Foll- The e-Bulletin of The Fellowship

The Folly Fellowship is a Registered Charity No. 1002646 and a Company Limited by Guarantee No. 2600672 Pyramidal

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 that is true, it does -on-Severn. Details from 0117- 929 1673 Castle in 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. The claim his soul, he asked for the reason was that while fox hunting floor of the pyramid to be covered in September 1733, the pair stum- with broken glass to cut the devil‟s bled upon a chalk quarry and had hooves. no option but to jump in. Having Building pyramids was some- survived the 8-metre fall, the pair thing of a family tradition for Fuller. went on to win the Hunter‟s Plate One of his relatives was Francis in October 1734, by which time the Douce who built a small pyramid horse had been renamed „Beware tomb outside St. Andrew‟s Church Chalk Pit‟. in Nether Wallop (Hampshire) in Pyramids that are dedicated to 1760, and left a fund so that the animals are rare. In Shropshire, children of the parish could be the second George Durant built a „taught to read and write and cast pyramidal pigsty in the grounds of an account a little way‟. His Will Tong Castle and inscribed it with went on to say, however, that their the motto “To Please the Pigs.” education „must not go too far lest His story is said to have inspired it makes them saucy and the girls P. G. Wodehouse in his creation all want to be chamber maids, and of the eccentric Lord Emsworth, 3

whose own pig “Empress” lived in luxury behind Blandings Castle. Newly published: George also marked the boundary of his estate with a series of pyra- The Gardens of English Heritage mid-shaped stones, one of which Gillian Mawrey and Linden Groves, can still be seen at Acorn Cottage Francis Lincoln, August 2010 in Bishops Wood (Staffordshire). ISBN 9780711227712 £25.00 Hardback In 1842 he rounded off his group of follies with an Egyptian Aviary The Gardens of English Heritage is the at Vauxhall Farm, and used it to first book to describe the magnificent keep hens. Again, he covered it parks and gardens owned by English with mottos, including „SCRATCH Heritage, which are far less well-known BEFORE YOU PECK‟ and the Latin than its evocative medieval abbeys or AB OVO, meaning „From the Egg‟. Victorian mansions. Yet these remarkable places offer a wide-ranging variety of gardening pleasures. Some have stun- ning designs, while others are important for their history or their plants. A surpris- ing number are brand new and a few of the best are tiny. All have marvelously atmos- pheric surroundings. From the formality of Wrest Park and Chiswick House to the rolling parkland slopes around Kenwood House; from Queen Victoria's garden at Osborne, complete with charm- ing vegetable plots for the royal children, to the exotic Quarry Garden at Belsay Hall and the modern restraint of the Contemporary Heritage Scheme, here are gardens from every corner of and almost every century. These essays tell the story of how each was created and of the sometimes eccentric families who owned them. The decay their trees, fountains and statues so often fell into is described - and the way they have been restored and survive to delight us today. The book is written by Gillian Mawrey, who set up the Historic Gardens Foundation in 1995, and by Linden Groves, who is a conservation officer with the Garden History Society and assistant to the HGF. The book is released on sale on 5 August 2010—further infor- mation and copies can be ordered from www.francislincoln.com.

The same is true of the United States of America where there is a Gobbets long tradition of building pyramids  May‟s Folly at Hadlow, Kent The Egyptian Aviary at Tong (left) as a final resting place for wealthy heads the list of ‘at risk’ build- Photo: From Stuart Barton’s Monumental Follies and important families. So, in con- ings in the latest At Risk Regis- Unlike Gothic or Chinese, the trast to the ridicule he has endured ter published by English Heri- Egyptian style „never seriously since it became known, Nicholas tage. A full list of the buildings caught the imagination of the Eng- Cage‟s decision is welcomed. Per- (given by county and by local lish until the discovery of the tomb haps he might now do what he authority) is available at: of Tutankhamun in 1922‟ (Barbara should have done when he first www.english-heritage.org.uk Jones, Follies and Grottoes, 1979). In bought Midford Castle and join the  A number of follies have been a period of nearly 300 years, it has Folly Fellowship. We‟ll send him a added to the Atlas Obscura nonetheless inspired some of our membership form, just in case! website, which is a Compen- wittiest men and given us some of dium of the World‟s Wonders, our best follies and monuments. Curiosities and Esoterica. Recommended further reading on pyramids and the Egyptian Revival: See—http://atlasobscura.com

Carrott, R. G., Egyptian Revival: Its Sources, Monuments and Meaning 1808- Next Month: 1858, University of California Press (1978).  The September edition of Foll- Curl, J. S., The Egyptian Revival: Ancient e will look at the follies that are Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs included in this year‟s Heritage in the West, Routledge (2005). Open Day Scheme. Winpenny, D., Up to a Point: In Search of The Stephens Mausoleum in Green Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. Pyramids in Britain and Ireland, Sessions Photo: Unless otherwise stated, all pictures in this edition of the http://sorabji.com of York (2009). Bulletin are taken by the editor or from the Folly Fellowship Picture Library. We are grateful to all of the photographers A gazetteer of pyramid follies, monuments and mausoleums will shortly for the generous use of their pictures. All views and com- ments that are expressed are those of the authors and are be available on the Folly Fellowship’s website www.follies.org.uk not necessarily the opinion or belief of The Folly Fellowship.

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