In the middle of the eighteenth century Ralph Allen, who had both a Bath townhouse and the Prior Park estate in a fine landscape just out of town, erected a gothic eye-catcher on high ground above Bath.  The folly took the form of a turreted and castellated screen, unadorned at the back and intended only to be viewed from the city. By the end of the eighteenth century the folly had become known as the ‘Sham Castle’, and it has attracted the gaze of artists ever since it was built.

In 1755 the architect Sanderson Miller, known for fashionable landscape ornaments, was mooted as the ideal candidate to design Allen’s proposed ‘considerable Gothic Object’. However the folly was claimed as his own by Allen’s Clerk of Works, Richard Jones. In an account of his life Jones, wrote ‘in 1762 began the Castle in the warren, and was built in a quarter of a year to my plan’. To further complicate matters, the folly appears on an engraved prospect of Bath published in 1757. Hence the Flâneuse settling for mid-century as a date, and hoping for further evidence to emerge in due course. What is certain is that Allen died in 1764, so he had little time to enjoy his new landscape ornament.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the folly ‘had been allowed to fall into decay’. The two end towers were crumbling and this was blamed on boys who used the castle as a ‘rendezvous for games’.

The estate was still owned by the Allen family at this date, but financial aid to save the folly came from a different source. In 1880 a local paper noted that restoration was underway thanks to help from an unnamed female benefactor. It was only on her death in 1891 that the identity of the philanthropist became widely known: Mary Downing Russell Elliott (née Scott) had quietly, and unbeknownst to even her closest friends, funded a number of civic projects over the years.

Mrs Elliott’s investment allowed the two end towers of the Sham Castle to be rebuilt and the centre towers to be restored. She also funded the restoration of the obelisk and gardens in Orange Grove, next to Bath Abbey.

The Allen family sold the ‘remaining portion’ of their Bathampton estate at auction in March 1921. This included the Sham Castle and around an acre of ground. This parcel was bought by a Mr Candy, who purchased it with the farm he had tenanted, and from the start he was clear about his intentions of selling the folly soon after. That auction of the Sham Castle was held in June 1921, and various uses for the folly were suggested: a tea garden was a tempting proposition, but one rather alarming suggestion was that an ‘asbestos back’ might be added behind the facade to ‘convert the structure into a bungalow’.

Happily (in the latter instance) there was little interest, and the castle didn’t sell, but good news was soon to follow. In July the local paper reported that ‘Bathonians must have noted with much pleasure the announcement last Thursday that the Sham Castle has been purchased by two gentlemen for presentation to the City’. Mr Candy was given due credit for selling the folly at ‘preferential terms’.

Unlike Mrs Elliott, these donors were happy for their identities to be known, and a plaque was erected acknowledging their generous gift to the city. As the inscription records, some further restoration work was carried out in this period.

The Sham Castle has continued to catch the eye of artists. Richard Guyatt chose it as his subject when commissioned by Shell to produce an image for the ‘To Visit Britain’s Landmarks’ poster series, displayed on the sides of the company’s delivery lorries in the 1930s.

And completing four centuries of views of the landmark, Christopher Gee painted this view of the folly…

… and Ed Kluz depicted the folly in a vibrant collage.

If you are in Bath before 10 May, as well as climbing up to the folly for magnificent views (it is publicly accessible – just follow Sham Castle Lane) you can see Richard Guyatt’s view of the Sham Castle in Poster Power!, an excellent exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery.

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In the first half of the 1760s Thomas Farr, a Bristol merchant, bought land at Henbury near Bristol, which included the prominent eminence called ‘Blaize Hill’. In 1766 he commissioned designs from the architect Robert Mylne for a sham castle eye-catcher to top the hill.

Early Bristol historians describe the hill as the site of a Roman camp, and Farr was said to have dug up ‘great quantities’ of coins when the foundations for the castle were made. It was also said to have housed an ancient chapel, and more recently had been home to a summerhouse approached by a formal double-avenue. Farr (1732-1791), a ‘person of exquisite taste’, followed fashion and abandoned this straight approach, creating instead meandering serpentine walks and rides which wound through woodland up to the fine new gothic folly.

A single drawing by Robert Mylne (1733-1811) is known to survive, and as it is annotated ‘no.3’ it is assumed that Mylne provided several variant designs. The castle had offices at ground level where the servants could prepare food, and three rooms on the first floor for socialising. The principal circular room was 25 feet in diameter and ‘very highly finished in the Gothic stile’. Stairs in one of the smaller turrets led to the roof, where the views took in ‘many miles’ of the River Severn and the Bristol Channel, as well as a prospect over the surrounding counties and across to Wales. Contemporary sources suggest that Farr would watch his ships arriving in Bristol from the top of his ‘Summer or Pleasure House’, and it was also an eye-catcher, announcing Farr’s elevated status to all who saw it.

