Hadlow Tower - An Architectural Icon
‘the most singular looking thing I ever saw. An immense house stuck all over with a parcel of chimneys, or things like chimneys, little brick columns with a sort of cap on them at the top to catch earwigs’.
William Cobbett, riding through Hadlow in 1823.
Hadlow Tower, or May’s Folly as it is affectionately known, once formed part of a grand house in the Romantic Gothic style built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by Walter May (formerly Barton), a yeoman farmer, and was erected on the site of Hadlow Court Lodge, a much older manor house existing in the 16th century but having unknown origins. The house was designed by a Mr J Dugdale to an architectural style promoted by Hugh Walpole when he built Strawberry Hill at Twickenham. The castle and ornamental gardens covered 6 acres with many specimen trees, beautiful lawns and borders.
The Grade 1* Listed Tower at Hadlow Castle was commenced in 1838 by Walter’s son and heir, Walter Barton May, to a design by naval architect George Ledwell Taylor. It bears a striking similarity to the erstwhile tower at Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire; however, Hadlow Tower’s foundations were to prove much sounder than Fonthill’s, which collapsed in 1825. Built of brick and rendered with so-called Roman Cement, when complete with its Lantern, the octagonal-shaped tower stood 53 metres high (170ft), commanding the local landscape.
The house and estate lands passed through several families during the intervening years until the estate was split up and sold in the early 20th century. Since the 1840s only minimal maintenance has been carried out to the Tower, with the inevitable decline in the fabric of the building. In the Second World War it served as a vegetable store and a lofty observation post for the Observer Corps and Home Guard. It was doubtless used as a landmark by Luftwaffe pilots on their way to London, who dropped bombs in nearby fields.
In 1951 the main building of the castle with its ‘arches, groins, ramifications and various flowers of Gothic grandeur’ was tragically demolished for building materials. It was only the timely intervention of Bernard Hailstone, a local portrait painter, who purchased the Tower and the remaining courtyard buildings, that prevented its demise.
After 10 years of campaigning by the Save Hadlow Tower Action Group the Tower is at long last being restored by the Vivat Trust, with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage amongst others. In order to safeguard its future the interior of the Tower will be fitted out for holiday accommodation. The Action Group are responsible for the design and running of the ground-floor Visitor Centre, which will be open to the public 28 days each year when the restoration is complete.
The Trustees of the Allen Grove Fund (administered by the KAS for projects for the purposes of research, preservation or enjoyment of local history), awarded a grant of £400 to the Hadlow Tower Action Group for the cost of display panels. The group is actively seeking donations towards this project and further information is available from their website www.hadlowtower.com.
