architecture, Banqueting House, belvedere, boathouse, country house, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, landscape, Nottinghamshire, public park, sham castle, Sham fortification, Tower

The Folly Castle and Folly Forts, Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire

Newstead Abbey is best known as the seat of the Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, but it was equally famed in the middle of the 18th century as the home of his great-uncle, William, the 5th Baron, known as the ‘Wicked Lord’. It was William who built sham forts and castles around the estate’s Great Lake, on which sailed his fleet of boats.

architecture, eyecatcher, Folly, sham castle, staffordshire, Tower

The Round Tower, Tutbury Castle, Tutbury, Staffordshire

Tutbury Castle is best known as one of the fortifications in which Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned. The ruins that stand today have been remodelled on a number of occasions since those days, and in the middle of the 18th century the motte, long since missing its genuine tower, was embellished with a sham ruined turret called the Round Tower.