Farr’s ambitions for his estate were foiled by bankruptcy in 1778, and he sold the estate to one Dr Denham Skeet. The poet Edward Davies was a guest of Skeet and recorded his visit in verse. This was published in 1783 as Blaise Castle: A Prospective Poem, and he includes a rather disturbing description of the effort required to ascend the footpath to the folly:

The fat and lazy would ne’er reach the Top.
Were there not Seats prepared for them to stop,
And breath [sic], while they their reeking Foreheads mop.
But after various Perils, Stops and Pain,
With trembling Knees, we reach the Castle Plain,
And panting view the Horizon again.

The artist Samuel Hieronymous Grimm visited a few years later (it is not recorded if he walked the tortuous footpath or opted for a sedate carriage ride) and took a number of views of the folly. His sketches show that the door was originally flanked by a pair of sphinx statues, which are sadly no longer in situ.

In 1789 the estate was bought by the Harford family. They built a new mansion, and invited Humphry Repton to remodel the grounds: he suggested raising one of the turrets of the castle to give it a more interesting silhouette, but his advice was not taken.  Tourists were allowed to explore the walks through the woods to the folly, although there were restrictions: one early nineteenth century visitor was unable to persuade (bribe?) the ‘churlish porter’ to allow access on a Sunday.

Blaise Castle (the folly soon gave its name to the entire estate) remained in Harford ownership until the early decades of the twentieth century, and by the later nineteenth century the ground floor of Blaise Castle was earning its keep as a residence for estate workers. The family continued to allow access to parties of naturalists, antiquarians and ramblers, and the reports of their visits in the first decade of the twentieth century provide detail of the upper room in the tower. It was by then furnished with a collection of arms and armour, rare old china and furniture, and had ‘beautiful stained glass windows’. Like the earlier tourists, the groups could climb up to the top to appreciate the magnificent scenery.

In 1926 access became available to all when the Bristol Corporation bought the estate as a ‘charming natural playground’ where the city’s citizens might enjoy ‘the beauty with which nature has endowed this place so lavishly’.

As well as the hilltop folly the grounds also featured a castellated lodge, a ‘fairy tale’ thatched lodge and places of ‘childish delight’ such as ‘The Butcher’s Cave’ and ‘The Giant’s Footprint’. In 1949 a Folk Museum was opened in the mansion, and there was also a ‘pleasant restaurant’ where visitors could dine off elegant crockery bearing the arms of the city.

By the 1970s, after years of neglect and abuse by vandals, the folly was in poor condition. The interior had fallen into complete disrepair and, as Barbara Jones noted in her research files, the stained glass had been destroyed ‘by hooligans’.

The exterior fabric was also in a poor condition, and in 1979 the council proposed pulling down the most dangerous section, and preserving the rest as a ‘conserved ruin’. Public opinion was vociferously in favour of restoring the whole castle, and in March 1981 a local paper could announce that the dangerous turret was currently being rebuilt and that it was ‘hoped to fully restore this fanciful building over the next three years’.

Today an active community charity, Friends of Blaise (born out of the campaign to see the castle restored in the 1980s) supports the city council in their efforts to maintain the estate. The volunteers open the castle (grade II*) to the public on certain days in the warmer months, but you can walk up to it at any time. There’s a walking guide here. There’s still a museum and a cafe – just don’t expect the fancy china.

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The hamlet of Racton, in a quiet corner of West Sussex, is little more than a church and a cluster of cottages. What catches the eye is the dramatic ruin, with tapering central tower, that stands above the settlement. This is the belvedere erected by George Montagu Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, as an ornament to his Stansted Park estate.

The earl’s principal seat was at Horton in Northamptonshire, and Stansted (sometimes Stanstead) came to him via his mother’s side of the family in 1766, around the time this portrait was painted. Lord Halifax (1716-1771) must have built the tower soon after he inherited the estate, for it was seen by Horace Walpole in 1770. Walpole was no admirer of the new building, dismissing it simply as ‘very ugly’. Three early views survive, so readers can decide for themselves if they agree with Walpole’s judgement.

