Just outside Richmond in Yorkshire is the Aske estate. The grounds were landscaped by successive owners in the 18th century, and various ornaments added to the park. The most curious is Oliver Ducket*, a folly high above the park with many a tale attached.

Local histories will tell you that the curious round tower on a cruciform base was originally an old beacon, or signal tower, connected to the ancient Richmond Castle, and built to look out for marauders from the wild north. You might also discover that it is named ‘Oliver’ after Cromwell, or that it is known as ‘Robin Hood’s Tower’. Or that Oliver Ducket was the name of the last watchman in residence. There may be some truth in the idea that there was once a beacon, or lookout, on the spot, but Messrs Cromwell, Hood and Ducket can be discounted.

The ‘Oliver’ of the name comes from the area where the tower stands, and eighteenth century maps show parcels of land and a hamlet with this name. ‘Ducket’ is a dialect version of Dovecote (Doo’cot), and that there was once a dovecote here seems also to be proven by old maps, which show Oliver Ducket standing in ‘Dovecot Field’.

The present structure, perhaps incorporating something earlier, was probably designed as an eye-catcher and picnic spot by Sir Conyers D’arcy (died 1758), who bought Aske in 1727, and who also constructed an elaborate gothic banqueting house in the pleasure ground. All that is certain is that Oliver Ducket was in existence by 1761, when a lovely little vignette appears on an estate map. This drawing suggests that the tower was formerly topped with a third storey, long since lost, which would have provided a fabulous panorama, and was no doubt used to view the chase, for this was prime hunting country.

It is mainly in connection with the progress of the horses and hounds that the tower is mentioned in the 19th century, although there is one unexpected revelation: the sturdy structure inspired the name of a pedigree bull. In 1862 ‘Oliver Ducket’, bred by the Earl of Zetland, was discreetly advertised as available to ‘serve cows’.

But the folly reached the apogee of its fame in 1927, when it was chosen as the site for an ‘eclipse observation camp’ by eminent astronomer and physicist Dr W.J.S. Lockyer (1868-1936). Lockyer was the son of Sir Norman Lockyer, a Professor of Astronomical Physics who had established the observatory that still bears his name in Sidmouth, Devon.

The total solar eclipse, due in the early hours of 29 June 1927, was the first in two centuries and had caused great excitement nationally. A number of official camps were set up from where optimum views could be gained, and Richmond was one, being on the centre line of totality (the narrow track of the moon’s shadow on the surface of the earth). Once news got round local hoteliers were swamped with bookings, and further viewpoints on high ground were earmarked for the general public. Such was the fervour that the motoring organisations began to issue advice to stop roads becoming jammed.

The town saw a way to profit from the surge in visitors ,and a programme of events was put together including lectures on astronomy, a concert by the Band of the Royal Corps of Signals, and a Grand Ball in the castle grounds. The proceeds were put towards the restoration of Trinity Church Tower. Shops stayed open all night, and special licences were issued to allow alcohol to be served throughout the build up to the eclipse.

At Oliver Ducket, the principal team comprised of Lockyer, two colleagues, and Hickboo the Cairn Terrier – Three Men and a Dog quipped the papers – and the key piece of equipment was a ‘giant camera, shown above, with which they intended to photograph stages of the eclipse’. Lockyer’s wife was also present and operated some of the equipment. The folly was put into use with Lockyer’s own instruments on the first floor and a wireless aerial attached to the tower.

Despite some ‘most unsatisfactory’ weather as the camp was set up, Lockyer remained optimistic about the conditions for the eclipse. He told journalists that Oliver Ducket was an ideal location because it was ‘too low for the clouds to interfere’. Sadly, he spoke too soon; moments before totality the sun was lost behind a thick curtain of cloud. It was, in Lockyer’s own words, ‘a complete fiasco’.

