The Temple at Escrick Park (historically part of the East Riding, but now in North Yorkshire) sits at the end of a ride from the mansion, which is now home to Queen Margaret’s School for girls. The garden ornament was under construction in 1812, when the steward wrote to the estate’s owner, Richard Thompson, to warn that it would not be completed in time for his upcoming visit. Thompson’s response is not recorded, but he must have been delighted with the building when it was eventually finished.

The Temple was restored by the Escrick Park Estate at the beginning of this century with the help of a grant from DEFRA and European funding. It’s a charming little temple, barely big enough to be an eye-catcher from the mansion, but just right for a stroll from the house. And you can see for yourself: a permissive footpath now allows public access, but it can be hard to find so check a map first, or ask a local: it’s worth the effort.

The Folly Flâneuse is taking a short break to catch up with friends and family, and to venture a little further afield in search of follies. Posts will resume early in August.

Read more about Escrick in the excellent Yorkshire Gardens Trust report here https://yorkshiregardenstrust.org.uk/sites/yorkshiregardenstrust.org.uk/files/documents/Escrick%20park_YGT%20Selby%20District%20Historic%20Report.pdf

For more on the Escrick Estate https://www.escrick.com

Grimston Park was rebuilt by the Hon. Colonel Caradoc, later 2nd Baron Howden, from around 1839, transforming a ‘plain country house’ into a ‘splendid chateau’. New offices and estate buildings were also erected, including this ‘object tower’. 

Decimus Burton was the architect given the commission for the substantial remodelling of the existing Carr of York house (then little more than half a century old) in an Italianate style. Burton was given the opportunity to be a little more whimsical when designing the elevated tower, which was under construction in 1842. It is a quirky structure, difficult to categorise, but the door and window surrounds have an Egyptian influence. Howden was a diplomat who had travelled extensively, including a visit to Egypt in 1827, and may have played a part in the design.

The tower’s exotic detail may also have been intended to impress Caradoc’s bride, The Princess Bagration, who grew up in the court of Catherine the Great. She was a socialite who was known as le Bel Ange Nu because of her penchant for sheer muslin dresses.  (Presumably at parties she literally dressed down, as it is hard to see how the swathes in the portrait above caused any titillation). The Hon. Colonel Caradoc and the Princess had been the focus of society gossip for ‘the last ten years’ when their marriage was announced in 1835. In 1829 it was reported that the ‘on dits of Paris assert that le Beau C____k*, le Prince des attachés, is to marry the Princess Bagration’, snidely adding that ‘the lady, it is true, is a grandmother, but she has 18,000l per annum’. The politer press only hinted at her fortune, writing that ‘great wealth and great accomplishment are united in this happy union.’ But the match was not a success, and the couple separated in 1850, soon after the house was completed. Caradoc, by now 2nd Baron Howden, had no wish to live there and soon after sold the estate to Lord Londesborough.

‘Grimston Tower’ was complete by the time the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map was drawn up in 1845-6 and fulfilled a dual role of eye-catcher and belvedere. When the estate was again sold in 1872 it was described as a ‘lofty Flag Tower’ with ‘extensive and charming views’. The original flagpole was itself a curiosity:  a wonderful knobbly, rustic branch now replaced with the usual smooth pole.

Grimston Park Tower is cared for by the Fielden family who have owned the estate since 1872. It was recently restored with the help of a grant from the Country Houses Foundation. The folly stands on private land but can be seen from public roads passing the estate. Requests to visit the tower should be addressed to the Estate Office.

The list of folly towers in Yorkshire that claim a view of York Minster (“on a clear day…”) is endless, but for once it is justified here

There is an excellent account of the history of the gardens and park at Grimston here courtesy of the researchers at the Yorkshire Gardens Trust https://www.yorkshiregardenstrust.org.uk/sites/yorkshiregardenstrust.org.uk/files/documents/Grimston%20Park_YGT%20Selby%20District%20Historical%20Report.pdf

A Postscript: Researching Decimus Burton revealed that he had a bit of a thing for towers. He was the architect of two lighthouses for the model town of Fleetwood, Lancashire, which he designed for Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood just before he started work at Grimston. The Folly Flâneuse couldn’t resist a trip to the seaside:

*Caradoc aka Caradock.

The portrait of the handsome Colonel Caradoc is in the Phoenix Art Museum http://egallery.phxart.org/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:22673

Bishopthorpe, a few miles outside York, has been home to the Archbishops of York for centuries. In the 1760s Archbishop Drummond added a new facade to the palace, constructed a gatehouse, and rebuilt the village church. His architect of choice was Thomas Atkinson, a respected designer but a curious choice as he was a Roman Catholic*. All three structures were built in a whimsical gothick style, much of the stone coming from the ancient former episcopal palace at Cawood, a few miles south. When first built the three buildings formed an ensemble around a small ornamental lake, sadly long since drained. 

By the late 19th century the situation of the church on the waterlogged and eroding bank of the river Ouse was causing concern. A flood in 1892 washed bodies out of graves and the ‘inadequate and damp’ church was abandoned a few years later. In 1899 a new church was consecrated and such fittings as could be reused were transferred from the old to new church. The Consistory Court in York then issued a decree that the old church could be taken down.

With its useful life as a place of worship ended the church was adapted as a delightful landscape ornament. It is not clear who decided to leave the facade of the old church to stand as an eye-catcher, but they are to be congratulated for it is a lovely feature in a tranquil spot by the river. One contender must be Archbishop Maclagan, whose palace overlooked the old church. Or perhaps his good friend the vicar of Bishopthorpe, Canon J.R. Keble, who was the key mover in getting the new church built, may have wanted to save a piece of village history?

