Category
Follies
Built-for-the-view garden architecture: towers, ruins, grottoes, eye-catchers — eccentric and intentional.
769 places in this category.
Follies by region
- 132 follies in South West England
- 114 follies in Central Scotland
- 111 follies in South East England
- 94 follies in London
- 48 follies in East of England
- 47 follies in Yorkshire & the Humber
- 46 follies in West Midlands
- 44 follies in Scottish Highlands
- 27 follies in East Midlands
- 21 follies in North West England
Highlights
★ Iconic📷 5Follies · Central Scotland
McCaig's Tower
Oban's Colosseum-inspired granite folly (1897), never quite finished.
★ Iconic📷 5Follies · Central Scotland
The Dunmore Pineapple
An 18th-century garden folly topped with a giant stone pineapple — Scotland's strangest building.
All follies
📷 5Follies · London
Arrows and Obelisk
Arrows and Obelisk — Public artwork (sculpture) by Peter Logan.
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📷 5Follies · London
Brent river Weir Folly
Brent river Weir Folly — Folly or eyecatcher.
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📷 5Follies · London
Edmund Halley (1656-1742)
Edmund Halley (1656-1742) is a folly in the United Kingdom.
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Elizabeth Dare Sanctuary
Elizabeth Dare Sanctuary is a folly in the United Kingdom.
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📷 5Follies · London
Gunnersbury Park Mock Gothic Ruins
Gunnersbury Park Mock Gothic Ruins — Folly or eyecatcher.
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Karl Marx Original Grave
Karl Marx Original Grave is a folly in the United Kingdom.
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📷 5Follies · London
Mausoleum of Henry Eaton, Lord Cheylesmore
Mausoleum of Henry Eaton, Lord Cheylesmore is a folly in the United Kingdom.
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📷 5Follies · London
Old Market Cross
Old Market Cross — Folly or eyecatcher.
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📷 5Browse follies by region
Frequently asked questions
- How many follies are in this guide?
- We currently list 769 follies across the United Kingdom — every entry sourced from Wikipedia, Wikidata or OpenStreetMap and validated against our schema.
- Are these places free to visit?
- Many places in the guide are free to enter — almost every national museum, every public park and garden, every parish church and cathedral. Castles, historic houses and theme parks usually charge admission; National Trust and English Heritage members visit those properties free.
- Where does the data come from?
- Every entry is built from open data: OpenStreetMap (locations, tags, opening hours), Wikipedia (descriptions), Wikidata (structured facts and operator information), Wikimedia Commons (images), ONS open data (population). The site never makes runtime API calls — everything is fetched at build time and committed.
- How often is this updated?
- A weekly automated job re-fetches the upstream sources and rebuilds the site. Manual editorial corrections are applied as overlays on top of the open data.