In the early 1940s the artist Rex Whistler completed the illustrations for a book in his breaks from training with the Welsh Guards, working on the drawings in the army huts where he was stationed. The book was The Last of Uptake by Simon Harcourt-Smith, and the reviews agreed that here was ‘the perfect blend of artist and writer’.

Harcourt-Smith (1906-1982) was a former diplomat who wrote on a wide range of subjects, but The Last of Uptake is not typical of his work, as it started life as a lighthearted tale to entertain his wife who was in plaster after a car accident. Rosamund Harcourt-Smith (née Miller) was a society beauty, photographed by Beaton when her engagement was announced. She was known for her stylish outfits, so when Whistler (1905-1944) arrived to stay during this period he was offended by the standard crutches she was using to get about, and immediately set to work to design her a ‘princely pair, in a somewhat rococo taste’.

Simon Harcourt-Smith’s book tells the story of Uptake, a decaying stately home where the Ladies Tryphena and Deborah muddle by with a handful of ancient retainers. Their Palladian mansion is surrounded by a pleasure ground designed by perhaps William Kent, or Capability Brown, and dotted with follies and curiosities. These include a stepped pyramidal ice-house, a Chinese pavilion, a shell grotto, a hermit’s cave, sham Roman ruins, and automata such as a woodman who swings his axe at the turn of a key. When the sisters discover that their favoured heir has died, they decide upon drastic action and burn down the mansion.

The book jacket blurb makes clear that the story is a ‘fantastic confection’, dreamt up by Harcourt-Smith’, but he does write that parts are based on ‘legends’ told by his family and friends. One who might have sowed the seed of an idea is Edward Arthur Donald St George Hamilton Chichester, 6th Marquess of Donegall (1903-1975). Donegall sat in the House of Lords as Baron Fisherwick, a title taken from Fisherwick Hall, a former family seat in Staffordshire. Lord Donegall told his friend Harcourt-Smith the tale of how Fisherwick Hall was ‘inhabited by two maiden sisters who fell out and burned the house down’. It is true that the Marquess’s ancestors were forced to sell the Capability Brown designed Fisherwick house and park in around 1800 to settle debts, and it was demolished soon after, but there were no sisters, and no fire – and in fact no-one other than Donegal (who admitted his tale was ‘probably fictitious’) seems ever to have heard this myth.

Rex Whistler was in his element drawing such fantasy buildings. He loved follies and garden ornament, and favourites such as the Boycott Pavilions at Stowe, and the Palladian Bridge at Wilton, made regular appearances in his work. Part of the fun of the book is trying to figure out the British houses and gardens which might have influenced the text and pictures (track down a copy and try it for yourself). One may even have been fictional: Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca had been a huge success when published only a couple of years earlier, with its haunting description of Manderley in flames.

The Last of Uptake was published by Batsford, and as well as the standard copy there was a deluxe version in a limited edition of 100. This was printed on handmade paper, and signed by the author and illustrator. The book was well-received in the press, but the ‘delightful piece of literary embroidery’ was overshadowed by war. In 1967 Solstice Productions of London reissued the book with a foreword by Rebecca West. She wrote that The Last of Uptake ‘has long been a treasure of mine, and I have always thought it a great misfortune that it failed to be recognised as a classic because it was published during the war’.

Of course the greatest tragedy was that Whistler himself never knew how much pleasure his illustrations gave to readers. He was killed in action in Normandy in 1944, and as Harcourt-Smith wrote in July 1945, it was not easy to think of ‘resuming the round of peace without him’.

Rex Whistler’s original drawings for The Last of Uptake are in the collection of the National Trust at Plas Newydd on Anglesey, where the dining room features an enchanting Rex Whistler mural  https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/plas-newydd-house-and-garden

Apologies to regular readers who were confused to receive last week’s post a day early. This was for reasons of logistics and normal service has been resumed! If you would like to share any thoughts on this post please do get in touch via the comments box below. Thank you for reading, and if you would like to receive a folly story in your inbox every Saturday morning, please visit the Subscribe page.

