As regular readers of this blog will know, I am interested in the value of architecture and public art to the historian, but I also have a special place reserved in my imagination for that curious outcrop of eighteenth and nineteenth century architecture – the folly. Conforming to no especial architectural style, these were often buildings that had no discernible use and were erected either for curiosity value, to display their creator’s wealth, or merely as Georgian eye candy. Many have been lost over the years, but a goodly number still remain, mostly crumbling away in the estates of country houses and paying tribute to the strength of the ‘polite’ style in Hanoverian Britain. If a chance ever presents itself to visit a folly, it is rare for me to pass it up.

So, when it transpired that a generally forgotten (and determinedly locked-up) nineteenth century example – Tarner Folly – was being opened up for the Brighton Festival, I had to take a look. Not only that, but it was also to house an innovative piece of public art called ‘Path of the Echo’, which endeavoured to exploit the unique acoustics of the folly’s inside chamber.

Tarner Folly is a small, flint-studded tower, half concealed by foliage, that sits in the corner of a children’s play area, sandwiched between Kemptown and Hanover on the east side of Brighton. It has not been opened for quite some years, which is a shame because such things get forgotten all too easily. There is a question as to whether it can genuinely be described as a folly, since it appears to have been built as a lookout tower and local myths abound that it concealed the entrance to a tunnel that led to the shore (perhaps suggestive of a smuggling operation). Frankly, I’d say that its correct categorisation is really more a matter for the folly anorak, if such people exist.

Tarner Folly.

However, an enterprising artist had managed to persuade the city’s council to open up the folly for the festival in order to house an experiment that could well be described as an attempt to forge a symbiotic relationship between public art and architectural history. Inside, I discovered, sat a rather ingenious art installation. The artist, Mark Mitchell (no relation), demonstrated that by pulling various ropes and cranks, the apparatus would play a variety of string and percussive sounds, which would echo around the chamber. The installation was almost entirely constructed from ‘found material’ – a admirable recycling effort – although I was told that, in fact, Mark had liberated his flat-mate’s wok for part of the mechanism!

The 'Path of the Echo' installation.

As an exercise attempting to draw in two distinct audiences – the historical community and the artistic one – I thought that the installation worked marvellously well. The trouble with such experiments, though, is that they can be somewhat short-lived if funds of some description are not forthcoming. Thankfully, Mark and the Friends of Tarner (a local historical society) have come together in an attempt to keep the tower open. The idea is to curate the folly as a space for other exhibits, which might be generated by other artists through workshops with local community groups and schools. To bring the tower up to standards of public safety, however, requires funds in the region of £30,000, for which a bid to the lottery heritage fund is being prepared. I can only hope that these efforts to rehabilitate the folly as a valuable piece of history and a unique art-space are successful, since even in straitened times society needs its circuses as well as its bread. Besides, there seems something curiously apt about melding together public art and social history in this fashion. The folly builders of the Georgian age had a far more limited audience in mind, but they too were often inspired to construct their idiosyncratic monuments by a desire to create a dramatic talking-point, an aspiration that seems wholly reflected in contemporary public art.

Taking it further

If the above blog has caught your imagination, you may also find the following resources from The Open University interesting:

High Street History

Explore the hidden corners of your high street and see how history is buried in the everyday environment with our interactive high street history feature.

Learning Space: Brighton Pavilion

On the other hand, if you’re interested in the history of Brighton, then the OU offers you this free Open Learn resource on the Brighton Pavilion – which perhaps could even be called a folly itself!

Related courses from The Open University:

Heritage, whose heritage?

Who decides what should be preserved from the past as our heritage? Who is this heritage for and how should it be presented and explained? How can I engage actively with my heritage and have an impact on it? This course endeavours to answer these questions and to engage with current debates on the preservation of the past.

Art of the twentieth century

If you are drawn to art history more generally, this wide-ranging course discusses developments in the recent past and includes study of all the major twentieth century artistic movements.

About the author

Dr Stuart Mitchell has spent seventeen years teaching history in higher education - the last fifteen of which have been with the Open University, amongst other institutions. Currently, he is working on the new history MA, and tutors on Exploring History: Medieval to Modern (A200) and Total War and Social Change (AA312). He also serves as the university's academic consultant on the BBC television programme, Timewatch. His first book, The Brief and Turbulent Life of Modernising Conservatism, was published in 2006.

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Heritage. The word might conjure up images of plougmen working their way across fields before sunset, or dusty boxes of old artefacts, but that presents a very selective idea about what is valuable from the past. As a nation, we're made up of more than the sort of images that decorate teatowels in National Trust shops - we're as much made by the tenements of Glasgow, or the passions of The Suffragettes, or even the wild birds in our hedgerows.

Heritage is different things to different people, and as BBC Two embarks on its quest to explore how we're Saving Britain's Past, we want to hear from you about what you value. What would you save, to show the world of the future what your heritage is?

Tell us what matters to you by putting your heritage onto our map.

Saving Britain's Past is on BBC2 from Monday 24th August 2009 at 7.30pm. It will be available for a limited period on iPlayer after transmission.

Frikirkjan and National Gallery, Reykjavik.

Christmas celebrations in Iceland, a nation that can never be accused of partying half-heartedly, extend over twenty-six days. During a period of just over three weeks, not one Father Christmas but a succession of thirteen Jólasveinar or Yule/Christmas Lads arrive in, and leave, town one-by-one. This piece of folklore is variously commemorated on cards and postage stamps, and is accompanied by songs, dances and stories, much of which is captured on national television. Small, well-behaved children hope to receive a gift from each of these visitors, culminating in a more significant present from the final Lad, Kertasníkir (Candle-beggar), on Christmas Eve itself.

In origin the Lads are somewhat sinister figures, who have only recently been recast to resemble Father Christmas/Santa Claus, swapping farmer’s dress for bright red clothes and white beards. According to old legends, they were sent to town in the winter to search for fresh meat for their mother, Grýla, a troll who feasts on raw human flesh. The family cat, Jólaköttur, also likes to eat poor children.

The Lads’ names, including Bjúgnakrækir (Sausage-thief), Askasleikir (Bowl-licker), and Skyrgámur (Skyr [Curd]-glutton) evoke the fears of a not-too-distant past, when most Icelanders lived at or around subsistence level and a cold winter meant that starvation of livestock and, sometimes, the people, was a real possibility.

Reykjavik’s bars and coffee shops remain full this December, but particularly in the suburbs an increasing number of 4x4s are left at home in favour of cheaper-to-run vehicles, and the queues for Red Cross food parcels are also growing as the economic crisis takes its toll.

Iceland’s financial markets, and with them, its currency, have fallen into the proverbial abyss. Cheap geothermal power and other modern technologies mean that a return to the darkest days of the past is unlikely, but nonetheless I suspect that the bleak connotations of their Christmas traditions have a new-found resonance for many Icelanders this year.