Racton Tower

It was mid-June. I was back from my long caravan trip, but still getting out and around, as I'm not one for sitting around at home when it's a nice day. I'd had lunch in Chichester, and now wanted to see Racton Tower, set in the countryside north of Southbourne - nearly in Hampshire. The map showed a public track running by it, and even if access were denied by barbed wire, I might get some decent shots of this intriguing folly. Over the years I'd often glimpsed it when driving along nearby roads - it was meant to be a prominent landmark - but I'd never before approached it on foot. So another little adventure!

Here it is, from the road below, in 2007, up there on the brow of a gently-sloping hill:

For some reason the Ordnance Survey call Racton Tower (and it is a tower) 'Racton Monument'. Here are two location maps.

The Tower, now in a ruinous and rather unsafe condition, was the creation in 1771 of the 3rd Lord Halifax, who had come into an inheritance and (rather extravagantly) allocated £10,000 of that money - a very large sum, worth the equivalent of some £1.7 million nowadays - for its construction, employing Henry Keene (and possibly his young but talented teenage son) for the actual design and build. It was triangular in plan, with turrets and castellations, and glass windows. These embellished a brick shell with a flint render on the outside. Despite its age, and bearing in mind it was not built to be lived in, nor to last for 250 years, it is still standing, although the original architectural details, and all the glass, have long crumbled away. But the Tower remains imposing and highly visible, at least from a distance. I wanted to inspect it personally, close up.

I got my information about who built it, and when, from Follies, a National Trust Guide, which I bought in 1999. I think it's now out of print. It's a great guide to follies, and now that I've rediscovered it on my bookshelves, I'm going to take it on holiday, starting with the next. Follies are buildings or monuments that look good in the landscape but serve no useful purpose, although sometimes they do function as places from which to get a high-level, panoramic view, and contain steps to reach the top. They were nearly always the creation of landowners with money to spare, who wanted to add something remarkable or romantic to their estate. 

The country is thick with follies, although many have fallen into a state of dangerous decrepitude. Being on private land in the main, most are not accessible by the general public, even if one can see them from a distance. That's the point of a folly: to be seen and enjoyed at a distance - but not necessarily close up, when any roughness (or even shoddiness) in their build would be all too evident. Here's a case in point, one I saw recently in Northumberland: Codger Fort at Rothley, near Scots' Gap, deep in the countryside. 

Even though it looks like a small strongpoint on the crest of a rock-strewn hill - this is, after all, Border Country - Codger Fort is really just a section of stone wall with conical turrets at each end, and a castellated bit in between. It's made out of rough stone blocks laid on top of each other, with no mortar. It might offer some shelter for a company of soldiers firing down on a frontal attack, but it's wide open to a flank or rear attack, and therefore useless as a serious fort. It must therefore be a folly. It was built in 1769, long after the 1745 Scottish clan uprisings, and when the danger of a repeat invasion of northern England has passed. 

Back to Racton Tower. I parked at the south-east foot of the hill, where the B2147 meets the B2146, and set forth with my sun hat and stick up a good track. Nobody else was around. It didn't seem a risky or unwise enterprise.

The Tower was, at this stage, hidden by rising land, and the early-summer tree foliage. But further up, the top of it came into view.

I saw a gap in the hedge, pushed through, and approached closer. Huh! An old post, with some ugly electrical apparatus fixed on it, spoilt the best shot I could take from this position. But I did my best. 

The Tower hadn't been so hidden from view back in 2007, although admittedly that was in March, whereas this was June. 

I went back to the track, hoping to find another, better approach, one that would give me a good clear shot. Concrete posts soon came into view, with high-level barbed wire still strung between them, and wire-mesh fencing lower down. But the fencing had been beaten down almost to the ground in at least one place, and it was quite clear that the landowner's efforts to exclude passers-by from investigating the Tower had been ineffective - or unenforced - for some years. 

I don't like to trespass, but a clear and obvious path led forward from the beaten-down fencing. The Tower was therefore much-visited, and the landowner clearly didn't seem to be doing much about it. It seemed silly not to at least venture closer. So, stepping over the remains of the fencing, I followed the path and emerged into a clearing. Facing me was the Tower. 

It definitely had a presence! There was a Temple of Doom feeling about it. It may have seemed a romantic ruin from way off; close up, it was more than a little spooky. And at night it would feel most forbidding, possibly even malignant. It would look rather like this:

Eerie sights like this would put anyone in mind of hauntings and worse. It depends on your imagination, but speaking for myself, you wouldn't catch me here after dark, for sure!

But, for now, there was no supernatural peril. It was obvious however that the Tower was structurally unsafe, and that pieces of it, such as the flint rendering, could drop away at any moment, fatally clobbering any unwary intruder. There were two yellow notices warning visitors of the danger. Quite right.

'No trespassing' - well, one already was. I walked carefully around the Tower, peering in where able, to appreciate whatever could be seen. The 'main' tower seemed to be a hollow, tapering tube with no floors, although, surely, there must be a staircase concealed in at least one of the other towers, in order to reach the upper windows and the turret roofs, mostly now vanished. 

There was a sunken well in the main tower. Plenty of evidence of clandestine parties, and generations of graffiti artistry.

I stood at one of the ruined openings, looking down at the well, and wondering if I should lower myself the four feet or so into it. It would be nice to get a photo looking straight upwards to the sky. 

It didn't look tremendously difficult. But on the other hand, being neither agile nor sure-footed, I might find it harder than it appeared to climb out of that well again. So I passed it up. One last moment of appraisal then. It was all very quiet, very hushed, as if the Tower were holding its breath while I pondered its shadows and dark recesses. 

Then I heard twigs snap, and a voice. That made me jump! Which direction? What would I be faced with? I was suddenly very aware of being on my own, with only a stick.

Was the landowner - or were his men - going to catch me here? What could I possibly say? Could I brazen it out? 

A man with a dog came into view. To my relief, he clearly wasn't a shotgun-toting landowner or one of his staff. I stepped forward and said hello to him - I must have made him jump! Anyway, we had a brief conversation. He was local, up from Havant, and he'd approached the Tower using the through-the-hedge way that I'd first found. It was his standard way in. I said I'd try it when leaving. Well, it wasn't any better, in my view, than the way I'd come. Too much uneven ground, too much long grass to push through, too many nettles (the stick was useful to thrash stems and strands of this and that out of my way). I didn't waste time once on the track again. Soon I was back at Fiona, doors locked, feeling that was quite enough excitement for one day. But anticipating some interesting photos, all the same!

That's the thing. I may have had a half-spooky, half-guilty experience, but there would be photographic trophies. Worth the odd heart-flutter, any day.