Not so foolish
The Wolverton Hall Folly, Worcestershire A property of Nicholas and Georgia Coleridge
No glass-walled office could rival the beauty of Wolverton Tower, Worcestershire. Clive Aslet visits Nicholas Coleridge’s new folly
A new garden folly, inspired by Tudor and Georgian design, provides the perfect retreat for study, entertainment and contemplation. Clive Aslet reports
FOLLIES are misnamed. Despite their small size, they can be very serious little buildings indeed, whether they are pioneering an architectural style, such as the 18th-century Greek Revival, before it is used elsewhere, or works of geometrical complexity, as was the case in the Elizabethan period. The new folly at Wolverton Hall is of the latter type, being constructed on an octagonal plan (Fig 1). Yet, for all the intensity of the architecture, its festive character seems to captivate everyone who sees it. If, says the owner, he had been given £5 by all the people who have expressed admiration, it would have paid for itself many times over.
That owner is Nicholas Coleridge, chairman of the V&A Museum and, until recently, CEO of the publishing group Condé Nast. (It was, says his wife, Georgia, emphatically his project—although, happily, she is among those who like the result.) As an ambassador for the Landmark Trust, Mr Coleridge has a natural sympathy for small, architecturally potent structures and he and his family have stayed in many such. On retiring from Condé Nast, he wanted to create an agreeable study for himself, detached from the family