Pyramidal 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 Pyramidal Follies Issue 29: August 2010 What’s on this month: 05—Release of Gillian Maw- rey and Linden Groves‟ book The Gardens of English Heri- tage, published by Francis Lincoln Limited—see back page. 15—Annual Garden Party at Hall Barn, Beaconsfield, Buck- inghamshire. Details from www.follies.org.uk or 07866 593501 15—Capability Brown’s Vi- Mausoleum of John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckingham sion for Gatton Walk: A tour and his two wives at Blickling Hall, Norfolk of Gatton Park (Surrey) to ccording to the 15 April Photo: Graham Gilmore on Flickr learn about Brown‟s vision and A edition of TMZ—an online its management today. Details celebrity gossip magazine—the that the idea sprang from a small from www.gattonpark.com or Hollywood actor Nicholas Cage pyramid in the top corner of the 01737 649066. has reserved his burial plot in a movie poster for his 2004 film Na- And later… New Orleans cemetery and built tional Treasure. on it a 3-metre high concrete tomb Cage‟s tomb is not the only 9-12 September—Heritage in the form of a pyramid. pyramid or Egyptian monument in Open Days. A list of follies and other properties taking part in The actor is as well-known for New Orleans, and is unlikely to be the scheme is available from his unusual property portfolio as the last. Local people believe that www.heritageopendays.org.uk he is for his range since their City is 11 September—Cotswold of films, having on the opposite Weekend visiting Painswick once owned a me- side of the World to Rococo Gardens to see the dieval castle in Cairo, a psychic newly restored Red House, Germany and two bond links them Exedra, Bothy, Pigeon House islands in the Car- with the pyramids and more, and then to Wood- ibbean. In 2007 he of Egypt. Even if chester Mansion and Frampton purchased Midford that is true, it does -on-Severn. Details from 0117- 929 1673 Castle in Somerset not explain why so for a reported £5- many p yram id million, from where tombs are built in it would be nice to the United States, think that he found or why they are so The Folly Fellowship inspiration for his Nicholas Cage’s mausoleum under construction popular elsewhere Photo: David Appelman on yovia.com Articles, pictures, comments and feed- mausoleum after in the World. back for the e-Bulletin should be sent visiting Jack Fuller‟s pyramid at Britain‟s interest in Egyptian to [email protected]. All other Brightling (East Sussex) or John architecture began when gentle- correspondence should be sent to [email protected]. Hobart‟s at Blickling Hall (Norfolk). men on the Grand Tour brought The view in America, however, is home details of obelisks, sphinxes and pyramids that they saw during buildings, borders on the mon- House in Surrey, and was built in their travels in Italy. The first of strous. Its massy members and the early part of the 19th century these to be copied in Britain was barbarous ornaments are a re- for the Evelyn family (below). Hawksmoor‟s obelisk in Ripon proach to the taste of its admirers; (North Yorkshire), erected in 1702 and the travels of Denon have pro- in honour of John Aislabie, and duced more evil than the elegance copied twelve years later by Van- of the engravings and splendour of brugh at nearby Castle Howard, his publication can be allowed to along with two pyramids and two have compensated.' gateways with pyramidal features. Although Busby‟s view was not It started a fashion for obelisks to shared by everyone, only a few be incorporated in the „improved Egyptian-style buildings were built landscapes‟ of country houses, in Britain. The first was an office and their use as funerary monu- on the Strand, built in 1804 for The ments, the earliest of which is Sir Courier newspaper, complete with Edward Lovatt Pierce‟s memorial cavetto cornice and columns with to the Allen family at Stillorgan in palmiform capitals. Seven years Ireland (1717), which he based on later P.F. Robinson completed an Bernini‟s obelisk in Rome‟s Piazza Egyptian Museum in London‟s Navona. Piccadilly (demolished 1904), Interest in Egypt re-emerged in which John Foulston later imitated While Egyptian style inspired 1798 when Napoleon invaded it as in his Masonic builders of individual follies, it part of his campaign to undermine Hall at Stone- never gained popularity with gar- Britain‟s trade interests with India. house (Glos), den designers of the past. One of Having been appointed to the his Library at the early exceptions was the Duke French Academy of Sciences in Devonport, of