In the middle of the eighteenth century William Aislabie began to create a landscape garden on the banks of the River Ure, near the village of Grewelthorpe. In contrast to his grand estate at Studley, a few miles away, there were few manicured lawns or geometric pools, and instead Hackfall was a ‘sequestered and most romantic place’. Dotted around the grounds were summerhouses and shelters, including a dramatic hilltop tower called Mowbray Castle.

Word soon spread that Hackfall was a place worth seeing, and early visitors recorded their admiration for the place: ‘never was there seen a finer assemblage of wild and variegated nature’ wrote a tourist in 1785. Although visitors frequently refer to the ‘imitations of ruins’ in the pleasure grounds (there’s also a sham-ruin banqueting house), the earliest specific reference by a visitor to ‘Mowbray Castle’ found to date is from the 1780s, which tallies with an account in the archive suggesting work was ongoing in 1778.

By 1801 the gardener, who gave tours of the grounds, estimated that around two hundred parties visited each season. The Yorkshire weather was not always kind, but it didn’t spoil the experience. In 1792 Lord Torrington found ‘so much to admire, so much to celebrate’, despite the rain falling ‘in buckets’. And in 1799 another tourist wrote that he knew of no other place that gave so much pleasure’ even though it ‘rained the whole time’.

When first built Mowbray Castle could be seen from almost every spot within the pleasure grounds, and its ‘isolated situation’ was described as having an ‘extremely happy effect’. William Gilpin, whose comments on landscape were widely-read, criticised the buildings at Hackfall, but few were in agreement. In 1796, the Duke of Rutland wrote that ‘We did not find any room for censure’.

A poem written in 1859 suggested that the castle was an ancient fortification:

Now turn thy steps towards the right,
And view that grand imposing sight –
Tis Mowbray Castle, in decay,
The relics of a bygone day.

But Georgian visitors recognised it as a sham, a ‘very excellent imitation of an ancient ruin’, and praised its natural appearance.

Aislabie’s descendants sold Hackfall to a timber merchant in 1933, and much of the woodland was felled. Happily, the folly survived this period of neglect (although the short section of wall with an arch seen in the early images is lost), and was consolidated as part of a masterplan to restore the pleasure grounds and buildings after Hackfall was purchased by the Woodland Trust in 1989 (with strong support from the Hackfall Trust and other local groups). Sadly the vistas to and from the castle are now largely lost because of tree growth.

Around the time the folly was under construction a boy was born who would grow to great fame as an artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on 23 April 1775, 250 years ago this week. He visited Hackfall in 1816, and later worked up one of his sketches into a watercolour now in the Wallace Collection, London.

Hackfall is in the care of the Woodland Trust and is freely accessible to walkers.

J.M.W. Turner clearly admired follies – he painted/sketched the tower at Tabley in Cheshire, Cook’s Folly near Bristol and the Gibraltar Tower in Sussex amongst many others. Click the link in red for events planned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Turner’s birth in 1775.

Thank you for reading. Please scroll down to the comments box at the foot of the page to share any thoughts.

High above Newby Bridge in Cumbria (formerly Lancashire) stands Finsthwaite Tower. When first built it was a prominent landmark on a bare hill, and commanded an extensive prospect of sea, lake and mountains. The tower was built by James King of Finsthwaite House as an ornament to the landscape, and as a monument to naval prowess. And to start 2022 with some really good news, after decades of decay the tower has a new owner, and a new lease of life.

The first mention of the tower is in November 1797, when the writer Joseph Budworth mentions it in his poem Windermere. Looking down the lake to Finsthwaite he could see the building site on Water Side Knott (later also known as Summer House Knott), knott being the local name for a hill. Budworth looked south:

To where that rising structure boldly stands
And all around a bird’s-eye view commands

In a footnote to the poem Budworth noted that the tower was to honour the three new naval victories gained by the Admirals Howe, St Vincent, and Duncan. These were respectively the celebrated defeats of the French on the ‘Glorious first of June’ 1794, the Franco-Spanish fleet at Cape St Vincent on 14 February 1797, and the Dutch navy at Camperdown on 11 October 1797. As building work neared completion in November 1798 a further victory could be added to the list – the defeat of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile on 2 August, under the command of Admiral Nelson.

