Folly In Grounds Of Beane River View (Beane River View Not Included)

HERTFORD

TL3212NW PORT VALE 817-1/16/171 (South side) Folly in grounds of Beane River View (Beane River View not included)

II

Folly. c1848. Yellow stock brick with stone and artificial stone dressings. Neo-Romanesque style, built as ornamental ruin. 3 storey circular tower with machicolated top and projecting Lombard frieze. Slit windows with artificial stone heads, quoins and sills. Buttresses to suggest 'ruined' walls; ground floor has semicircular headed Norman style doorway with cushion capitals on colonnettes and rope moulded head. To west is single storey continuation in rubble and artificial stone with external stair to first floor running over elaborate Norman style semicircular archway with triple colonnette reveals, cushion capitals, moulded impost band and twine and ball, dog tooth and bird beak moulded bands below outer dripmould. HISTORICAL NOTE: this folly was built in the extended garden area of No.2 North Road (qv), acquired by Thomas Smith in the 1840s, which included 5 acres of picturesque gardens, and the island between the river and the Sele Mill stream. Ownership was split after 1945 and the folly is now in the grounds of a recently developed sheltered housing and nursing home for the elderly. (Felstead A: Directory of British Architects 1834-1900: London: 1993-).

Listing NGR: TL3219412744