• HOME
  • Introduction
  • Contact details
    • Yorkshire
FABULOUS FOLLIES
...and Landscape Curiosities

Oxfordshire

BLENHEIM                                                              SP 435 169

Picture
Column of Victory

The fluted 134 feet high Doric column was begun in 1727 by the masons Townsend and Peisley. It was a simplified version of Hawksmoor's design that was inspired by the pillar in Piazza Navona, Rome. It is surmounted by a lead statue, by Sir Henry Cheere, of the Duke of Marlborough dressed as a Roman senator.
The column was completed for Lord Herbert in 1730 by Roger Morris.

Picture
 
























Date taken: 30/06/2013

BLENHEIM                                                             SP 438 164

Picture
Grand Bridge

Sir John Vanbrugh intended the Grand Bridge to have tall arcades above the central span, set within corner towers, making it a version of Palladio's Rialto Bridge. It was to be habitable with 30 rooms. It was started in about 1706 but building ceased in 1712 when Vanbrugh's work on the palace stopped. The masons were Peisley and Townsend.

Picture













Date taken: 30/06/2013

BLENHEIM                                                             SP 438 153

Picture
Grotto

Lancelot Brown may have designed a 'rough' exedra near to the lake at Blenheim in the 1760s.








Date taken: 30/06/2013

BLENHEIM                                                             SP 440 161

Picture
Blenheim Palace Orangery

BLENHEIM

Picture
Rosamund's Well

Legend has it that Henry II had a bower made for his mistress, Rosamund de Clifford, and she is said to have bathed in the pool there.

Picture













​Date taken: 30/06/2013

BLENHEIM                                       SP 440 158

Picture
Temple of Diana

The Ionic tetrastyle temple was designed by Sir William Chambers and built 1772-3.   

The Temple of Diana at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, has a similar portico based on the Temple of Diana at Nimes.






​Date taken: 30/06/2013

BLENHEIM                                                                 SP 439 158

Picture
​Boathouse
Picture
  ​ 












  Date taken: 30/06/2013

BLENHEIM                                                               SP 442 167

Picture
Woodstock Gate

The Triumphal Arch was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1723. The builders were Peisley and Townsend. The flanking doors were at a previous entrance before the palace was built, and moved here in 1773.






​Date taken: 30/06/2013


BLENHEIM                                                                  SP 447 165

Picture

Hensington Gate

The gate piers, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in about 1710, originally stood in the garden to the east of Blenheim Palace and were moved to their present position in the 1770s. They are crowned with vases of flowers carved by Grinling Gibbons. 

​The Entrance Gate at the end of the avenue can be seen in the distance. 

BLENHEIM                                                                  SP 441 162                     

Picture
 

Entrance Gate

The archway entrance to the Blenheim Palace stable yard was designed by John Vanbrugh. 

CHIPPING NORTON                                                 SP 310 250

Picture
Bliss Mill

Bliss & Sons Tweed Mill was built for William Bliss in 1772 and designed by George Woodhouse of Bolton in the style of a French chateau. The chimney is a massive Tuscan column rising from a dome.

The factory closed in 1882 and has been converted into residential apartments. 

GREAT HASELEY                                                 SP 666 047

Picture
  Rycote Tower
  
 
Rycote Tower is part of the Tudor mansion that the 5th   Earl of Abingdon ordered to be demolished in 1807. The   main part of the house was burned down in 1745, and   the present house was converted from the stables in the   1920s.

KELMSCOTT                                                         SU 250 988

Picture
 Kelmscott Manor Summerhouse

 


MARCHAM                                                              SU 454 965

Picture
Dovecot

The dovecot at Marcham is in a field behind the war memorial.









​Date taken: 30/06/2013

MIDDLETON STONEY

Picture
  Oxford Lodge

 
Oxford Lodge may have been designed by Sanderson   Miller in the mid 18th century, or possibly by Henry   Hakewill and Thomas Cundy in the early 19th century. 








  Date taken: 02/10/2011

MINSTER LOVELL                                                SP 324 114

Picture
Dovecot

The 15th century dovecot was part of the manorial farm next to the manor house. The estate was owned by the Lovell family from the 12th century to 1485.








​Date taken: 30/06/2013

NUNEHAM COURTENAY            

Picture
Nuneham Bridge

Nuneham was the seat of the Harcourt Family. Lancelot Brown worked there in 1778.

The rustic bridge crosses to an island in the Thames.

OXFORD

Picture
  Martyr's Cross

  The Martyr's  Cross is a memorial to the Protestant   Martyrs, Thomas Crammer, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh   Latimer. 

  It was designed in the style of an Eleanor Cross by   George Gilbert Scott and completed in 1843.

  An example of an Eleanor Cross can be seen   at  Hardingstone,  Northamptonshire.

SHIRBURN                                                                  SU 695 955 

Picture
South Lodge

South Lodge is thought to have been designed by John Nash and was the southern entrance to Shirburn Castle. 

STEEPLE ASTON                                                  SP 482 260

Picture
Eyecatcher

Designed in about 1740 by William Kent, the Eyecatcher is one of the earliest examples of a sham ruin. It is to be viewed from Rousham Park and gives meaning to Horace Walpole's words about Kent 'He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden.'

Other eyecatcher arches can be seen at;
​'Grange Arch', STEEPLE, Dorset
'Hundy Mundy', NEWTHORN, Borders 

WHEATLEY                                                            SP 595 058

Picture
  Round House

  The lock-up was built in 1834 by a local mason called   Cooper near the quarry where paupers earned their 'work   fare' by breaking stones for the parish roads. It was   constructed as a hexagonal pyramid so that inmates   couldn't escape through roof tiles. Inside the cell are the   village stocks.



Picture
Other village lock-ups can be seen at:
Somerset CASTLE CARY The Round House
Wales RUABON Round House
Wiltshire BRADFORD-ON-AVON Blind House
Wiltshire SHREWTON Blind House
Yorkshire East Riding HUMNANBY Lock-up
Yorkshire West Riding NORTH STAINLEY WITH SLENINGFORD Cell

WROXTON                                                                SP 416 415

Picture
Temple

The Temple at Wroxton was built in the Tuscan Doric style, probably in the early 19th century.

It was restored between 1970 and 1983.


WROXTON                                                              SP 414 415

Picture
Dovecote

The dovecote at Wroxton was designed by Sanderson Miller in 1745 when he landscaped the park. It is in the same style as his tower at Radway and was an eyecatcher.

Copyright Ray Blyth 2018