Many follies have lurid tales attached telling of wicked acts and/or ghostly goings-on and a classical temple, high on the Whitley Beaumont estate near Kirkheaton, doesn’t disappoint. It is known locally as Black Dick’s Temple, after Whitley Beaumont’s owner in the early seventeenth century, Sir Richard Beaumont. Local legends tell that Sir Richard ran up such huge debts gambling that he had to live a double-life as a highwayman. He is said to haunt the site and, of course, there are whispers of a network of secret tunnels under the building.

Sir Richard (1574-1631), 1st and only baronet, or Black Dick if that’s the version you prefer, built a new mansion at Whitley Beaumont which remained in the family until the early twentieth century. Sir Richard is commemorated with a magnificent monument in St John’s, Kirkheaton.

… also shown here, with an appreciative visitor, in a lovely watercolour sketch by Huddersfield artist Peace Sykes.

The tales of Sir Richard and his dissolute lifestyle may or may not be true, but he never knew the Palladian temple. It was built in the middle of the eighteenth century, as a landscape ornament and banqueting house, for a later Richard Beaumont (1719/20-1764). The architect was possibly James Paine (1717-1789), who was married to Richard’s sister Charlotte, and who worked on the house at Whitley Beaumont in the 1750s. It was extant by 1760 when a visitor admired the grand Terrace Walk which led to the ‘Temple’. A domed banqueting room, once decorated with ornate plasterwork, stands above a basement that probably housed a kitchen for the servants (although it is sometimes said to be an ice-house).

The next generation of Beaumonts remodelled the park south of the house to a design by Capability Brown. By the middle of the twentieth century, this part of the park had been exploited for its coal reserves, but the terrace and temple north of the house remained largely unchanged, although greatly neglected. The Beaumonts had sold up in the 1920s, having auctioned the mansion’s fixtures and fittings in 1917.

The estate was once more offered for sale in 1950, when it was auctioned in lots. The auctioneers didn’t even consider that a private owner might make the ‘impressive mansion’ their home, and although ‘renovation as an institution’ was a proposed use, it seemed to be taken for granted that it was ‘eligible for demolition’. Lot 2 was ‘The Avenue’ which included that ‘local landmark known as The Temple’.

As predicted, the house was indeed pulled down soon after the sale in 1950, and the materials sold. Local boy Brian Tattersfield began to visit Whitley Beaumont just as demolition started, and explored every corner of the estate. In his own words it became a ‘lifelong obsession’. Whenever a busy career (as one half of the acclaimed design studio Minale Tattersfield) allowed, he returned to his early Box Brownie photo’s and sketches, and created finished pen and ink drawings. Although the dome of the Temple was gone when he first visited, he always preserved the building’s dignity and showed it intact.

Today the temple is a ruin. Vandals and thieves have long-since stripped the lead from the roof (where was the terrifying ghost of Black Dick when he was needed?), and the internal floor is long gone, leaving a gaping hole inside the building. The soot-blackened shell remains a local landmark and can be seen from nearby public footpaths.

Thanks to Katina Bill, Senior Curator, Kirklees Museums and Galleries and Brian Tattersfield for their invaluable help with this post.

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In 1987 Save Britain’s Heritage, the charity which campaigns to save historic buildings from needless destruction, published Pavilions in Peril, a report into the great number of garden buildings in Britain that faced an uncertain future. In drawing attention to historic buildings that are vacant and whose future is uncertain, the charity hoped to identify new owners able to repair and/or find a new use for the structures, thus securing their future. 33 years after that report was written The Folly Flâneuse is delighted to write that there have been some fabulous restorations (see link below to an earlier post), but read on for the not-so-good news…

The report’s author, Julia Abel Smith, researched 54 case studies, and sadly two of the featured structures have disappeared forever. The classical Temple to Pitt at Coleby Hall in Lincolnshire, was described in 1987 as being ‘a very sad sight’, and it was demolished in the 1990s. Although it looks fairly substantial in this postcard view, it was actually wood plastered to look like stone, and therefore less able to withstand the elements.

The Bark Temple at Exton in Leicestershire, a rustic wooden summerhouse which had been deteriorating for some years, finally collapsed in 1997. There will be more on this fascinating lost building in a forthcoming guest post.

Two years after the report was published SAVE introduced a Buildings at Risk Register, and two of the buildings featured in Pavilions in Peril remain on that list today.

Despite attempts to secure its future, the Umbrello, on the privately-owned Great Saxham estate in Suffolk, has spent 33 years in peril. It is of particular interest as not only is it an unusual design, but it is built of Coade Stone, the celebrated artificial stone developed by Mrs Coade at her factory in Lambeth. Originally constructed in the late 18th or early 19th century, its design is based on a Batty Langley pattern and a Historic England report of 2001 concluded that Great Saxham may not have been its first home. There’s a link to the full report below.