The architect is not recorded but was most likely Francis Webster of Kendal – the Webster workshop certainly provided masons. The team were about to start work on the inscribed plaque when news of victory at the Battle of the Nile arrived, and they requested ‘the pleasure of ingraving the name of Nelson along with the other Admirals who have done honor to the British Flag’. Inspired perhaps by exhortations in the national press to consider all four victories as ‘one great link of our national glory’, King eventually decided not to acknowledge named officers and individual battles, but to celebrate instead the massed ranks of sailors and their achievements. When completed in 1799 the tower carried this inscription:

ERECTED
To Honor the
Officers, Seamen and Marines,
Of the
ROYAL NAVY,
whose matchlefs Conduct, and
irresistible Valour, decisively defeated
the Fleets of France, Spain, and Holland,
and preserved and protected
LIBERTY and COMMERCE.
1799

The plaque, which survives, was originally surrounded by a ‘well designed ornament of naval trophies’; remnants of these carvings are visible on old postcards, not clear enough to define, but likely to include appurtenances of war such as flags, anchors, cannon-balls, coils of rope and prows of ships. The tower originally carried a flagpole, and a contemporary watercolour (private collection, not shown) shows it with a large pennant flying.

The postcards also show that the tower was originally of three storeys, and commanded ‘a prospect of great extent and beauty’. The view was panoramic, but the key vistas were north up Windermere and a sweeping southerly view with Morecambe Bay in the distance. Remnants of ornamental planting survive, suggesting that a small pleasure ground was created around the temple.

King (c.1755-1821) was a partner in the Low Wood Gunpowder Company, based close to Finsthwaite, and would have been very aware of the importance of the navy in protecting trade routes from the enemy and from privateers. Low Wood’s gunpowder was one of the main goods exported on the triangular trading route, also known as the slave trade. Gunpowder would leave Liverpool on ships bound for Africa where slaves would become the new cargo. The slaves would be transported to America and the West Indies, and the ships then returned to Liverpool with a cargo including luxury goods for the British upper classes including sugar, liquor and spices.  The importance of these exotics to the local economy can be seen to this day with tourists seeking out Kendal Mint Cake, Cumberland Rum Butter, and Grasmere Gingerbread.

On a more personal level, King was aware of the perils and hardships of life at sea as his father was a naval surgeon who sailed on a number of voyages. Some early visitors believed the tower commemorated ‘Captain King’.

By the end of the eighteenth century the on-going war had been commemorated with numerous portraits and statues of patriotic heroes, but there were few large-scale monuments. The national papers published proposals in 1799 for a ‘Grand Naval Pillar […] to perpetuate the glorious victories of the British Navy’, although it was 1807 before the foundation stone was laid for the Nelson memorial column at Plymouth (and Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square would not be built until the 1840s). King’s tribute was complete before the appeal for a national monument even appeared, making it possibly the first major British monument to commemorate the naval victories of the French Revolutionary Wars.

After walking up to the tower in the middle of the nineteenth century one visitor noted that the tower commemorated more than just naval heroes – the ‘inside walls [were] written over with names and nameless rhymes’, by the many visitors. In the later nineteenth century the building was kept locked, and the key was held at the Swan Inn in Newby Bridge where the landlord could vet the applicants and discourage further graffiti. By the end of the century the tower was in need of repair and in 1897, after a prompt from the English Lake District Association, the then owner restored the tower, ‘thus saving an old and interesting landmark’. The ELDA was an association of hoteliers which promoted the Lake District as a tourist destination, and part of its remit was to encourage landowners to keep footpaths and attractions, built and natural, in perfect condition.

Sometime after 1931 the tower was again restored, losing the upper storey in the process (we know there were still three storeys at this date from newspaper reports of a tragic death by lightning strike at the tower). The popular writer and walker Alfred Wainwright sketched the truncated tower for one of his guides, published in 1974, and noted that it was ‘no longer kept in repair’. The tower was listed at grade II in 1970 as ‘Pennington Lodge Tower’ – the name which appears on the early 20th century Ordnance Survey map. This is rather curious, as the first edition OS maps call it ‘Summer House or Tower’, and old postcards and guidebooks call it ‘Finsthwaite Tower’, so the ‘Pennington’ alias remains a bit of a mystery.

