Ruined Victorian Folly – London, England - Atlas Obscura
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Ruined Victorian Folly

London, England

Remnants of a Victorian garden feature sitting in public woodland. 

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Ruins of a Victorian folly in Sydenham Hill Woods, London, UK. (Mark Bowler/Atlas Obscura) Facebook771620304 (Atlas Obscura User)
Left: Ruins of a Victorian folly in Sydenham Hill Woods, London, UK. (Mark Bowler/Atlas Obscura) Facebook771620304 (Atlas Obscura User)
Right: Detail from ruined Victorian Folly in Sydenham Hill Woods, London, UK. (Mark Bowler/Atlas Obscura) Facebook771620304 (Atlas Obscura User)
Detail from ruined Victorian Folly in Sydenham Hill Woods, London, UK. (Mark Bowler/Atlas Obscura) Facebook771620304 (Atlas Obscura User)
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Hidden in a small inner city wood are the remains of a lavish Victorian garden feature. The concrete faux-stone archways, rockery, and ornamental stream were once in the former grounds of the house Fairwood at 53 Sydenham Hill, built in about 1864. First occupied by Alderman David Henry Stone, who in 1874 was Lord Mayor of London. Shortly after moving to Fairwood Alderman Stone commissioned James Pulham & Son to build the folly. 

The site can be accessed all year via several of the muddy paths that snake through the woods, adjacent to Sydenham Golf Course. Google Maps shows the area as Dulwich Woods (the two areas of woodland interlink).

follies follies and grottoes architectural oddities architecture
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