trees, magnolias, phlox and asters to Britain.
In the early part of the eighteenth century, geniuses such as John Claudius Loudon, William Kent, Stephen Switzer, Charles Bridgeman and Henry Wise created magnificent gardens and stunning landscaped parkland at Windsor and Kensington Palaces, St James’s Park and Hyde Park, Chelsea Hospital, Longleat, Chatsworth, Castle Howard, Blenheim Palace, Chiswick House, Cliveden, Rousham and Stowe, to name only a few. From 1719 at Rousham, in Oxfordshire, for example, Charles Bridgeman and William Kent created a vast Neoclassical landscape in a curve of the River Cherwell to recall the glories and atmosphere of ancient Rome. Paths wound through woods and little groves, where water from the Cherwell was diverted to create small rills leading to larger ponds and formal pools. Classical statuary of Roman gods and mythological creatures was cunningly positioned to catch the eye as paths led from cascades to water gardens and on to the next temple or arcade, each set in its own valley or glade, creating a string of picturesque tableaux.
It was whilst Bridgeman and Kent were transforming the 162-hectare Baroque park at Stowe, in Buckinghamshire, that Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown was taken on as a pupil. Brown was arguably the most prolific and famous British landscape designer of his time, creating around 170 parks around some of the finest country houses, most of which have endured to this day and are open to the public. His style focused on perfecting nature in huge landscape parks carved out of the adjacent countryside. Formal gardens were replaced by great vistas of smooth undulating grass running straight to the house; serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers and clumps, belts, groves or scattering of trees judiciously positioned to accentuate a curvature of the ground or highlight the skyline.
Humphrey Repton was the last of that generation, designing parkland and gardens for nearly fifty stately homes, most notably at Stoneleigh Abbey, Blaise Castle, Wellbeck Abbey, and Woburn Abbey, Russell Square and Endsleigh, for the Duke of Bedford. Repton specialised in creating picturesque landscapes; at Endsleigh, the Duke of Bedford’s fishing lodge on the Tamar in Devon, which I remember well from the days in the sixties when my grandparents took us fishing, Repton created a fantasy world of many secret gardens. The mansion house, a magnificent cottage orne, resembling a romantic rustic cottage, was built to designs drawn up by Sir Francis Wyatt between 1811 and 1814 on a bluff overlooking the Tamar Valley across to the thickly wooded Cornish bank. Repton ‘improved’ on the breathtaking natural beauty of the position by creating rose walks and terraces that lead to summerhouses and grottoes, hidden dells or crags with viewing seats. Acres of lawns tumble down to the river, past lily ponds, cascades, a Gothic garden and fernery, a hollow filled with giant gunnera, a miniature ice-house, an octagonal dairy, a shell grotto and a holy well. Behind the house is a stunning arboretum of exotic specimen trees, chosen to create a wonderful combination of colours: Himalayan birches, Japanese cedars, weeping beeches, Persian ironwoods, tiger-tail spruces and Douglas fir.
Literally hundreds of follies were built in the eighteenth century, but this was nothing compared to the deluge of constructions that followed. Some, such as the Penshaw Monument, are truly magnificent. This 20-metre-high replica of the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, designed by John and Benjamin Green, was built in honour of the 1st Earl of Durham on Penshaw hill between Washington and Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, in 1844. Others, such as the Sugar Loaf near Dallington, in East Sussex, are less spectacular but equally effective in attracting the eye to a feature of the landscape.