Near Chichester in Sussex, stands the derelict Racton Tower, which is also on SAVE’s Buildings at Risk Register. It was designed by Theodosius Keene for the 2nd Earl of Halifax and complete by around 1770. The hilltop folly (described by Horace Walpole as ‘a very ugly Tower’) was built to take advantage of extensive views across the downs to the Isle of Wight and beyond, and as an eye-catcher from Lord Halifax’s seat at Stansted House. In the year Pavilions in Peril was published it was bought by a private owner who planned to turn it into a private house. Planning permission was granted some years ago, but has since expired, and at the time of writing a new application, from the same very patient owner, is being considered by the South Downs National Park Planning Authority.

Other buildings featured in the report remain in need of rescue. In 1987 the Belvedere at Sketty, near Swansea, was unlisted and derelict. Probably designed by the architect William Jernegan in the early 19th century, the folly contains a lovely vaulted chamber with its roof supported by a single column (likely inspired by the nearby Chapter House at Margam).

The building has the inscription ESTO PERPETUO (May it stand forever), which is somewhat ironic given its current condition, although nicely relevant when one learns that when it was conveyed to Swansea City Council there was a covenant attached forbidding demolition. The house at Sketty was demolished in 1975 and the belvedere is now surrounded by the modern housing that was built in its park. In 2015 the cash-strapped Swansea Council sold the building at auction; the sum realised was reported to be £130,000. However plans to restore the (now grade II listed) folly as a dwelling have been scuppered by a colony of bats, and it remains boarded-up and neglected.

In Yorkshire the temple at Whitley Beaumont, near Huddersfield, was thought to have a bleak future as it had lost its roof, and the fine chamber beneath was filling with rubble. Happily it still stands, although it has continued to slowly deteriorate under the combined force of vandals, the elements, and total loss of raison d’être: the estate was requisitioned for mining during the Second World War and the mansion demolished in 1952 . Attributed to James Paine, the temple was probably constructed in the early 1750s when the Beaumont family’s mansion was being remodelled. A grand terrace walk, edged with flowering shrubs, terminated at the temple from which there were extensive views. In the 1770s the building was home to a telescope and visitors were invited to admire the distant views from the elevated site, which (as reputed of every prospect tower in Yorkshire) included a view to York Minster. When invited to admire the view one guest, clearly an old hand at dealing with the boasts of owners, announced that he could most certainly see the mighty church: experience had taught him that when he found his hosts ‘resolutely determined that I shall see a thing, I always see it immediately to save trouble.’ The temple now stands rather forlornly on the edge of a quarry, as a reminder of how great the estate once was.

If you are feeling a little despondent now, see last week’s post for the good news https://thefollyflaneuse.com/pavilions-in-peril-part-i-pavilions-preserved/

This is only a selection from the buildings featured in Pavilions in Peril, but it is still in print at the absolute bargain price of £5 and is well worth the investment. You can buy it and learn more about SAVE here https://www.savebritainsheritage.org/publications/publications-in-print/3 

For the full report on the Umbrella at Great Saxham follow this link https://research.historicengland.org.uk/Report.aspx?i=15025&ru=%2FResults.aspx%3Fp%3D549

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In 1920 the Yorkshire Post published a letter about a mysterious cave, or grotto, at West Nab on moorland above Meltham on the western edge of Yorkshire. The correspondent believed the structure had been built around 1500 years earlier as the dwelling of the pagan god Baal – hence it’s being known as ‘Bellman’s Castle’.
The building’s true history is more prosaic. In around 1750 R.H. Beaumont of nearby Whitley Beaumont built a banqueting house for the use of he and his friends when they were shooting on the moor. It featured a huge stone slab of a table around which 20 could dine. Beaumont’s Castle had perhaps been misheard or misinterpreted as ‘Bellman Castle’ by the time the 1st edition ordnance survey map was published in 1854.

It was however imbued with romance and fantasy from the very start. In 1751 a visitor was confident it ‘resembles ye Habitations of the Druids in ye Scotch Islands’.

This 1920 photograph shows it was already in poor condition by that date.

Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown drew up a plan for the landscape at Whitley Beaumont which was implemented by Richard Beaumont in the 1780s. The Monument was probably built as an eye-catcher from a new carriage drive, and existed by 1822 when it is shown on an estate map, but not named. It is marked as ‘The Monument’ on the 1850s Ordnance Survey map but no-one remembers why it was given this name, or what it might be a monument to.

Built of fragments of masonry, probably rescued from a remodelling of the hall, and embellished with battered statuary, this is a fabulous folly and was surely designed by the family themselves. It’s unlikely an eminent architect would wish to take the credit.

The monument fell into disrepair during the two world wars when the park was used for army training and mined for coal as part of the war effort. Today the fragments survive as a forlorn and overgrown pile of stones.

The park at Whitley Beaumont is strictly private.

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