The tower is triangular in form, with a central round tower flanked by three smaller turrets. Fragments of moulding and plasterwork seen in the 20th century suggest that the interior was very fine. The work is now attributed to the architect Henry Keene: he designed a spire for Westbourne church for Lord Halifax in 1770, and was also working on a prospect tower at nearby Uppark around the same date. But it seems likely he was assisted by his son Theodosius, who was still a youth when the tower was built, for it was Theodosius who submitted a finished drawing (above) to the exhibition of the Society of Artists in 1772 under the title A view of Stanstead Castle, near Emsworth.

An unknown artist sketched the tower in 1771 (above). Although the tower is known to have been complete at that date, and the artist noted detailed dimensions, this drawing does not show the tower as built. The dimensions are only partially correct, so the only explanation that comes to mind is that the artist produced this finished sketch from rough drawings and measurements made on-the-spot and, basically, got it wrong. Two watercolours by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm, executed in 1782, confirm that tower was built to the original design by Henry Keene.

From the top of the tower there were views down to the coast and out to sea over the naval base at Portsmouth, and to the Isle of Wight and the bustle of ships in the English Channel. There was also a fine view of Chichester Cathedral. But these views could also be appreciated from the house and from Lumley Seat, a temple in the garden at Stansted, so a writer in 1784 was somewhat disgruntled that having climbed all the steps there was ‘little variety in the prospect’. He concluded that ‘the elegance […] of this edifice is in no means proportionate to the prodigious expense which the raising of it cost his lordship’.

The earl had little time to enjoy his new tower, as he died in June 1771. However lurid local legends suggest he packed a lot into his brief period of ownership (remembering he also had a busy life in Northamptonshire and London). When he wasn’t indulging in wild orgies at the tower he was up on the roof frantically signalling the all-clear to ‘the big smuggling gangs who swarmed the coast’: apparently the earl was ‘the head of one of the biggest gangs’. A writer contributing to a local paper in 1938 was told that the folly was built by the earl so he could watch for Napoleon’s armies landing. Thankfully, the journalist had a better grasp of British history than his informant, and did not pass on this anachronism. He concluded instead that the ‘tower is another good instance of how legend gains momentum with the passing of time’.

Lord Halifax left no legitimate issue, so the title expired. His natural daughter, Anna Maria Montagu, was the beneficiary of the estate, but it was sold soon after Halifax’s death to raise capital. The new owner was a wealthy merchant called Richard Barwell (1741-1804) and the tower was regarded as an elegant object during his ownership. After his death the estate changed hands a number of times, before becoming dispersed in the early years of the 20th century.

The tower stood in attractive landscaped grounds, and became a popular destination for day trippers. The earliest accounts call it the ‘Stansted Tower’, or ‘Stansted Castle’, and in 1826 it was described as standing upon ‘a piece of land called Castle Field’. This name was soon lost and on 18th century county maps it is named simply as ‘Tower’. The First Series Ordnance Survey map of 1810 calls it ‘Stansted Tower’, and the First Edition map of 1875 marks it as ‘Racton Monument’, with the ominous words ‘in ruins’ in parentheses.

By 1862 the tower was described as ‘the old ruin’, suggesting it had been in decay for some time by that date, and an account of 1888 noted that the three turrets ‘were gradually diminishing in height from the effects of storms’. The staircase and windows had by then gone, and there were only vestiges of the old garden.

Inevitably there were issues with damage to the tower, and in 1933 the then owners threatened to ban public access if the problems didn’t stop. Sadly, the wilful damage has continued over the decades, and fences and ‘keep out’ signs have been pulled down as quickly as they were erected. A solution was proposed in 2020 when architect Mark Talbot, who bought the tower in 1987, attempted to obtain planning permission to restore the grade II listed tower as a private house (planning permission had been granted some years before he bought the tower, but had expired). The application was rejected on the grounds that it was ‘an unsympathetic form of development’ which would detract from the tower’s special architectural and historic interest.

The tower is on private land but can be seen from the lovely track called Monument Lane: there are good views of the tower across arable land as one ascends. The tower is in a sorry state, but somehow remains dignified and undeniably dramatic.

Perhaps the best way to appreciate the design of the tower today is from high above, as Nic Orchard did in 2019 when she soared over in her light aircraft.

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High on the Sussex Downs, near the village of South Harting, stand some curious ruins. The jagged and dilapidated stonework is all that remains of the wonderful ornate tower built by Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh of Uppark (or Up-park) in the 1770s and later known by the curious title of the Vandalian Tower.

Sir Matthew (1714-1774) commissioned architect Henry Keene (1726-1776) to design the tower in the early 1770s. The site was a pre-existing prospect mount in the park, and this he topped with an exquisite pinnacled pavilion. It is square in plan, and originally there was a kitchen in the basement where the servants could prepare meals, and above it a grand room for entertainment.

