Berkshire Follies
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Foll- The e-Bulletin of The Folly Fellowship The Folly Fellowship is a Registered Charity No. 1002646 and a Company Limited by Guarantee No. 2600672 Berkshire Follies Issue 27 June 2010 What’s on in June… 01—On sale: the new edition of Pevsner‟s Berkshire. 13—Annual General Meeting at the Dissenters‟ Chapel in Kensal Green Cemetery, Har- row Road, London W10. The meeting starts at 2.30pm. And coming up… 04, 10-11 July—Open day: Lord Berner‟s Folly at Faring- don, Oxfordshire. 10-11 July—North Lincoln- Temple Island at Remenham shire weekend: The visit Photo: Colinmel on Flickr starts with a tour of the Brock- his month sees lesbury Estate, including the the release of a and by Dr Simon Brad- Grotto and Root House, Ara- T bella Aufrere‟s Temple, Hol- much updated edition of ley who edited the City gate Monument, Newsham Pevsner’s Berkshire, of London and West- Lodge, Memorial Arch and which is the latest in the minster Pevsners. With James Wyatt‟s Mausoleum for new format guides to his 800 pages plus maps Sophia Aufrere. The visit also Buildings of England and over 100 colour includes fish and chips at Clee- series. To mark the photographs, the new thorpes and a tour of the town including its Plotland develop- event, this edition of the book is twice the size ment called the „Fitties‟. Bulletin looks at some of of the old one, and lists the follies in the Royal the best of Berkshire‟s 15 August—Annual Garden County of Berkshire. new and historic build- Party at Hall Barn, Beacons- Being part of a series ings. It costs £35.00 field, Buckinghamshire. the new book has kept and is on general sale to the same area that through all good book- Pevsner covered in his first edition shops and from Yale at in 1966. It means that the book www.yalebooks.co.uk. includes Berkshire‟s old county ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ town of Abingdon, Lord Berners‟ This re-launch of the Bulletin Folly at Faringdon and large parts follows a nwe format which we of the Downs around Wantage hope is easier to read and print. If The Folly Fellowship that were moved into Oxfordshire you wish to comment on the de- Articles, pictures, comments and feed- during the 1974 boundary change. sign or any other aspect, please back for the e-Bulletin should be sent to [email protected]. All other The new edition is edited by Dr send your feedback to the usual correspondence should be sent to Geoffrey Tyack, author of the Blue address. [email protected]. Guide to Oxford and Cambridge, Andrew Plumridge Abu Dhabi royal family ith most people observ- and President of the W ing the county from the UAE, since when he M4 motorway, it is not surprising has been busy restoring that Berkshire‟s best known folly the mansion and its gar- overlooks the highway. Wilder’s dens. His latest addition Folly, as it should properly be is the erection of a brick known, stands close to junction 12 wall around the perime- (Theale) and is a simple brick ter of the estate—all 28 structure with an open arcade at miles of it—much to the ground level, a series of gothic- irritation of some local arched windows in the two floors residents. above and the remains of a castel- The main folly is the grotto of The exterior and interior of Ascot Place grotto. lated top that would have hidden a 1740-50, consisting of three cham- Photo: Eric de Mare, NMR lead-covered flat roof. bers lined with flint, tufa and sta- Despite its prominence, little is lactites covered in feldspar. In an known of the folly‟s history except article for the Gardener’s Maga- that it was built in 1769 by Rev. zine of 1829 (p.568), J C Loudon Henry Wilder of Sulham House claims it was „built to the designs during his courtship of Joan Thoyt of Daniel Agace, owner of Ascot of nearby Sulhamstead House. By Place‟ using the masons Turnbull erecting his folly on Nunhide Hill, it and Scott,‟ but records appear to would have been seen from both show that Agace didn‟t acquire the estates and served as a belvedere estate until 1787. Loudon also at- with an external timber staircase tributes the Corinthian rotunda to providing access to a Wilder’s Folly. Photos: Bill Nicholls Turnbull but other house and contents of the wine painted first floor room and Graham Horn (top) at Geograph. sources say it was by cellar. The gaiety came to an with glazed windows. Agace‟s niece C C Fer- abrupt end in 1819 when the Mar- At some time during ard who improved the quis was declared bankrupt and the second half of the gardens in the