It’s a steep clamber up to the tower on a public footpath from Newby Bridge, or a steady climb from Finsthwaite church (which route has the added bonus of information boards on the local bobbin making industry, and the Woodland Trust’s work to regenerate the area) but the lovely little tower is all the reward you need. Although perhaps a small reviving treat might be in order…

And now the very exciting news… In 2015 the then landowner, the Lake District National Park authority, sold the 41 acres of Summer House Knott woodland to a private owner, Tim Timmerman, who had always aspired to having his own woodland. Timmerman had ambitious plans for the tower and woodland. In 2018 planning permission was granted to open the blocked doorway and construct a steel staircase and viewing platform within the tower, and this work is now largely complete. Just by the tower three new memorial stones have been erected, each commemorating a great naval battle: Cape St Vincent (1797), Camperdown (1797) and the Nile (1798).

The beautiful stones, sourced from a local quarry, have carved inscriptions by William Todd, which remember not only the British navy, but also those with whom they engaged in battle: the Spanish, Dutch and French navies respectively. Timmerman feels strongly that the site should ‘honour ALL those whose valour has been lost in the midst of time’, and quotes the Polish-American poet and writer Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004): ‘The living owe it to those who can no longer speak, to tell their story for them’.

Future plans include returning a flagpole to the tower, adding seats and interpretation boards at key viewpoints, the restoration of footpaths, and a programme of woodland management. Schools will be encouraged to use the tower, and although the tower will be kept locked to discourage vandalism, there will be managed public access. A website is under development so watch out for that in due course.

Timmerman wishes everyone to ‘enjoy the beauty of the Lake District to the maximum’. The Folly Flâneuse is hugely grateful to the saviour of Finsthwaite Tower and Water Side Knott. HUZZAH, as the sailors would have cheered.

UPDATE: Summer 2022. Storm Arwen, which hit Britain in November 2021, caused great damage to the woodland, although happily there was little damage in the immediate vicinity of the tower. Access was limited for some time and although forestry work continues, the path from Finsthwaite village has now re-opened. The quote from Milosz has now been added to the inscriptions:

Can you add anything to the history of the tower? If so, the Folly Flâneuse and Tim Timmerman would love to hear from you via the contact box below. Thank you for reading.

High above Belton House, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, stands this quirky tower with views back to the mansion. It consists of a room perched above a tall arch, and its spindly, leg-like supports, gave rise to its supposed local name of Lord Brownlow’s Britches.

We will return to Lord Brownlow later, but for now we are interested in the builder of the tower: Sir John Brownlow (1690-1754) who was created Viscount Tyrconnel in 1718. He settled at Belton in the early 1720s, and at that date the gardens were in the formal style of the previous century. He did not sweep this all away, as so many of his generation did, but the gardens were old-fashioned, and as one visitor in 1744 noted waspishly ‘the park and gardens were reckoned fine 30 years ago’. Tyrconnel added such à la mode garden features as a wilderness, a sham ruin and a grand orangery, as well as the Bellmount tower eyecatcher.

No architect is recorded, but we know that master builder and joiner Samuel Smith erected the tower, which carries a plaque naming and dating the building: BELLMOUNT 1750 (but note that the National Trust call it Belmount Tower).The upper room was used as an observatory and a belvedere. Lord Tyrconnel was interested in science, and had microscopes and a telescope in his study, and may have used the tower to stargaze. Bellmount was also a place in which to entertain guests, and allow them to admire and appreciate his extensive park and gardens. A visitor a few years after it was completed wrote that ‘from a temple in the garden called Belle Mount you may see seven counties at once’ (sadly she doesn’t name them, so you will have to figure them out for yourself).

The tower was also an eyecatcher from the mansion, and terminated the vista along the eastern avenue.