The rotunda at Stowe in Buckinghamshire was designed by Vanbrugh in around 1720, and stands on a sweeping lawn in front of the grand mansion. In the middle of the 20th century author T.H. White used a little artistic licence, and for the purposes of his story moved it to an island in one of the two lakes. There it became home to a colony of tiny people, and the adventure that is Mistress Masham’s Repose began.

Ten year old Maria, who has ‘eyes the colour of Marmite’, is an orphan.  She has been placed in the care of a scheming governess who is in cahoots with the local vicar to steal her inheritance – the vast Malplaquet estate. The house at Malplaquet is ‘surrounded by Vistas, Obelisks, Pyramids, Columns, Temples, Rotundas and Palladian Bridges’, all of which are slipping into decay after years of neglect. On an island in the lake stands a domed open rotunda called Mistress Masham’s Repose, home to around 500 little people who we learn are Lilliputians ‘in exile’, this being a sequel to Gulliver’s Travels. Can Maria and the little people thwart the gruesome governess and her vile vicar sidekick? The Folly Flâneuse will reveal no more here.

In the story, the Malplaquet mansion is shut up apart from two rooms where Maria and her governess live. It has been abandoned because ‘nobody could be persuaded to buy the place for a school’. This was of course an in-joke, for Malplaquet was based on Stowe, near Buckingham, which had been a school since 1923 after descendants of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos sold up. Terence ‘Tim’ Hanbury White (1906-1964) was the Head of English at the school in the early 1930s, and then spent some time living in a cottage in the grounds where he could concentrate on his writing (and in which guise he appears in the books as an eccentric academic). Familiar features at Stowe appear in the novel: the Temple of Concord and Victory for example becomes Neptune’s Temple, but the garden buildings, including some not mentioned in the text, are most easily identifiable in the wonderful map that forms the endpapers.

The map was drawn by White’s friend from his Cambridge days Raymond McGrath (1903-1977), an Australian born architect, illustrator, watercolorist, printmaker and interior designer, who arrived in London in the 1920s. In 1940 he moved to Ireland, where White also spent the war years. There he became an architect to the Ministry of Works, whilst still sketching and illustrating both for fun and commercially. McGrath was paid $50 by the American publishing house, G.P. Putnam & Sons, for the map of Malplaquet, apparently a ‘top fee for a map of this sort’.

Tim White’s Arthurian stories (later published together as The Once and Future King), were already very popular and would be adapted for the stage as Camelot, and by Walt Disney as the animated The Sword in the Stone. So his reputation was well established when Mistress Masham’s Repose was published first in America in 1946, and then in Britain by Jonathan Cape early the following year. The press advertisements announced it amongst other ‘forthcoming novels’, and were clearly targeting an adult audience with the blurb ‘a richly amusing fantasy with philosophical implications’. Reviewing it for the Daily Herald John Betjeman described it as a ‘thrilling story’, and concluded that ‘Mr White has written a story which will be good reading for all people from 12 to 100’. Tim White would have appreciated this comment, as he didn’t like to be pigeon-holed and said he never wrote for ‘anybody in particular’. The book was an instant success, bolstered by being chosen as a Book of the Month in America – this subscription scheme had close to 900,000 members when Mistress Masham’s Repose was selected.

The story was dedicated to Amaryllis Virginia Garnett, daughter of White’s friend and agent David ‘Bunny’ Garnett, a member of the ‘Bloomsbury Group’. Although the story is written as if being read to Amaryllis, she was only born in 1943 and must have had to wait a few years to hear the story.

The Folly Flâneuse throughly enjoyed revisiting the story, which is still in print today but not as well known as it should be. Although there was a radio play in 1952, the book has never been adapted for the screen. The late screenwriter and producer Carl Foreman owned the film and TV rights, but despite hints at a film in 1967, and discussions with Granada Television for an adaptation using the very latest technology in 1983, the projects were shelved.

