Rickerby Park Tower

Here is a fabulous folly - A tower with Cumbrian connections!

This is Rickerby Park Tower in Stanwix, Carlisle. Possibly a dovecote. Definitely a folly!

We've passed this several times over the last year, and we made the effort this time to get out and take some pictures. It basically sits on its tod in a field opposite the fancy pants Rickerby House, built in 1835 for George Head Head. Yes, he was so good they named him twice. Kylie Minogue can't get him out of her Head Head either!

An interesting character, Head Head (it's ok to laugh) was High Sheriff of Cumbria, a mine owner and a banker. Following in his father's footsteps, he took over the family banking business, which was run from his grocer's shop in Botchergate, Carlisle. Clearly an old Head Head on young shoulders, he had the first purpose-built bank designed in Carlisle and as a principle shareholder in the Greenside Mine in Westmorland, he obviously pulled in the pennies. Look at his posh pad!

In 1840, he attended a prominent gathering of men in London as a delegate at The World Anti-Slavery Convention. The event was captured in this oil painting by Benjamin Robert Haydon, in which George can be clearly identified at the bottom in the centre from his statuesque head head.

With such a fortune to hand, George had cash to expend on turrets and towers aplenty. He had the Rickerby Tower or Rickerby Folly as it's also known, built in 1835.

Towers and follies were popular accoutrements to the wealthy 19th-century gentleman and he was a-Head Head of his time in the fact that Rickerby Hall has a plethora of towers and turrets to boot, even in the farm buildings.

So, well done if you recognised this as Rickerby Tower. You're definitely Head Head of the class if you knew this one!