But what we see today is not the original building. A painting by John Harris, on display in the house, shows the landscape as it was just after the hilltop belvedere was built. It can also be seen, top centre, in this engraving by Badeslade; at that date it had a pair of wings flanking the lofty tower. Tyrconnels’s great-nephew, Brownlow Cust (1744-1807), created Baron Brownlow in 1776, who succeeded to Belton in 1770, improved the park with guidance from his friend Philip Yorke of Erdigg, and professional landscaper William Emes. Yorke disliked the wings on the belvedere, calling them the ‘most offending members’ and suggesting they be ‘cut off’. Brownlow clearly followed his advice, and this emasculation accounts for the odd proportions of the building today and the curious buttresses which replaced the wings. As Barbara Jones wrote in 1953 it is ‘a very strange building and well worth a visit’.

The army had used the park for exercises since the late 19th century, and in 1891 the 1st Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment enjoyed the ‘finest views’ from their tents by Bellmount. During the First World War the park at Belton was home to a huge training camp, and the tower became a focus for manoeuvres.

Lord Brownlow gave Belton House and a part of the estate to the National Trust in 1984. The Bellmount tower was subsequently acquired with the help of funds from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. Although the tower was restored in 1989-90, it is in need of further repair.

In 2020 National Heritage Lottery funding was secured for a major project to reconnect parts of the Belton estate which had become fragmented. The National Trust and the Woodland Trust will work together to link the park around Bellmount with Londonthorpe Woods on the edge of Grantham. There are also plans to restore the grade II* listed tower and add interpretation.

For more on Belton see the excellent National Trust guidebook written by Adrian Tinniswood in 1992.

Bellmount Tower can not be accessed from Belton Park, but is accessed via a separate car park on Five Gates Lane. Belton is a National Trust property https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/belton-house

If you have enjoyed this post, and would like a folly story delivered to your inbox each week, please click the Subscribe link. Thanks for reading, and if you’d like to comment please scroll down.

Studley Royal, near Ripon, stays comfortably in the upper reaches of the list of most-visited National Trust properties, helped by the fact that the landscape garden features that epitome of eye-catchers, Fountains Abbey. But only a few miles away from Studley’s shops and scones is Hackfall, a tranquil vale* which is sublime, romantic and wild – and totally devoid of facilities. Both were created in the 18th century by the Aislabie family of Studley.

Hackfall was created in woodland on the bank of the river Ure and was dotted with follies, each with vistas – to the river, to Masham church spire, or to the other ornamental buildings. There was no house at Hackfall, as it was a pleasure ground that could easily be reached by carriage from Studley, and as one contemporary postulated:  ‘It is experimentally known that a long residence, even in the most romantic scenes, is apt to cloy: so the owner wisely has prevented all risk of satiety, by adapting his edifices to a visit only of a few hours.’

Today you have to visit the Village Hall in nearby Grewelthorpe for (excellent) refreshments, but in the 18th century Hackfall’s pavilions and alcoves provided shelter where light meals could be taken. If something grander were required, two of the follies had detached kitchens in which meals could be prepared. The remains of that by Mowbray Point, high above the valley, can still be seen.

The second kitchen, now lost, serviced Fisher’s Hall – one of The Folly Flâneuse’s favourite buildings. The ‘rotund room in which the family often dine’ was thatched in 1749 and completed in 1750 – a stone above the entrance bears that date and the initials of William Aislabie. It was lined with ‘that sort of stone which is commonly called petrifyed moss and roots which they dig near it’, and thatched with ling (heather). Guests sat at a horseshoe shaped table inside the octagon, from which there were ‘the finest and most picturesque views’, through the pointed gothic windows and door.

Hackfall soon became very popular and the earliest tourists (only the rich and influential were able to take tours at this date) could gain admission by calling at a cottage where the gardener, a Mr Hardcastle, would show them around. One visitor was moved to write some lines, and in this extract imagines the rustic summerhouse as a hermit’s retreat:

Fast by this stream, and in the thickest shade,
A straw-roofed cot appears with ivy bound,
The walls with cells and vary’d moss overlaid,
And rough-hewn altars mark’d the hallow’d ground.

Here haply dwells some hoary-headed seer,
Far from the guilty clouds’ tumultuous din,
Here lost in soft musings wears the silent year,
Estrang’d alike to passion and to sin.

The reality was that you were far more likely to bump into elegant travellers having ‘PicNic parties’  – in 1786 one visitor was delighted to bump into William Wilberforce drinking tea.