Württemberg‟s garden at Châ- May of that year, he took with him and house for teau de Montbéliard in France, a group of 167 mathematicians, John Lavin in where an Egyptian bridge, swing, scientists and artists so they could Chapel Street, bathhouse and billiards room were record everything they saw during Penzance. all built in 1787. In Britain, Egypt the campaign. One of them was was used for small parts of larger Dominique Vivant Denon, whose garden plans, including the Rev drawings caused a sensation Edwards‟ secret garden at Stan- when they were eventually pub- combe Park in Gloucestershire lished as Voyage dans la basse et (1840s), and for James Bateman‟s la haute Egypte in 1802. garden at Biddulph Grange in Staffordshire (1842-69). One of Vivant Denon’s drawings of the Sphinx Denon‟s book inspired Thomas The Egyptian Garden at Biddulph Grange Hope to devote a room in his Lon- Photo: Kev747 on Flickr don house to Egyptian decoration, The Egyptian Museum in London’s Piccadilly (top) furniture and antiquities, and later John Lavin’s house in Penzance (bottom) Pyramids have always held a to publish their designs in his book In contrast, the style was wel- fascination for folly builders, even Household furniture and interior comed by the designers of mauso- though the architect Vernon Gib- decoration (1807). But, while the leums and funerary monuments, berd once told me they are among style was admired by Britain‟s fur- helped by stories of mummies and the most difficult of structures to niture designers, it was less popu- the belief that burial in an Egyptian build. With the exception of those lar with architects, causing C. A. tomb preserved the body so it was by Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor at Busby to say in his book A Series ready for the afterlife. One of the Castle Howard (1719-28), the first of Designs for Villas and Country first of these was the Gillow family pyramid was built by Sir Charles Houses (1808) that „of all the vani- mausoleum at Turnham (Lancs), Kemeys-Tynte at Halswell House ties which a sickly fashion has pro- while in London a large number (Somerset), long before Denon‟s duced, the Egyptian style in mod- appeared together at Highgate books were published, and said to ern architecture appears the most Cemetery. A fine example stands be in memory of his niece who absurd: a style which, for domestic against a remote hill at Wotton died unexpectedly in 1744. 2 Also associated with gambling in a few years you will be in want is William Mckenzie‟s pyramid in of cooks‟. In return, the parish was St. Andrew‟s churchyard on Rod- instructed to paint the iron railings ney Street, Liverpool. McKenzie every other year, but in 1941 they was a habitual gambler who bet decided instead to melt them and lost his soul one night in a down for the war effort. game of poker with the devil. Prior to his death in 1851, McKenzie convinced himself that if he was not buried the devil would be un- able to claim his prize, so he left instructions for his body to be seated in a chair with a table in front of him and a winning hand of cards between his fingers. The well-head at Halswell House Photo: www.halswell.co.uk Barbara Jones tells us that the earliest examples were „tall and Roman in proportion, like the tomb of Cestius...‟ in Rome (Follies and Grottoes, 1979). Typical of this type is Needle‟s Eye at Wentworth Francis Douce’s pyramid at Nether Wallop (above) Woodhouse (South Yorkshire) William McKenzie’s pyramid in Liverpool (left) which, like many of Britain‟s best Paulet St. John’s pyramid at Farley Mount (below) follies, emerged through a bizarre wager. At 14 metres high and strad- dling a drive that connects Wen- tworth Woodhouse to the Lion Lodges near Brampton Bierlow, the folly is said to have been built by Earl Fitzwilliam after boasting The chronicle will be familiar to of his driving skills and betting that anyone who knows the story of the he could drive his horse and car- pyramid at St. Thomas à Beckett‟s riage through the eye of a needle. Church, Brightling (East Sussex), Since the arch is only just wide where the 22-stone body of Jack enough for this, his feat (if true) is Fuller is said to be seated in an Another relative was Paulet St. a remarkable one. iron chair with a bottle of Port and John, who erected a 9 metre high a roast chicken by his side. Know- pyramid on Farley Mount (near Needle’s Eye, Wentworth Woodhouse Photo: Eddie Robinson (Flickr) ing that he had led a colourful life, King‟s Somborne, Hampshire) in and just in case the devil tried to honour of his favourite horse.