Lord Boston's Folly is a Grade II listed building in the Buckinghamshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 5 April 1977. Folly.

Lord Boston's Folly

WRENN ID
sacred-gateway-winter
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Buckinghamshire
Constituency
Beaconsfield MP: Joy Morrissey (Con)
Country
England
Date first listed
5 April 1977
Type
Folly
Address
Lord Boston's Folly, Harvest Hill, Hedsor
OS grid reference
SU 905 866
Coordinates
51.57125, -0.69455
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

Lord Boston's Folly is a late 18th-century folly constructed of flint with brick dressings. It features four castellated towers: one round, one semi-circular, one hexagonal, and one square, connected by link walls on the south and west sides, with the round tower standing free. A tall, free-standing buttressed wall is positioned between the round and hexagonal towers.

The round tower rises three storeys and is topped with battlements, featuring blind pointed windows and a door with a two-centred arch. The square tower has two storeys, stepped battlements with small open roundels, pointed windows on the first floor, and two-centred arches on the ground floor, which are adorned with raised flint dripmoulds. The hexagonal tower, which was formerly used as a gardener's house, is also two storeys high and retains similar battlements and dripmould over its lower openings. It has arched windows on the ground floor, pointed windows above (some of which are blind), and a doorway with a pointed head on the east side. All towers include blind brick arrow slits, and the link walls feature small open roundels. The wall between the square and hexagonal towers has mostly collapsed.

Local climate

Lord Boston's Folly sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 86% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 87% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 35 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 59% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
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