The inns in the closet towns of Harrogate and Ripon arranged transport by carriage to Hackfall, and stabling was provided both inside and outside of the grounds. However, it’s not clear how many visitors took their lead from The Hon. Miss Cust who arrived by donkey in 1840.

The woodland garden remained a favourite destination throughout the 19th century. By this date visitors taking tea at the Mowbray Point ‘refreshment house’ had another attraction to enjoy, Hackfall being ‘celebrated for its cream cheese’. With the advent of the motor engine further visitors arrived by car and Groups by charabanc.

Descendants of the Aislabies sold the pleasure ground in the 1930s. Hackfall was forgotten, and fell into disrepair as the 20th century progressed: the buildings became ruined, paths became overgrown and the trees were felled. In the 1980s the Hackfall Trust was formed, and it worked with the Woodland Trust and the local community and councils to halt further damage. Grants from various bodies, especially the Heritage Lottery Fund, allowed the partial restoration of Hackfall during the 1990s and the first decade of the current century. Fisher’s Hall and the other abandoned structures were consolidated to ensure their survival, whilst Mowbray Point, the banqueting house overlooking the woods and river, was beautifully restored by the Landmark Trust as a holiday let, now called The Ruin.

If you are in the area before 4 November there’s a lovely little exhibition at the nearby Masham Gallery celebrating Hackfall in a variety of media. http://www.mashamgallery.co.uk/hidden-hackfall.html

For Hackfall information http://www.hackfall.org.uk

And the Village Hall cafe http://www.grewelthorpe.org.uk/Village-Hall

Mowbray Point aka The Ruin is a Landmark Trust property and there’s more here https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/ruin-10176#Overview

* if you avoid weekends and school holidays

In Sharp’s day the picturesque little landscape garden below the tower had a pavilion shaded by 4 fir trees, where he liked to drink tea, and a small stone bastion to view the scene. Close to the water’s edge was a grotto which seemed ‘mostly the work of nature, but assisted by art.’

Sharp (1723-1792) built out from a natural cave, using stone which appears to have been quarried nearby, creating a two-roomed shelter. There is a fireplace in what was presumably a dressing room and as a further courtesy a small tunnel led from the cave to the water, allowing those who chose to bathe to slip into the water unseen.

Although a swim was not an appealing option when The Folly Flâneuse visited in January…

The two niches above the door once housed statues. An 1828 gazetteer describes the statues as two male figures, but identifies only one as ‘Jupiter hurling his thunderbolt’. As Jupiter was the Roman god of thunder and the sky, a likely companion would be one of his mythical brothers: Neptune god of the waters or Pluto, god of the underworld. Both would seem appropriate to the site.

Around the same date, Thomas Sopwith a Newcastle-born surveyor, mining engineer and local historian, sketched the grotto. He described the statues as representing ‘persons in the act of throwing stones’, and noted that they had been brought from St Stephen’s Chapel in London by Sir Walter Calverley Blackett. Sir Walter (1707-1777) had embellished the sham Rothley Castle on his nearby Wallington estate with architectural salvage in the 1760s, so this seems perfectly feasible, but this seems the only account to mention the origin of the statues.

Long since disappeared, the figures were a target for vandals as far back as 1864 when ‘some evil and maliciously disposed person or persons, did […] remove a figure from the Grotto in Hartburn Wood and threw it in the river.’ A £5 reward was offered to anyone who could discover the offender. It seems unlikely it was recovered as in 1920 only one statue remained, but it too had met an undignified end and lay ‘prostrate in the grotto’. By this date the statues were said to be of Adam and Eve. Whoever they were, the deep pool by the grotto is probably their home today.

Tower (grade II*) and grotto (grade II) survive, as does a very pretty bridge with a tall lancet arch.

The Tower is now a private home but can be seen from the road. A nearby footpath leads down through Hartburn Glebe to the grotto. Sharp’s pleasure ground is now in the care of The Woodland Trust which is reopening footpaths and vistas and protecting the built structures. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/4146/hartburn-glebe/

UPDATE: the sketch and description by Sopwith were added to the original post in March 2026. Many thanks to Richard Cansdale, the Woodland Trust’s volunteer warden at Hartburn, for sharing this information, which was given to his family by Sopwith’s descendant.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts are always welcome – please scroll down to the comments box to get in touch.