Barbara Jones described Oliver Ducket in Follies & Grottoes in 1953, concluding that ‘the whole effect is most militant, a fine combination of belvedere and battleship’. This martial splendour must have made it the perfect training ground for soldiers stationed in Richmond during the Second World War. One remembered spending ‘a lot of time and energy attacking and defending’ the building. Happily it survived the siege. The folly also survived the vagaries of fashion: the writer of an 1949 letter to local magazine The Dalesman would presumably have been happy to see it pulled down. ‘It was only in the middle of the 18th century’, he wrote, ‘that erections like Oliver Ducket began to ornament the English countryside. Every county has their quota of them, pathetic and not very beautiful monuments…’

Thanks to Nigel Tooze for the wonderful recent photo of the folly in the snow, in which it looks beautiful (and not at all pathetic).

* there are many variant spellings but Oliver Ducket has been used here

On Sunday, The Folly Flâneuse was one of the happy few who discovered the location of the Secret Salons, three venues which combined the finest music and architecture. As part of Richmond’s annual festival celebrating all things Georgian, the evening was a fundraiser for the town’s Theatre Royal, a unique intact survivor from that era. Participants promenaded between three lovely venues, but of course the one that gave the greatest joy to the present writer was the Culloden Tower.

On an eminence on the edge of town the tower is a dramatic landmark. It was built by John Yorke as a feature in the park surrounding his mansion, The Green, which was demolished in the 1820s. Although known today as the Culloden Tower, in the 19th century it was called the Cumberland Tower, or Temple, and it is marked simply as The Temple on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps. It was built on, or close to, the site of an earlier peel tower but an exact date has not yet been discovered. It must however be between 1732 – as it bears the arms of Anne Darcy who Yorke married in that year – and 1749 when it is described as a ‘Gothick Tower on an eminence’. It is attributed to the architect Daniel Garrett on stylistic grounds, and he was certainly active in the area, but again firm evidence has eluded researchers.

The tower sits on a plain square base but then gains ornament as it rises. The base housed a ‘cow shed’ but above were banqueting rooms, one with gothic detail and one classical. At the top a turret contains a door leading out onto the roof with balustrade and pinnacles. There are extensive views of the River Swale, Richmond Castle and town, and until it was demolished in the 1820s, Yorke’s mansion and extensive gardens. 

Clarkson, the Richmond historian, called the tower ‘The Cumberland Temple’ in 1821 and said it was built ‘in compliment’ to the Duke of Cumberland, who was in command at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 when the Scotch rebels were defeated.

However, an account written some 40 years before Clarkson’s suggests that Cumberland’s role in the War of the Austrian Succession may have caused the tower to be erected. The tourist describes climbing ‘the grass hill to Dettingen which stands upon the summit. It is a very high octagon stone tower… built with great taste.’ The Battle of Dettingen took place in June 1743 and the British troops, with their Hanoverian and Austrian allies, defeated the French at Dettingen in Bavaria. The battle was notable as George II himself led the troops into battle with his son, the Duke of Cumberland, at his side. It is particularly remembered today as since that date no British monarch has led troops into active combat. The victory was widely celebrated at home and Handel wrote the Dettingen Te Deum to mark the occasion.

Which brings The Folly Flâneuse back to music. Performing in the Culloden Tower was harpist Alex Rider, and it was absolutely enchanting. A highlight was a performance of ‘The Magical Aviary’ by Marcel Tournier, not an 18th century piece but apposite as the Yorke family’s Georgian menagerie survives today, just a short distance from the tower. You can see Alex play the piece here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlZiXb7SyEE

The Culloden Tower fell into disrepair in the 1970s and was rescued by The Landmark Trust which completed an exemplary restoration in 1982, including the painstaking recreation of the plasterwork shown above.

Huge thanks to The Landmark Trust, and to the owners of Millgate House, and a private house, for hosting the Secret Salons. Also to the other musicians who were uniformly excellent.

The Culloden Tower can be seen from a permissive footpath accessed from The Green. The Landmark Trust has annual open days, check their website for details https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/culloden-tower-5579#Overview. The menagerie is now a private home and there is no public access.

