The Folly Flâneuse is busy pottering around the country in search of temples and towers to fill these pages. Meanwhile, here is a brief look at two very different landscape features: one on a miniature scale and one monumental, one in a tranquil English garden, and one on a Bulgarian hilltop.

Alan and Claire Terrill found the restored Shell House at Staunton Country Park (above, featured here in January 2022) so delightful that Alan decided to build a miniature version for their tortoises. Finding one element of the design a little tricky, he contacted John Malaiperuman, the Conservation Architect responsible for the restoration, who was happy to give advice.

Unlike the original, which had a shell-decorated interior, Alan covered the exterior of the tortoise house with shells, including shell pinnacles as the perfect finishing touch. The tortoise house joins the other jolly follies and features in Alan and Claire’s Shropshire garden. And as you can see, the testudinal tenants are settling in nicely. To see the whole story visit the updated original post https://thefollyflaneuse.com/the-shell-house-leigh-park-havant-hampshire/

Writer and historian Rosemary Hill got in touch with news of a fascinating restoration project in Bulgaria. The Buzludzha Memorial House is a dramatic hilltop monument with a long and complicated history interrupted by unrest and political change.

Building a landmark on this spot was first discussed in the last years of the 19th century, but the rapidly changing political and economic climate meant that the curious structure shown here was not erected until the last quarter of the 20th century. Sadly, the building flourished for only a short period before it was abandoned and much of the usable materials looted. A major project to restore the monument is now underway.

As Rosemary wrote, it is impressive ‘that they have found the time and imagination to think constructively about the past when history is moving so fast and dangerously around them in the present.’

The Folly Flâneuse can’t do justice to this fascinating structure in just a couple of paragraphs, so do read more on the project’s excellent website:  http://www.buzludzhaproject.com/mc_cid=bc6d8ac050&mc_eid=UNIQID#welcome

Thank you for reading. The Folly Flâneuse will be back with another folly feature next week. Please scroll down to the comments box to share any thoughts. 

‘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?

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.

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