The Folly Fellowship is a UK charity and company limited by guarantee. It was created in 1988 by Gwyn Headley, Wim Meulenkamp and Andrew Plumridge as an amenity society to protect, preserve and promote awareness of Britain's follies, grottoes and garden buildings. It organises trips throughout the year to follies and holds an annual garden party at a follied garden where the highlight is the cutting of a cake formed in the shape of one of the follies in the garden. Members also receive a range of publications, including three Magazines, each giving information about follies in different depths. Folly Fellowship members include architects, people who live in follies, people who build follies and other interested persons.
The Folly Fellowship has recorded around 1,800 follies and grottoes. It maintains a substantial library of books and papers, a slide collection, and a collection of measured surveys of many follies. [1] They believe that it is difficult to draw a line between architectural extravagance and "true folly", and that a builder does not intend to craft a folly. Even Lord Berners commented of his tower at Faringdon (Oxford): "The great point of this tower, is that it will be entirely useless", [2] but the distinction of 'folly' was awarded later by others.
The Fellowship is regarded as an authority on follies. [3] [4] They are also the caretakers of some notable follies. [5]
Arundel Castle is a restored and remodelled medieval castle in Arundel, West Sussex, England. It was established by Roger de Montgomery in the 11th century. The castle was damaged in the English Civil War and then restored in the 18th and early 19th centuries by Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk. Further restoration and embellishment was undertaken from the 1890s by Charles Alban Buckler for the 15th Duke.
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings.
Stourhead is a 1,072-hectare (2,650-acre) estate at the source of the River Stour in the southwest of the English county of Wiltshire, extending into Somerset.
Faringdon is a historic market town in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England, 18 miles (29 km) south-west of Oxford, 10 miles (16 km) north-west of Wantage and 12 miles (19 km) east-north-east of Swindon. Its views extend to the River Thames in the north and the highest ground visible is on the Ridgeway in the south. Faringdon was Berkshire's westernmost town until the 1974 boundary changes transferred its administration to Oxfordshire. The civil parish is formally known as Great Faringdon, to distinguish it from Little Faringdon in West Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census gave a population of 7,121; it was estimated at 7,992 in 2019. On 1 February 2004, Faringdon became the first place in south-east England to be awarded Fairtrade Town status.
The Avon Wildlife Trust aims to protect and promote wildlife in the area of the former county of Avon – now Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, in England. It has its headquarters in Bristol and runs wildlife centres at Folly Farm, Somerset and Grow Wilder, Frenchay, North Bristol.
Hawkstone Park is a historic landscape park in Shropshire, England, with pleasure grounds and gardens.
Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners, also known as Gerald Tyrwhitt, was a British composer, novelist, painter, and aesthete. He was also known as Lord Berners.
Beckford's Tower, originally known as Lansdown Tower, is an architectural folly built in neo-classical style on Lansdown Hill, just outside Bath, Somerset, England. The tower and its attached railings are designated as a Grade I listed building. Along with the adjoining Lansdown Cemetery it is Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.
Painshill, near Cobham, Surrey, England, is one of the finest remaining examples of an 18th-century English landscape park. It was designed and created between 1738 and 1773 by Charles Hamilton. The original house built in the park by Hamilton has since been demolished.
Pontypool Park is a 150-acre (0.61 km2) park in Pontypool, Torfaen, Wales. The park was formerly the grounds of Pontypool House and was laid out in the closing years of the 17th century for John Hanbury, an ironmaster, who is closely associated with Japanware. The grounds were purchased by the local authority in 1920, while the estate house was leased, and later sold, to the Sisters of the Holy Ghost to become St. Alban's RC High School. The former stables now house the Torfaen Museum. The grounds contain a number of structures including a double ice house, the Folly Tower and the Shell Grotto. The park is entered through the Pontymoile Gates. The gates, the grotto and the stables are all Grade II* listed structures, while the former hall and the ice house are listed Grade II. The park itself is designated at Grade II* on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
Sutton Court is an English house remodelled by Thomas Henry Wyatt in the 1850s from a manor house built in the 15th and 16th centuries around a 14th-century fortified pele tower and surrounding buildings. The house has been designated as Grade II* listed building.
Goldney Hall is a self-catered hall of residence in the University of Bristol. It is one of three in the Clifton area of Bristol, England.
Croome Court is a mid-18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland at Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn in south Worcestershire, England. The mansion and park were designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown for the 6th Earl of Coventry, and they were Brown's first landscape design and first major architectural project. Some of the mansion's rooms were designed by Robert Adam. St Mary Magdalene's Church, Croome D'Abitot that sits within the grounds of the park is now owned and cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust.
Buscot Park is a country house at Buscot near the town of Faringdon in Oxfordshire within the historic boundaries of Berkshire. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Buscot is an English village and civil parish on the River Thames, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south-east of Lechlade. Buscot was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. Two houses there contain notable collections of paintings.
Sydenham Hill Wood is a ten-hectare wood on the northern slopes of the Norwood Ridge in the London Borough of Southwark. It is designated as a Local Nature Reserve and Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation. With the adjacent Dulwich Wood, Sydenham Hill Wood is the largest extant tract of the ancient Great North Wood. The two woods are formed from coppices known as Lapsewood, Old Ambrook Hill Wood and Peckarmans Wood after the relocation of The Crystal Palace in 1854 and the creation of the high level line in 1865.
The Forbidden Corner is a folly garden located in the Tupgill Park Estate, at Coverham in Coverdale, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, England. It is open to the public.
Darland's Lake Nature Reserve is a nature reserve south of Totteridge Village in Barnet, England. It is owned by the London Borough of Barnet and was managed from 1971 by the Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, and more recently by the borough council. In 2007 the council spent £215,000 on repairing the dam and other works, and then proposed leasing the reserve to the Wildlife Trust. The transfer did not take place and in September 2017 a trust was set up by the London Wildlife Trust and local residents associations which took over the management of Darland's Lake. In 2020, the Darlands Conservation Trust launched an appeal to raise £450,000 for excavation to prevent the lake drying up.
Gwyn Headley is a British historian and writer.
The Pepperbox, also known as Eyre's Folly, is a folly tower that stands near the highest point on Pepperbox Hill, the peak of a chalk ridge about 5 miles (8 km) south-east of the city of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. Built in 1606 by Giles Eyre, the folly is a three-storey hexagonal tower constructed of brick, with its entrances and windows blocked up. The building's original purpose is unknown, though theories include that it was built to provide Eyre with views of Longford Castle or to provide local landowners' wives, including Eyre's wife Jane, with a lookout tower to watch the hunt. The tower is considered one of the oldest follies, and is a Grade II listed building. The tower and hillside are owned by the National Trust.
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