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Acts of folly- Heritage
What actually constitutes a folly is almost impossible to define. Coming in all shapes and sizes, their styles include columns, pyramids, towers, temples, arches and pagodas. Their sole purpose and use, usually requires more explanation than a traditional building, but the fact that the word folly is taken to be a derivation of the word foolishness, speaks volumes of their intention. Perhaps Lord Berner had the right idea when he memorably commented of his folly at Faringdon, Oxford by saying, “The great point of this tower, is that it will be entirely useless”.
In most cases it’s easy to see that they were designed with eccentricity and so built to be seen and enjoyed and certainly they have the power to draw attention to themselves. Sometimes this was for the wrong reason, and they have often caused controversy by their presence. If they could be categorised and given definite meaning, then they would certainly lose their excitement and mystery.
The oldest folly is believed to be Freston Tower, overlooking the River Orwell near Ipswich and dates back to 1549. This red brick tower, six stories high stands in the grounds of Freston House and may have been built as a prospect tower to view the Orwell shipping, though it may also have been part of the long demolished house.
If it was part of the original house, then it may not even be a folly at all and therefore the accolade would go to the Triangular Lodge at Rushton Hall in Northamptonshire. This remarkable building has three sides, each measuring 33ft, with three floors and three garbles on each side and finished off with a crowning chimney, inevitably with three sides. It was built by Sir Thomas Tresham in 1593, the father of Francis Tresham, one of the conspirators who planned the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Inspired by his thoughts on the Holy Trinity, Tresham would not have even known the word folly at the time, which makes the building seem even more bizarre.
After these, the next one of significance is the Pepperbox, which was built at Whiteparish in Wiltshire and the final one to be built in the seventeenth century. The greatest era of the folly was to be the 18th century, especially between 1730 and 1820 when it became fashionable to decorate your grand estate with a romantic ruin inspired by the Italian and Greek temples and ruins in Georgian times.
Were they just a useless waste of money? Probably, though if you were a rich aristocrat, this didn’t matter. So the influential landscapers of the time including ‘Capability’ Brown and William Kent, used them to great effect in their designs. They were added to help improve a view or finish piece of landscaping, leading the eye across the panorama. At Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, Nicholas Hawksmoor finished Sir John Vanbrugh’s magnificent house with a landscape to rival the house itself and includes the Mausoleum and Temple of Four Winds. Other fine examples can be seen at Stourhead and Stowe, which has no less than 32 temples and follies in its grounds.
Some of these finished grand gardens could now be looked at as a grand tour of the world with architectural styles in the follies from every country.
Not all follies were built on the grand estates however, and the Broadway Tower in the Cotswolds is a prime example. This was built in 1797 by the Earl of Coventry, George William, for his wife, who wanted to liven up the countryside. She wanted a tower, on which she could place a beacon that could be seen from her house in Worcester. Built by John Wyatt at the height of his career, having just worked on Westminster Abbey, its one folly that certainly wouldn’t have come cheap.
One of the tallest follies is Alfred’s Tower on the Somerset and Wiltshire border. Designed by Henry Flitcroft, this imposing 160ft high tower, is part of the Stourhead Estate, built in 1772 to commemorate King Alfred’s victory over the Danes in 879AD. The lighter coloured bricks on the side, show the repairs made after a Mosquito aircraft struck the tower during an exercise in World War II. The 209 spiral stepped climb to the top rewards commanding views over the estate, as well as miles of Somerset countryside. 
The tallest of them all though, is the Wainhouse Tower in Halifax. Originally planned as a chimney for John Wainhouse’s Washer Lane dyeworks, the factory was sold before the chimney was finished and instead it was completed as an observatory, standing at 274ft high.
To prove the eccentricity of the people behind these follies, you need look no further than the man who designed the Leith Hill Tower in Surrey. Believing that when ‘Judgement Day’ occurred, the world would be turned upside down, rumour has it that Richard Hull wanted to be buried vertically, head downwards in the tower and thus be in the correct position at time of the resurrection. In 1984, a National Trust worker was drilling into concrete in the bottom of the tower and found Hull’s tomb…
No county however, can rival the extraordinary follies that are situated in Yorkshire and aside from Castle Howard, its dominated by two of the most remarkable groups that are to be found within four miles of each other. When Thomas Earl of Stafford learnt the family estate of Wentworth Woodhouse was to be passed on to a cousin, in retaliation he bought the nearby estate of Stainborough and renamed it Wentworth Castle, just to confuse matters. Here the grounds are ornamented with obelisks and temples as well as a medieval motte and bailey castle recreation in 1/3 rd scale, barely one storey high, complete with keep and curtain wall and circular towers. Rival Wentworth Woodhouse has less follies, but they are larger in size and include the classical Rockingham Mausoleum and 115ft high Keppel’s Column, a forerunner to Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square.
The Grand Folly at Wimpole Hall is one of the many sham castles that were purposely built to look like a ruin and again caused great controversy. This was built by Sanderson Miller, one of the most influential folly builders in Britain. His first build was Edgehill Tower, near Radway in Warwickshire, again in the ruined style, which was replicated across Britain.
Follies with more worthiness, include the ‘The House in the Clouds’, which was built in 1923 as the Thorpeness water tower and disguised as a house, complete with false windows and pitched roof to avoid it being an eyesore. Later, when Thorpeness was linked to a mains water supply, the tank inside was dismantled and the space turned into additional living accommodation. When built, the house was called ‘The Gazebo’, the name ‘The House in the Clouds’ comes from a children's poem written by the original owner, and inspired by the house.
Though many follies have been preserved and are maintained by the National Trust and The Landmark Trust, some have crumbled into ruins or in the case of the Clavel Tower in Dorset, are about to fall into the sea. Standing precariously close to the edge of Hen Cliff, overlooking Kimmeridge Bay, it is now just four metres from the crumbling, unstable cliff edge. The tower was built in the 1820’s by Reverend John Richards, who changed his name to Clavell when he inherited the Smedmore estate that the tower is part of. It has three floors and a shallow basement and was used during World War I as a lookout, but has been derelict since it was gutted by fire in the 1930’s. It has been mentioned in the poems by Thomas Hardy, who courted Eliza Bright Nicols here and also by PD James, who used it her book The Black Tower.
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Towards the end of the 18th century, follies became much more tongue in cheek, with eccentricities such as ‘Jack the Treacle Eater’ which features a figure on top of noted local runner Jack, who trained on treacle and is among the Barwick Follies at Yeovil in Somerset. To this day the folly continues to add to the landscape. The most modern equivalent being the failed Millennium Dome in the East End of London. Certainly the biggest to date and also the most expensive. Proof indeed that the folly lives on.
© Craig Roberts
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