early the estate sold. It is claimed that 19th century the win- 1900s. According to the house itself was demolished in dows were bricked up the listing, she is also 1840 by a mob of the then Duke‟s and the tower used as credited with adding angry creditors. a dovecote. the Gothic seat and the The grotto at Basildon Park Over the years the dry bridge with its bas- has long gone, but two in the pri- folly has been known relief of a woman‟s vate gardens of Windsor Castle by a variety of names head over the western are still standing and used by the including Pincent‟s Kiln arch and two monkeys present Royal Family. Probably (from its proximity to above the other. built for George III, the grottos are Pincent‟s Manor), Nun- There is a grotto in accessed through a series of tun- hide Tower and Flint‟s the grounds of Whitek- nels cut into the chalk, each lined Folly. Maybe it is time nights Park, which in with flint, marble, pudding-stone to agree to use its true name of 1798 was home to the Marquis of and clumps of burnt brick. It is fair Wilder‟s Folly. Blandford, later the 5th Duke of to say that they lack the splendour Equally well known, but much Marlborough. He used it as a base of the one at Ascot Place, but few less accessible to the public is the for lavish and wild entertainment, grottoes in the world could do that. grotto at Ascot Place. Since it adding a grotto (recently restored) The real treasures at Windsor was first built by Thomas Sandby to the edge of the eleven-acre lake are at Frogmore Gardens, where at the end of the 18th century, As- and planting hundreds of rare and there is a Tea House designed for cot Place has had a string of ce- exotic plants in its grounds. When Queen Victoria in 1869 and an lebrity owners, including H J they were finished the gardens Indian Kiosk taken by Lord Can- Heinz. In 1989, it was bought by were considered to be among the ning from the Kaiserbejh at Luck- Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayad bin Sul- most extravagant of their day, now and presented to Queen Vic- tan Al Nahyan, the head of the matching the furnishings in the toria in 1858 to mark the end of the Indian Mutiny. Its most impor- tant folly, however, is the Gothick Temple or sham ruin, designed by James Wyatt in 1793. The Lodge and Pavilion, Monkey Island, Bray Island, Monkey andPavilion, Lodge The The richer members of Berk- Fuller-Maitland after it had been shire Society have always enjoyed damaged by lightning and erected living on the banks of the River in his meadow in 1837 to mark Thames, and it is here that the Queen Victoria‟s accession to the best follies are still found. In 1723 Throne. Charles Spencer, the 3rd Duke of Further along the track is Park Marlborough, bought the island of Place, the one-time home of Field- “Monks Eyot” at Bray and erected Marshall Henry Seymour Conway, The Indian Kiosk (above) and Gothick Temple at for himself a small lodge to use as a former Governor of Jersey. As a Frogmore Gardens. Photo: Haryoung on Flickr token of their appreciation of his service, the people of Jersey gave him a Neolithic stone circle from the Mont de la Ville at St. Helier, which Conway shipped to Berk- shire and used as a romantic folly. He also bought stone from the ruins of Reading Abbey to build a Cyclopic Bridge at the bottom of „Happy Valley‟, adding a grotto and obelisk at the other end. The bridge supports the A321 Henley- Wargrave road, and was designed by Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford. Conway‟s cousin, Horace Walpole delighted in the bridge, writing of it on 7 October 1793: ‘The works of Park Place go on bravely; the cot- Close Windsor‟s border with a quiet retreat. He also built an tage will be very pretty and the Winkfield is Cranbourne Lodge octagonal fishing pavilion, which at bridge sublime, composed of (below), a three-storey brick tower first sight appeared to be built in loose rocks, that will appear to built in 1808 as an extension to a stone but when the Duke was in- have been tumbled together there; house occupied by Edward, Duke vited to tap it, he is said to have the very wreck of the deluge. One of York. It is claimed that Princess delighted at the discover that it stone is fourteen hundredweight. It Charlotte was incarcerated here in was actually painted timber. Its will be worth a hundred of Pal- 1814 after falling in love with a interior was decorated by the ladio’s bridges, that are only fit to minor Prussian Prince who was French artist Andien de Clermont, be used in an opera.’ thought to be beneath her.