The former churchyard with its folly, tucked away from the main street overlooking the river, became a tranquil haven and was a particular favourite of the composer William Baines. The Folly Flâneuse is hugely grateful to Linda Haywood, manager of the Bishopthorpe Village Archive, for introducing her to this largely-forgotten musician. Baines died aged only 23, but not before he had composed a vast body of work. In his last years he lived in York and often walked to Bishopthorpe where the ‘enchanted lake’, a pond in the Palace grounds, inspired a composition, and where his favourite place was the old churchyard; ‘What a divine spot it is’, he wrote, with the church facade ‘covered partly with creeping roses and ivy’.

The roses and ivy have gone, as has the bell that Baines saw, but it remains a divine spot thanks to the work of the St Andrews Trust, a small charity formed to safeguard the folly. The trust masterminded an exemplary restoration in 2002, which included reinstating the window tracery. The crumbling stonework had been taken into storage in 1979, and craftsmen were able to copy it using matching magnesian limestone sourced locally in Tadcaster.

The Bishopthorpe facade is petite in comparison with another eye-catcher at Guisborough, in the Tees Valley, in the far north east of Yorkshire. The Augustinian Gisborough [sic] Priory was taken down during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century, but the Chaloner family later restored the Gothic east end as the termination of a walk in the grounds of their nearby seat. The Folly Flâneuse visited with the Yorkshire Gardens Trust on the wettest day imaginable when the folly looked particularly dramatic.

A warming cup of tea was in order at Gisborough Hall, a 19th century seat of the Chaloner family now a hotel, where an extra treat was the discovery of this model of the folly facade made of alum. The Gisborough area was once a centre for alum production, essential for fixing dyes, and the Chaloner family developed a factory. As human urine was a necessary for the manufacturing process, it is surely no coincidence that this wee model can be found by the hotel loos.

For more on the St Andrews Trust see http://standrewstrust.co.uk

And click here for more on the Yorkshire Gardens Trust (which, rest assured, arranges visits on glorious days as well as wet) https://www.yorkshiregardenstrust.org.uk

Thanks to The Decorative Friend for a lovely day in Bishopthorpe

* Atkinson is not named on the website of the current Archbishop of York where the gatehouse is said to be by John Carr.

In the later decades of the 18th century Parlington, near Aberford, was improved by Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 8th Bart, and it was he who built this arch to a design by Thomas Leverton. Construction was underway in 1781 when the Leeds Intelligencer reported that ‘some evil-minded Person or Persons’ had maliciously damaged the partly- built arch and destroyed two capitals and other mouldings in the mason’s shed. A reward of £10 was offered to anyone who approached Sir Thomas or his Head Gardener with information.

As the arch was going up Britain was at war with America. Sir Thomas was strongly against the conflict and wasn’t afraid to say so, which was considered by his political opponents to be at best unpatriotic, and at worst treachery. Sir Thomas and his fellow Whigs were critical of George III’s handling of the war. Sir Charles Turner of Kirkleatham sent his friends a print of the monarch which he annotated with the lines:

I still persist like an obstinate foal
Till I lose my dominions and look like a fool.

Sir Thomas went a step further and recorded his thoughts in stone: the triumphal arch has this wording engraved on the frieze:

LIBERTY IN N. AMERICA TRIUMPHANT MDCCLXXXIII

The tale is always told that a few years later the Prince of Wales was approaching Parlington but turned back, horrified, when he saw the arch. No one knows where the story originated, or indeed if it is true, but a good folly deserves a good story.

Parlington passed to Isabella and Elizabeth Gascoigne on the death of their father, Richard Oliver Gascoigne, in 1843. The Misses Gascoigne, as they were known, were great benefactresses locally and their projects included almshouses in Aberford as well as new churches at South Milford and Garforth.

At South Milford a new church was constructed in 1847 to the design of the architect George Fowler Jones (1818-1905). The same architect designed a new church at Garforth to replace an earlier structure. The old St Mary’s, Garforth was demolished in 1844, just as the foundation stone for the new church was laid by the Gascoigne sisters.

The Misses Gascoigne were also busy making their own mark on the grounds at Parlington. They added an ornamental lake, fed by the Cock Beck, with a boat house, cascade and this folly which was constructed from the chancel window, gargoyles and other fragments of the demolished St Mary’s, Garforth, probably to the design of Jones. A cottage ornée, Lakeside Cottage, completed the picturesque scene.

George Fowler Jones had studied under the architects William Watkins and Sydney Smirke, and the Misses Gascoigne were his first clients when he moved to Yorkshire in the 1840s. Jones was also interested in the new art of photography and had been a pupil of William Fox Talbot. A number of his images are in the collection of the Royal Photographic Society at the V&A, including these views of Parlington.

The lake was drained in the last century but locals report that the folly remains, albeit in a somewhat neglected condition. The splendid tracery of the window shown in the photo has collapsed into the beck below and should be salvaged.

The folly is on private land and not accessible, but the good news is that there is a permissive route up the avenue to see Parlington’s wonderful Triumphal Arch.

The family made nearby Lotherton Hall their home in the early 20th century. The mansion at Parlington was demolished in the 1950s and the estate was sold as an investment in the following decade. In recent years Parlington has been threatened with development. In response, Susan Kellerman of the Yorkshire Gardens Trust researched the history of the landscape and was able to demonstrate its importance to Historic England. Parlington was added to the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England in 2018.

Thanks to Brian Hull for sharing his photos and for his excellent website that details the history of the estate and family http://www.parlington.co.uk