More Secret Salons are planned for 2020. Keep an eye out for announcements here https://www.richmond.org/georgefest/

And if you do visit you might consider staying, as The Folly Flâneuse did, at the lovely Millgate House, a Georgian House with a wonderful garden which offers seriously good B&B https://www.millgatehouse.com

Clarkson’s History of Richmond, revised in 1821, recounts that Cuthbert Readshaw created a ‘highly romantic walk’ by the Swale in 1760. Cuthbert Readshaw, who died in 1773 was a merchant who lived in the Bailey (ie the market place) in Richmond, and according to his will he was in ‘the business of wine and spirits and other branches of trade’.

To access the walk 18th century visitors would have travelled downhill from the town centre and crossed the river via the Green Bridge. Promenading along the south bank of the River Swale they would have encountered the picturesque scene of leafy Billy Bank Wood (aka Bordel Bank) and occasional artful outbreaks of the craggy rock face behind. Tucked in the woods was the cleft or cave known as Arthur’s Oven, conjuring romantic images of ancient and wilder times.

Eventually visitors would reach the conical hill called Round Howe. This neat mound also excited the senses with many believing it to be the site of ancient druidic rituals ‘during the earliest periods of British history’. Others thought its origin owed more to geology, being ‘one of the most wonderful productions of nature’. In the 17th and 18th century the landscape was changed by both art and industry; alongside his picturesque riverside enhancements Readshaw, who had extensive mining interests, may have been one of the men working the hillside for copper.

Around the time he laid out the walk Readshaw also landscaped the Round Howe and built a temple on the summit ‘which with his pleasure-boat in the pool below, formed an agreeable contrast to the rude scenery of nature’. Jeffreys’ map published in 1775 shows the wooded hillside had 6 geometric paths leading to the top, with the summerhouse at the hub of the wheel. The temple was both eye-catcher from the town and viewpoint back to the to the panorama of the town, castle, river. The view also encompassed the Yorke seat The Green, on the opposite bank, topped with the the elegant and prominent Culloden Tower of c.1746 (now Landmark Trust). It is not clear if Readshaw was creating the landscape for his own personal use, or if it was a commercial venture like the London pleasure gardens at Vauxhall and Ranelagh.

The agricultural commentator Arthur Young visited Richmond in the late 1760s and described ‘a little temple… at a distance in the vale, romantically situated among hanging woods’ which added ‘much to the scene’. This view (above) by George Cuit seems to be the only pictorial record, and shows it was a classical rotunda with Corinthian columns, garlanded frieze and a shallow domed roof reminiscent of the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli.

Curiously, although Richmond was visited by many tourists in the later decades of the 18th century, Young’s is the only contemporary account of the temple known to survive, probably because the structure had only a brief existence. A visitor in 1779 described the ‘picturesque hill’ across the river from the Mr Yorke’s house The Greens, but makes no mention of a temple, and a 1791 engraving of the scene shows that the hilltop is bare. Was it poorly built and soon collapsed? Was it an ephemeral structure, never intended to have a long life?  Did Readshaw’s lease of the land expire? No explanation has been found; please comment below if you can help.

A further complication is added by the difficulty in separating the inter-connected Readshaw families living in Richmond in the late 18th century – all of who seem to have been called Caleb or Cuthbert. In 1768 Arthur Young said the little temple belonged to ‘Mr Ritchie’ and this was corrected to ‘Mr Readshaw in the 2nd edition of his Six Months Tour through the North of England, published in 1771. Young doesn’t give a first name, and it is not until Clarkson’s heavily revised edition of the History of 1821 that the name Cuthbert Readshaw is used. By this date the temple was gone, and Clarkson was clearly relying on hearsay as he erroneously described the former building as ‘chinese’. So was Cuthbert Readshaw the builder, or could it have been Caleb Readshaw of The Grove, another prominent Richmond citizen of the time? Another mystery to be solved.

The Round Howe and Billy Bank Wood are in the care of the National Trust. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hudswell-woods

NB this post was revised on 1 December and Jane Hatcher, Richmond historian, is thanked for her help.