widowed mother, Sarah. The Revd Skelton’s family wealth allowed him to live as a gentleman, and he had ample leisure time for country pursuits whilst curates attended to the day to day business of the parish. He was also something of an antiquarian and was involved in the excavation of a barrow on Levisham Moor. The arrow-heads he discovered in 1851 are in the collection of the British Museum.

A date for the building of the tower seems hard to find. Most local guides state it was constructed in 1830, but without giving a source. It was certainly there by the late 1840s when it is marked on tithe and Ordnance Survey maps, being named on the latter as Skelton Tower. There are various local accounts of why the tower was built: it was the quiet retreat where Skelton wrote his sermons, or (if there’s a vicar there has to be a hint of scandal) it was his secret drinking den. Much more likely is that it was a lodge where the vicar could shelter, and take refreshments, when shooting or going about his antiquarian pursuits on the moor.

The construction of the tower seems to have passed without notice, and no accounts have been found in the local newspapers. Then again, the journalists probably didn’t have time for such trivial objects as a folly tower when there were important stories like this to report: ‘A swarm of bees entered the mansion of the Rev. Robert Skelton’. Readers must have been thrilled to learn that the bees settled into the void between the ground and first floor, until eventually floorboards had to be prised up. Happily the bees then exited via the window and settled in a gooseberry bush.

There was even more excitement in Levisham with the coming (but not quite to the village) of the railway in 1836. The local story is that the Reverend Skelton, as the landowner, insisted that the station be built by his home, Grove House, a rather inconvenient mile from the village. The line was closed in 1965 but reopened as the heritage attraction the North York Moors Railway in 1973. The ruined Skelton Tower now provides a perfect grandstand for trainspotters.

There’s no hint of who might have designed the tower, and Skelton’s only known architectural commission was in 1838, when he asked Lewis Vulliamy to build a new church in his Rosedale parish.

The Levisham Estate is now owned by the North York Moors National Park. The grade II listed tower was partially restored by the NYMNP in 1978.

For more on the North York Moors Railway https://www.nymr.co.uk

All the photographs are courtesy of Chris Hand, who first suggested Skelton Tower as a subject. Chris visited on a much better day than the Folly Flâneuse and kindly shared his excellent images.

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The grandly named Mount Snever Observatory, also known as Oldstead Tower, stands on the edge of an escarpment, high above the village of Oldstead, near Thirsk. An inscription on the building tells us:

JOHN WORMALD IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA CAUSED THIS OBSERVATORY TO BE ERECTED. J. DODDS BUILDER

The tower was built at Snever Point, the highest spot on the Oldstead estate. Work was underway in October 1837, and there was great excitement locally when a human skeleton was discovered as the foundations were being dug. The observatory was complete by the following summer when Wormald threw a party to celebrate the coronation of Queen Victoria on 28 June 1838. All of the village was invited; loyal toasts were drunk, a band played and a royal salute of 21 guns was fired from the terrace of the tower.  ‘No one has shown more loyalty to their Queen and Sovereign, than Mr Wormald … and the inhabitants of the village’ wrote the local paper.

There’s a second inscribed stone on the south elevation which contains several lines of poetry adapted from ‘Windsor Forest’ by Alexander Pope:

Here hills and waving groves a scene display
And part admit and part exclude the day
See rich industry smiling on the plains
And peace and plenty tell VICTORIA reigns!
Happy the MAN who to these shades retires
Whom NATURE charms and whom the muse inspires
Who wandering thoughtful in this silent wood
Attends the duties of the wise and good
To observe a mean, be to himself a friend
To follow NATURE and regard his end.

These lines were presumably chosen, or composed, by Wormald. He was not alone in honouring the new monarch with an adaptation of Pope’s ode; Thomas Roscoe included similar lines in Windsor Castle and Its Environs in 1838:

Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,
And peace and plenty tell (Victoria) reigns.

There has been much confusion over the identity of John Wormald. He was in fact John Smith Wormald, son of the Samuel Wormald who was Lord Mayor of York in 1809 and who died in 1814. John was one of the ‘six surviving children’ who erected a memorial to their parents in St Margaret’s, York. Samuel Wormald was a tanner and timber merchant and the family are remembered in the name of the offshoot of the River Foss built to service their business: Wormald’s Cut.

John Wormald must have retained some interest in his father’s business as he was praised as a benevolent landlord to his tenants in nearby Navigation Road. He was also a Director of The Yorkshire Fire and Life Insurance Company and sat on the Provisional Committee of the Hull, Malton & Northern Union Railway. His principal seat was at Fulford, near York, but in 1829 he purchased Oldstead, presumably because it was ‘suitable for Gentlemen … who were ‘partial to Hunting or Shooting’. The house was described in sale particulars as an ‘elegant little mansion’ and the views were ‘picturesque’ with Byland Abbey a ‘prominent and interesting object.’ Wormald erected a new cottage for his Keeper and as a member of the North Riding Liberal Association, and a vocal supporter of reform, added the inscription: ‘To the Reformed rights of the people in 1832’.

Wormald died at Fulford in March 1848 and his collection of oil paintings, books and coins was sold at auction in June of the same year. The announcement of this sale in the Yorkshire Gazette was only a few column inches away from details of the sale of his Oldstead mansion and estate.  The sale included 121 acres of woods and plantations, but there was no mention of the decade-old tower.

When the 1st edition of the Ordnance Survey map was published in 1853, the site was marked as ‘Mount Snever Observatory’. Public access seems to have been allowed and in 1871 those who climbed it were promised a view of York Minster and the towns of Ripon, Harrogate and Richmond. At that date the tower was ‘in decay’ and clearly not cherished by the new owner of Oldstead Hall.

Barbara Jones saw the observatory in the early 1970s when researching for the revised edition of Follies and Grottoes. At that date it was abandoned and the base overgrown with wild plants. The more recent history of the observatory is told in a publication produced by Oldstead village to celebrate the millennium.  It was restored by Noel Appleby of nearby Ampleforth, who used the building for stargazing and to entertain friends. After his death in 1984 it again deteriorated before being repaired by the Prest family who were custodians in 2000 when the village history was published.

The tower sits on a high platform, forming a terrace. Sadly the building is redundant and its role as a belvedere has been lost; there is no means to ascend, the tower is securely locked and inaccessible, and trees block the views of the rolling landscape beyond. But it is still a charming sight and there’s a lovely walk up from the village of Wass, with the tower appearing through the trees just when you are beginning to think you’ve lost your way.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Graham Fulton, a folly friend and friend of folly.