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The English Folly The Edifice Complex
Gwyn Headley and Wim
Meulenkamp
Swindon: Historic England, 2020 Paperback. ix + 250p. ISBN 978-1789622126.
£30
Reviewed by Jacques
Carré Paris: Sorbonne-Université
Since the publication of
Barbara Jones’s pioneering Follies and Grottoes in 1953 (revised 1974),
there has been an increasing interest in the hundreds of bizarre edifices
dotted about English country estates by their more or less eccentric owners,
especially in the eighteenth century. This has culminated more recently in
dedicated magazines, websites, newsletters, study-groups and blogs, as well as
several books and repertories by Headley and Meulenkamp themselves. The present book is
supposed, according to its authors, to concentrate on the men (and a few women)
who commissioned such buildings, rather than on the architecture itself. Some,
like Ralph Allen, Sir Francis Dashwood or William Beckford, are well-known, and
there is nothing new to be learnt about them. Once the reader has become resigned
to the alternately flippant and snobbish tone of the authors and their
irrepressible bouts of council-bashing, he or she can find detailed portraits
of some of the rich individuals who left their mark (sometimes the only one) on
their estates. What emerges is of course the sheer frivolousness of most
follies. One example is “Wainhouse’s chimney”, near Halifax, a 275 ft tower
equipped with two belvederes built in 1871 to spite a neighbouring
industrialist, Sir Henry Edwards, MP, who hated having his own estate at Pye
Nest pried into. In some cases, however, the men who had follies erected were
seriously interested in architecture. Such was the case of Jack Fuller
(1757-1834), an MP and Sussex squire, who consistently patronised the Greek
revivalist architect Robert Smirke, the designer of both the Rotunda temple and
the Observatory at Brightling in the 1810s. Smirke may also have designed other
follies commissioned by Fuller in the area, such as the Needle commemorating
the battle of Trafalgar, the Pyramid, Fuller’s own funeral monument, the Sugar
Loaf (the result of a bet) and the Hermit’s tower, all erected before 1830. On the other hand, apart
from the excuse of eccentricity (“follies are above all fun” [4]), we find here
no attempt whatsoever at explaining why so many English landowners and
industrialists were prepared to spend considerable sums of money on such useless
structures. Surely a minimal amount of economic, social and cultural analysis is
needed on the subject of what is ominously designated as “the edifice complex”
(the subtitle of the book). On the rare occasions when they venture into
historical generalisations, the authors tend to be self-contradictory: “In the
past if you weren’t working you were starving” [2] – but surely the aristocrats
who built follies were not reputed for their dedication to “work”! Immense
unearned wealth was clearly the main precondition of folly-building. Also the
urge to give a visual expression of patriarchal hegemony over the land should
be appreciated. As to the choice of architectural forms, now classical, now
pseudo-medieval, it surely has something to do with current fashionable tastes
at given periods by the upper classes, eccentric or not. In spite of its supposed concern for quirky
owners rather than edifices, the book fortunately devotes its thirteen chapters
to the different types of follies. The authors’ definition of such buildings is
extremely extensive, as it includes industrial structures such as the
Egyptian-looking Temple Mills in Leeds, royal residences such as the Brighton
pavilion designed for the Prince Regent, and even private tunnels such as the immense
underground passages at Welbeck Abbey, mostly to be used by the staff the 5th
Duke of Portland did not wish to see. On
the other hand, the book ignores some of the most delightful follies of the 18th
century such as Vanbrugh’s Temple of the Four Winds at Castle Howard, or
Chambers’ Pagoda at Kew Gardens. But it does reveal some of the lesser-known
buildings of interest, especially those recently restored, and that is the main
asset of the book. It is good to see fine photographs of the 16th-century
Hunting Tower at Chatsworth, so often overlooked, of the refurbished grotto at
Pains Hill, or of the stupendous “Deer Palace” at Bishop Auckland. And it is
interesting to hear that the last great folly tower in England was erected as
late as 1935 at Faringdon by Lord Berners. Erratic and enthusiastic as
it is, this book perhaps reflects the mood in which many follies were erected,
and will appeal to those who like to explore the byways of architectural
history. The illustrations are of excellent quality. Each chapter is followed
by a reliable gazetteer of surviving follies of the type described, and there
is a good bibliography at the end.
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