Bretton Hall, near Wakefield, is now best known as the home of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where artworks have been displayed in the open air, and in purpose built galleries, since 1977. But long before these works arrived, the park was home to a collection of ornamental garden buildings, including the enchanting tiered tower called Bella Vista.

Bretton Hall was the seat of the Wentworth family, and in the second half of the 18th century Sir Thomas Wentworth (later Wentworth Blackett, 1725-1792) remodelled the park with lakes, planting and follies, including a double-faced temple (see link below) and a grotto. Bella Vista  (sometimes Belle Vista) was probably designed by John Carr of York, who was active at Bretton in the 1760s and 70s, and representations on estate maps from the early 19th century show that a tiered structure was built, close to this original design.

Bella Vista stood high above the mansion, with sweeping views across the Bretton parkland and beyond, and was backed by woodland called the Bella Vista Plantation. Although constructed to this elaborate design as an eye-catcher from the house and pleasure grounds below, Bella Vista was also a belvedere, a destination for carriage rides and picnics, and it it also had a more practical function as a lodge.

By 1881 it was home to a family of 11 – George Wilkinson, a labourer, his wife, and 9 children between the ages of 2 months and 24 years of age called Bella Vista Lodge their home. This remarkable feat was achieved by covering in the open arcade at ground level (which originally housed the stairs to the upper stories), and creating a series of small rooms to augment the existing internal spaces. An ingenious use of space, but it must still have been a bit of a squeeze. The upper tiers were probably removed at the time of this conversion.

Bella Vista fell into disrepair after the Second World War when Bretton Park had been requisitioned, and was demolished as unsafe in the 1950s. Only the entrance drive and gate piers survive.

The lost building was recreated a few years ago by two of the Folly Flâneuse’s favourite artists. In 2017-2018 the Yorkshire Sculpture Park held an exhibition of work by Ed Kluz, called Sheer Folly: Fanciful Buildings of Britain. To accompany the show Ed produced this delightful limited edition screen print of Bella Vista by moonlight:

Complementing Ed’s work, the exhibition also featured an exquisite miniature silver model of the folly by Vicky Ambery-Smith, who creates jewellery and small decorative pieces in silver and gold.

Bretton Hall is currently being converted into a hotel by property developers Rushbond (let’s hope they name a bedroom the ‘Bella Vista Room’, as was the case when it was a family home).

The gardens and pleasure grounds of Bretton Hall are home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park https://ysp.org.uk. The site of Bella Vista is not within the YSP but can be seen from a public footpath.

For more on Ed Kluz see https://www.edkluz.co.uk and you can buy the screen print here https://penfoldpress.co.uk/products/bella-vista

You can see more of Vicky Ambery-Smith’s work here http://www.vickiamberysmith.co.uk

If you would like to share any thoughts or information, please scroll down to the comments box. Thank you for reading.

In the 1760s Sir Thomas Wentworth* (1726-1792) of Bretton Hall, near Wakefield, set about landscaping his park. Initially, he employed Richard Woods, a professional landscape designer, but soon decided he could manage just as well on his own. In the 1770s he added to his grand design without recourse to even the most eminent landscaper of the age: Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. A second lake would, he told friends, be completed without the help of ‘Capability or any such pretending Rogues’.

In 1769 the first lake was embellished with an island on which Sir Thomas built ‘a little Gothic Temple … where a dozen might be sociable’, shown here in a sketch by the itinerant artist and drawing master J.C. Nattes. The Temple was the centrepiece when Sir Thomas threw a grand party in 1771. A ‘genteel cold collation’ was served at the building, which was illuminated with lamps. As guests sailed up the lake in Sir Thomas’s boat, The Aurora, a band played, fireworks were set off and a huge bonfire blazed at the end of the lake.

Although Sir Thomas described the temple as gothic it had in fact two facades, one gothic and one with a pediment. This classical front is known only from another sketch by Nattes in the collection of the National Trust at Stourhead. The architect was probably John Carr of York.

Sir Thomas wrote that he intended to dedicate the temple to Bacchus, god of wine, and Venus, goddess of love, and planned to erect statues of the two deities on the island . The building housed a pantry and kitchen and a bedroom above; the former presumably the haunt of Bacchus and the latter the domain of Venus. The baronet was a rake, who vowed never to marry, but kept a mistress and, in the manner of the age, exercised his droit de seigneur. He fathered a number of children, four of whom lived in his household and were accepted by polite society.

If only Sir Thomas had crossed paths with the French architect Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826) he might have been tempted to build a more daring structure in which to conduct his dalliances. The Folly Flâneuse was very sorry to miss a recent exhibition in Paris which featured Lequeu’s exotic output. Sir Thomas might have been tempted by this garden pavilion with its ‘Hammock of Love’, complete with ecstatic couple.

There’s more on all of Lequeu’s erections here https://gallica.bnf.fr/html/und/images/jean-jacques-lequeu

Already ruinous when it was photographed by Country Life in 1938, the temple at Bretton was demolished as unsafe after the mansion became a college in the later decades of the 19th century. The park at Bretton is now home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park https://ysp.org.uk and the mansion is currently being restored as a hotel http://www.rushbond.co.uk/our-projects/bretton-hall-estate-wakefield/

*He took the name Blackett in 1777.

Dated 1792, the temple in the park of Swinithwaite Hall was built as a banqueting house and belvedere to enjoy ‘the most strikingly beautiful and picturesque scenery of the valley and the whole range of its western mountains’. The valley in question is that of the river Ure, and the most dramatic feature of the vista was the ‘grand and majestic falls […] over the rocks of Aysgarth’, a view that is still partially intact today.

The temple was a short ride away from the hall and set within its own miniature pleasure ground with ‘ornamental timber and shrubberies.’ A panel above the door shows a talbot, a breed of dog associated with hunting, suggesting that the temple may also have been used as a grandstand for watching the chase in the valley below.

It was built for the Anderson family of Swinithwaite, almost certainly to a design by John Foss of Richmond who worked on the house at around the same date. As one contemporary visitor wrote, it was considered a great extravagance, albeit a most stylish one:

‘The building of this elegant temple at the cost of £800 merely for the sake of enjoying the prospect more at ease or over a dish of tea was considered by all who knew him as highly imprudent in Mr A who had not an income of more than £1000 per annum. It was however an unequivocal mark of his taste.’

Hooray for imprudent folly builders!

Restored in the 1990s, the temple is now a holiday let http://www.wensleydale-experience.com/Farm-Stays/Temple-Folly

The image top is reproduced courtesy of the artist Ed Kluz who, like the Folly Flâneuse, is passionate about the ornamental structures that decorate our landscape. It featured in his solo show Ed Kluz: Sheer Folly – Fanciful Buildings of Britain at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 11 November 2017-25 February 2018 http://www.edkluz.co.uk