In the early part of the nineteenth century a splendid, hard-drinking Georgian character called Mad Jack Fuller commissioned Humphrey Repton to landscape the gardens at Rosehill, his estate at Brightling, and the architect Sir Robert Smirke to design a variety of different follies positioned to draw attention to areas of natural beauty, including a mock ruined tower, a beautiful Rotunda Temple, an observatory, a 20-metre-high obelisk built on the second highest hill in East Sussex, a beautiful arched summerhouse made of Coade stone, a mausoleum in the shape of a pyramid and a conical building, similar to a dunces’ hat, on a ridge in front of his mansion. Folklore insists that the Sugar Loaf was built as a result of a drunken bet made at a dinner in London, when Mad jack claimed to be able to see the spire of Dallington Church from his drawing room. Upon returning home, he discovered
FOLKLORE INSISTS THAT THE SUGAR LOAF WAS BUILT AS A RESULT OF A DRUNKEN BET MADE AT A DINNER IN LONDON, WHEN MAD JACK CLAIMED TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE SPIRE OF DALLINGTON CHURCH FROM HIS DRAWING ROOM … THE WAGER WAS TO BE JUDGED IN A MATTER OF DAYS, AND TO WIN THE BET FULLER EMPLOYED EVERY MAN ON THE ESTATE. HE WAS ENTIRELY WRONG AND THAT A RIDGE OBSCURED HIS VIEW OF THE CHURCH. THE WAGER WAS TO BE JUDGED IN A MATTER OF DAYS, AND TO WIN THE BET FULLER EMPLOYED EVERY MAN ON THE ESTATE TO BUILD WHAT APPEARED TO BE, FROM A DISTANCE, THE CHURCH SPIRE.
It is sad that this story is universally accepted as fact, when no Regency gentleman would have risked the social disgrace of reneging on a bet, least of all Mad Jack, who was a noted philanthropist. He was a founding member of the Royal Institution, built the Belle Touche lighthouse on the cliffs above Beachy Head and provided Eastbourne with a lifeboat, bought Bodiam Castle to save it from demolition and bestowed the nation with the Fullerian Professorship of Chemistry and, a little later, the Fullerian Professorship of Physiology.
I am sure the Sugar Loaf was built for no other reason than Mad Jack thought a mock spire would make the ridge in front of his house stand out nicely. The unusual style of the construction is easily deduced; Fuller’s fortune was derived from iron foundries and sugar plantations. He had already constructed two massive pillars topped with cast-iron sculptures depicting cannons, flames and anchors, representing that side of his fortune; the Sugar Loaf represented the other side.
The last of the follies was Faringdon Folly Tower, built in 1935 on Faringdon Hill in Oxfordshire on the site of an ancient hill fort. Faringdon Hill was already a historic landmark before the superbly eccentric 14th Lord Berners, famous for dyeing fan-tailed pigeons vibrant colours and keeping a pet giraffe in the house, decided to commission the architect Lord Gerald Wellesley to design a 43-metre-high brick monument. Asked why he was doing it Lord Berners replied, ‘The great point of this tower is that it will be entirely useless.’ This was the sort of double entendre for which he was famous. He was in effect saying, if the questioner was so blind to beauty he failed to appreciate that Folly Tower would become the focus of attention for miles (it can be seen from five different counties) highlighting the rolling hills above the Vale of White Horse, then it becomes a futile structure providing nothing more than a panoramic view to the minority who climb to the top.
Lord Berners’s real feelings about the tower are revealed by the fact that he actually had it built as a birthday present for his adored companion, Robert ‘Boy’ Heber Percy. At the unveiling ceremony, ‘Boy’ appeared visibly upset and was heard muttering tearfully that all he had ever wanted for his birthday was a white pony and some pink dye.
HISTORY IN A NAME
The curious intimacy with the land which seems to me to be an exclusively British characteristic is expressed by the way every geographical feature, however insignificant, has over the long course of history been personalised with its own name. Every wood, copse, spinney, dell, dene, gully, knowe, field, meadow, stream, bog or pond has been christened after a person, a local or national event, the type of growth in the immediate area, an animal or an interesting landmark. Rural place names are the narrators of the countryside, giving it identity and a feeling of companionable familiarity.
A glance at an Ordnance Survey map of the district immediately around Wingates, in Northumberland, where we owned family farms when I was a child, is a typical example; one that is replicated in similar density across