Few contemporary accounts of the tower survive, although happily a number of images are extant, including the two shown here. A tourist saw the ‘new building’, which he called ‘Uppark tower’, when visiting in 1771, so it must have been substantially complete by that date. The estate archive showed that bills were still being settled in 1775, so either work continued on the finishing touches for many years, or Sir Matthew was a tardy payer, with things further delayed by his death in 1774.

The builder was Mr Brooks, and the sculptor Mr Carter also submitted a bill: this was presumably Thomas Carter who specialised in ornamental fireplaces. Mr Rose was paid for plasterwork: the Rose family, Joseph senior and junior (uncle and nephew), were amongst the preeminent ornamental plasterwork specialists of the day, and created the ‘neatly decorated ceiling’ of the upper apartment. The windows were ‘partially filled with stained glass’, which must have cast an enchanting light on the interior of the ‘elegant picturesque erection’, as it was later remembered.

The bills call the structure the ‘Gothic Tower’, and it is not clear when it first became known as the Vandalian Tower. It is just named as ‘Tower’ on Ordnance Survey maps, and no references to the ‘Vandalian Tower’ have been found before Christopher Hussey’s articles on Uppark in Country Life in 1941. The name has nothing to do with our modern use of the term vandal to refer to persons causing wilful damage, but instead ‘Vandalia’ was the name given to a proposed settlement on the banks of the Ohio, America (although it does not seem to have been widely used outside the circle of investors). Sir Matthew had given his support to the project in 1769, although the plans were abandoned after the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1775. Sir Matthew is said to have built the tower to commemorate his involvement in the scheme (he died in 1774 so would never have known that the scheme had failed).

Sir Matthew was succeeded by his son, Sir Harry (1754-1846). It has been suggested that the tower was built to mark his coming of age, although there seems little evidence. But he did put the tower to good use, throwing lavish parties there. In her book Uppark and its People (1965) Lady Meade-Featherstonhaugh recalls the tale that the feasts were on such a gargantuan scale that diners had to be carted back to the house in wheelbarrows.

Curiously, a writer in 1877 knew the tower by a different name. Mr Weaver, who contributed a chapter to Revd. Gordon’s History of Harting, told the story of the proposed settlement and the tower commemorating it. However he recorded that it was ‘fancifully named Daedalia’. Perhaps Weaver had just misheard verbal reports and assumed the tower was named after Daedalus, the skilful architect of Greek mythology? After all, the adjective ‘daedalian’, perfectly described the tower: ingenious, or intricate. This name was repeated in a couple of later texts and then seems to have disappeared from the tower’s history.

Unfortunately the glorious tower would have a short life: on midnight of Monday 27 June 1842 the ‘beautiful belvidere’ was discovered in flames and the county for miles round was ‘soon roused from their slumbers to witness its destruction’. The blaze was initially believed to have been caused by a fire that had not been adequately put out, but the Brighton Guardian concluded darkly that ‘we fear it will turn out the fire was not altogether accidental’. The damage was later attributed to a ‘notorious gang of poachers’.

Gordon’s History of Harting (1877) included a view of the ruined tower, and Weaver concluded that the structure had been so substantially built that ‘many years may yet elapse before it becomes a heap of ruins’. The tower did indeed stand strong, and a postcard dating from around 1920 shows little had changed in the forty or so years since Gordon’s history was published.

By 1934 Sir Harry Meade-Fetherstonhaugh was having problems with trespassers, and reluctantly he closed the gates to Uppark. He was at pains to stress to the people of Harting that they would always be given a ‘hearty welcome’, but that he had to act to stop the ‘foreigners’ who had been damaging the tower and other buildings in the park. More day-trippers would no doubt have arrived at Sir Harry’s gates a couple of years later: in 1937 the Shell petrol company featured the folly on a poster encouraging motorists to jump into their cars (after filling up with Shell fuel of course) and visit such sights.

The grade II listed tower was consolidated in 1982. It stands on private land and can now only be viewed from a distance as, ironically, it is fenced off to deter… vandals.

Most readers will know that another devastating blaze features in the history of Uppark (a National Trust property). In August 1989 fire swept through the house, causing terrible damage to the interiors and although some of the contents were saved many more were lost, including archival and pictorial references to the tower.

F.G. Aldsworth investigated the tower in 1982, when consolidation was underway, and fortunately recorded archival materials later lost in the fire, including the building accounts noted here. His account, with reconstructions of the plans and elevations, is in Sussex Archaeological Collections Vol. 121 (1983), pp. 183-224.

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