Follies Foundation trip to Chesterton and Farnborough

The Folly Fellowship’s post-lockdown visit to:
Chesterton and Farnborough, Warwickshire
Saturday, 21 August 2021
The Windmill at Chesterton, Warwickshire
[Photo: DeFacto on Wikimedia Commons]
ur day will begin at 12:00 noon with a visit to Chesterton Windmill, located a few miles north
of Junction 12 of the M40. Please bring a picnic and a rug or something to sit on because
we will have lunch here. Limited parking is available in laybys along the roads that border
the folly so park with care and please avoid blocking farm gates.
From here we move south to Farnborough Hall, where the National Trust has agreed to open its
gates and let us visit its follies. Farnborough is 12 miles south of Chesterton and best approached via
the B4100, so allow 20 minutes to travel between the two. We need to meet at the Hall car park at
2:30pm and our visit will end around 4:00-4:30, followed by a cream tea in the nearby Village Hall.
Farnborough has been the seat of the Holbech family since 1684. Often described as a small
but exquisite country house, it was updated in 1745-50 by William Holbech to provide a setting for
the art and sculpture that he collected on the Grand Tour. The house is still closed so we will focus on
the gardens instead.
Unlike so many of its contemporaries, the gardens at Farnborough have altered little over the
past 200 years and remain largely as William Holbech left them. These were enhanced in the mideighteenth century by Sanderson Miller, who lived nearby and created the Terrace Walk that leads
past an Ionic Temple, Oval Pavilion and Game Larder to an 80 feet (24 metre) high obelisk completed
in 1751 (rebuilt in 1828 after it collapsed in 1823).
The cost is £18 per person (£12 if you are a member of the NT and bring your membership
card). This includes your entry charge and tea, but not your picnic lunch. There is no limit on the number
who can attend but we have been asked not to bring dogs to Farnborough.
Please book your place by writing to Andrew at plumridge@architect-uk.com and if possible,
make your payment through the Fellowship’s PayPal account – see www.follies.org.uk. Alternatively,
send a cheque made payable to ‘The Folly Fellowship’ to Andrew Plumridge, 2 Winterhill Way,
Guildford, Surrey GU4 7JX.
Please note that during the ongoing COVID situation very few follies are open and accessible for group visits. We are trying
as best we can to increase the list of events but are understandably finding it difficult to secure permission from nervous owners.