Like the Lilliputians, White too enjoyed life on an island, and moved to the channel isle of Alderney after the success of Mistress Masham’s Repose to avoid what he saw as punitive British taxes. He also had a folly of his own, building a Temple to Hadrian (‘a very fine fellow’) in his garden. You can catch a glimpse of it in this wonderful bit of archive footage from the BBC, in which White is interviewed (? interrogated) by Robert Robinson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p013h5b3

Mistress Masham’s Repose is a sequel to Gulliver’s Travels, and in turn Andrew Dalton’s Malplaquet trilogy beautifully illustrated by Jonny Boatfield advances Maria’s story. You can read Rita Boogaart’s account here http://follies.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/ebulletin/Foll-e-46-Malplaquet.pdf Rita sadly passed away recently and will be greatly missed.

Read about Raymond McGrath’s amazing design for a modernist house in Surrey here https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/architect-of-the-week-raymond-mcgrath/

Stowe House remains a school, although visitors are welcome at certain times of the year (under normal circumstances), and the pleasure grounds are in the care of the National Trust. The park is now open for pre-booked visits https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe

Mistress Masham’s Repose has been through many editions and is still in print https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1098952/mistress-masham-s-repose/9780099595175.html

Thank you for reading.

A brief post this week as The Folly Flâneuse has been racing around at a somewhat faster pace than her usual omnipercipient strolling. However, the lovely images by John Piper will make up for the paucity of words.

After the Easter heatwave the weather broke just as The Folly Flâneuse arrived at Stowe – the photo above shows the view from the grotto, which gave some much needed protection from one of the heaviest of the showers. On the plus side, no-one else was about, and The Folly Flâneuse had Stowe all to herself.

The (re)visit was inspired by the image below, which featured in a recent exhibition put together by Neil Jennings Fine Art.

John Piper (1903-1992) first visited Stowe in the 1930s when he summed up the faded glory of the gardens with the evocative phrase ‘pleasing decay’. In that decade it was suggested that a book of views of Stowe would be well-received, but although Piper remained a regular visitor to the park, and produced many views in a range of media, the project stalled for decades.

Eventually, in 1983,  John Piper’s Stowe was published as a limited edition by the Hurtwood Press, in association with the Tate Gallery. The foreword was written by Piper himself and the images were accompanied by a commentary by Mark Girouard, who described the park as ‘a diamond which flashes in a different way, depending on the angle one looks at it.’

To give Piper the final word on Stowe: ‘There is no end to the things one can paint there, and dream about.’

John Piper’s works can be seen in collections across the country and further afield. His love for follies was not restricted to Stowe and he painted Clytha Castle in Wales, Dinton Folly in Buckinghamshire and the buildings at Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire, amongst many others. There’s a gallery dedicated to his life and work in the lovely River and Rowing Museum in Henley on Thames https://www.rrm.co.uk/visit/galleries/piper-gallery/

Start saving now for a selling (and loan) exhibition at London’s Portland Gallery in September http://www.portlandgallery.com/exhibitions/667/about/john-piper

More on Stowe here https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe

‘What did Delaware?’, asks the old song. Well until January 2020 one part of the state casts off its brand new jersey and dons some brand new follies. Winterthur, near Wilmington, DA., is home to a gallery, museum and library set within 60 acres of garden and surrounded by a further 1,000 acres of park. Winterthur’s founder, Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), designed the garden with the architect Marian Coffin, an old friend from childhood. From around 1920 he embellished the estate with garden buildings relocated from nearby estates that were under threat, as well as creating his own follies from recycled architectural fragments.

Since April these structures have been augmented with a wonderful collection of newly constructed follies. Some are inspired by genres of folly such as a gothic tower, an Ottoman tent, a rustic hut and a classical temple whilst two are heavily inspired by real buildings in England: the Needle’s Eye at Wentworth Woodhouse, South Yorkshire and the Chinese Pavilion at Stowe, Buckinghamshire.

http://www.winterthur.org