Folly! at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal

Folly at Studley Royal was a seasonal event in 2018. Please check out the official website to keep up to date with seasonal events.

Unfortunately, the Folly Event hasn’t been back to Fountains Abbey for a few years now, but hopefully, they will do another art exhibition like it! If you wish to live in the glory of this past event, continue reading!

This post contains affiliate links and I may get a commission for the purchase made through the link at NO extra cost to you. These are services and items I use and recommend myself.

I’ve always had a fascination with the Georgian period. One of my favorite things to learn about during this period is how the rich held dinner parties in their lavish gardens to show off just how wealthy they were to their friends.

Once word got out about a certain party that was successful, everyone wanted an invite. Just think about it… how much fun would it be to go to a cocktail party, all dressed up, and hang out, gossip, chit chat and then walk around these beautiful, pristine gardens, checking out the Follies hidden throughout?

Lets start with what is a folly? The easiest way to describe a folly is an object or building that is just there for ornamental purpose in a garden. The longer version is a whimsical, fanciful, imaginative building or tower that is placed in a large garden at certain focal points to catch the eye and take you on a magical and romantic journey throughout every turn in the garden.

Folly! at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal | The Crave Traveler

So why put these weird objects around your garden that looked so out of place? For one, it caught your guest’s attention and got them talking to their other friends once they left. Two, it was all about the journey.

You start from the house after all the guests arrive and they are taken throughout the gardens to gaze upon the magical follies that were elaborate and perched on hills and hidden around corners.

You could then have cocktails and light snacks in one of the follies and continue on your journey through the woods to see different follies. It was pretty much bragging rights for the owners of the home and gardens.

While Studley Royal Water Gardens have many follies already, there are some missing follies. For their art exhibit this season, they have brought back the lost follies. Here is your quick guide on where to park, how to see them and a little bit of meaning behind them.

You need to park in the Studley Royal parking lot, not the Fountains Abbey visitor center. It is a National Trust site so therefore you have to pay if you don’t have a membership. The entry fee is well worth the hours you can spend at the UNESCO world heritage site. Once you enter through the fancy looking gate you head on the path straight forward. You’ll see the first folly immediately.

The first one is not reminiscent of a lost folly, but it was designed by an elementary school boy and was chosen out of 1,000’s of designs by school children. It is supposed to represent (and celebrate?) the rainy and cloudy weather you will find in England. Fun fact, when it rains, the cloud rains too! It’s made of this unusual material that when it rains, water pools up in the cloud and it will actually rain. How cute.

Continue walking on the path and you will come to a fork. Unfortunately, you have will have to backtrack a little no matter which way you go. So take a right at the fork and head up the hill (it is a little bit steep for those that have issues walking).

You will see a metal structure with a giant mirror ball attached to the top. This folly is called The Gazing Ball and its the location where a small temple folly once stood and many guests would “gaze” and admire the view of the water gardens from here. The giant mirrored ball gives everyone a new perspective and view of the water gardens.

It’s also right next to the banquet hall, so you can walk in there and check out the pretty fireplace and the costumes that you can try on and take a silly picture.

From there, go down the way that you came up and this time take the left path. You see a very odd structure coming up that looks a little like a pyramid with a copper funnel on top. WEIRD! Well, this is The Listening Tower.

Fun fact, there used to be a bathing house in the area and if you put your ear up to the listening funnel you will be able to hear the drops of water reminiscent of the cold plunge pool that its patrons were so fond of.

Another Fun fact, to get the perfect tone, the artist used a water tower that drips water down into a terracotta pot and is finely tuned to make the noise you hear. The system’s inspiration comes from a 17th-century Japanese music device.

Continue walking and you will come up to the final folly. It’s perched upon a hill, known as tent hill.

Why is it called Tent Hill?

Well, in the Georgian times there used to be a temple and then a tent placed on top of the hill and now we have Polly. It completed the look for the “surprise view” on the opposite side. The tent was on the hill and in the distance was the abbey, turning it from a ruin with a horrible history, to another romantic garden feature.

There are plenty of people who have shown their dislike for Polly (they say it’s an eyesore and in the way), however, the point of Polly is not only to continue to evolve tent hill like they did in the 18th century, but also pays homage to the exotic birds that were becoming fashionable to display.

The more exotic the bird (or lion or tiger- yup, people kept tigers in their backyards!), the more wealthy you looked to everyone else, and the more you would be talked about and envied. There were exotic birds kept on these grounds in the late 1700s and Polly is a tribute to the colorful and outlandish birds that were put on display. What’s also cool about Polly is you can walk inside (super, super dark) and the eye at the top is actually a periscope and the image is reflected onto a table inside of Polly.