Wensleydale is famous far beyond Yorkshire for its beauty and its cheese. There's little enough cheese to be found there now, but the beauty remains. Beyond Swinithwaite on the A684 to Aysgarth lies Temple Farm, and on the north side of the road, hidden among the trees behind a high wall, is a dilapidated but still beautiful temple of 1792 by John Foss.* It consists of a rusticated octagonal base with blocked arches and the bas-relief of a dog above the door. The staircase runs between the outer and inner walls, leading to a balcony around a smaller domed octagonal room on the first floor, still with most of its delicate plasterwork intact. It was built for nearby Swinithwaite Hall, together with a belvedere which we failed to find.
Near the famous Aysgarth Falls is Sorrell Sykes Park, the home of a set of particularly quaint follies. As an entree a tall chimney stands in the garden of a farmhouse to the east of Sorrell Sykes Farm. The chimney was bought by a major some years ago and transported from the Home Counties to Yorkshire in two army trucks. The Sorrell Sykes Farm is a weird amalgam of building styles. The facade towards the road only has a series of farmhouses to show for itself, except for a west wing of 1921 with huge classical windows. The park facade, however, is that of a Palladian mansion of about 1750. The park is essentially a lawn bounded by a steep ridge, with a great variation of heights in between. On the lawn stood a column with an eagle on top, until in 1980 a tractor accidentally knocked it down. The base is still there, as is the eagle, regretfully eyeing the rubble of its perch. Halfway along the ridge stands a sham ruin, built to hide the site where earlier in the eighteenth century there had been a lead mine. An old gully still leads down to the lawn where lead deposits form a few hillocks. The centre of the ruin consists of a blank arch above which is an oeil-de-boeuf window and a small pediment. The flanking walls have small pointed arches and windows, and are in danger of becoming genuine ruins. To the east the sham ruin screen is mirrored on the other side of the valley by Bolton Castle. From the screen one walks down to a field with a strictly vernacular barn, but along the edge are three follies in a neat row. First a cone like a spinning top, a large smoke hole, constructed from roughstone in 1921, then a tiny gate consisting of two cones with a bend stone for an arch, too small for anyone to enter the field through. The last folly is the Rocket Ship, as it is locally known: a cone rising from a square base with a room inside. Buttresses are placed against the base, probably because the local builder was afraid the cone wouldn't stand on its own. It is the buttresses which give the folly a startling resemblance to Dan Dare style rockets from 1950s comic strips.
*Since the book was written this temple has been restored and is now let out for holidays.
From the original draft of Follies by Gwyn Headley & Wim Meulenkamp, published by Jonathan Cape in 1986 and 1990, now out of print.
The new, expanded, fully revised and rewritten FOLLIES, GROTTOES AND GARDEN BUILDINGS by Gwyn Headley and Wim Meulenkamp, with photos on nearly every one of its 600 pages, is available from GREAT bookshops at £20 (ISBN 1-85410-625-2, published by Aurum Press, July 15 1999). Signed copies are available direct from the authors. Send a UK cheque for £23 (inc. p&p, UK only) made payable to "Gwyn Headley" to:
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