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Follies and Grottoes

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architecture

Podcast: Winchester Mystery House

Join us for a daily celebration of the world’s most wondrous, unexpected, even strange places.
The Podcast Team August 3, 2021
The elaborate top of the tower.
Halifax, England

Wainhouse Tower

This tallest folly in the world began its life as an elaborate factory chimney.
Iulia Hasdeu Castle.
Câmpina, Romania

Iulia Hasdeu Castle

This eccentric folly house was designed by Romanian thinker Bogdan-Petriceicu Hasdeu, with a helping hand from his deceased daughter's spirit.
Wonder Cave Entrance.
Rudolph, Wisconsin

Rudolph Grotto Gardens

Five acres of divinely inspired folk art.
Lyford's Tower with Angel Island in the background
Belvedere Tiburon, California

Lyford's Tower

Once the gateway to the utopian dream-village of a Civil War embalmer.
Witley Wonder Underwater Ballroom
Godalming, England

Witley Wonder Underwater Ballroom

The hidden "ballroom" under a mansion lake was built by a criminal who ate a cyanide pill during his trial.
The underwater ballroom
underwater

100 Wonders: The Underwater Ballroom

The abandoned room beneath a lake was built by extravagant Victorian criminal Whitaker Wright.
Dylan Thuras March 3, 2016
Mow Cop Castle
Mow Cop, England

Mow Cop Castle

This crumbling folly looks like an enchanted left over from Middle Earth.
Pfaueninsel
Berlin, Germany

Pfaueninsel

This Berlin island is home to a flock of free-roaming peacocks, as well as a historic ivory folly.
Ocotillo, California

Anza Borrego Desert View Tower

This historic tower in the California desert promises visitors a "vortex of good vibes".
Poet's Seat Tower
Greenfield, Massachusetts

Poet's Seat Tower

This tall Massachusetts folly got its name thanks to all of the purple prose its vistas inspired.
Hawkstone Park
Weston, England

Hawkstone Park

Created hundreds of years ago, the magical follies and landscapes at this park were almost lost to time before being restored.
Doyden Castle
Wadebridge, England

Doyden Castle

This remote castle was built to be a wealthy businessman's palace of vice but is now simply a historic vacation cottage.
The Water-Powered Mechanical Theater with nearly 200 moving wood carvings
Salzburg, Austria

Schloss Hellbrunn

Trick water gardens from 1619 featuring a 200 piece mechanical theater powered by water.
Train heading south into the Clayton Tunnel
Brighton, England

Clayton Tunnel North Portal

This tunnel entrance is built to resemble a grand castle but no one is quite sure why.
architecture

Before the Garden Gnome, the Ornamental Hermit: A Real Person Paid to Dress like a Druid

Allison Meier March 18, 2014
Kassel, Germany

Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe

A sprawling Baroque park with 300-year-old hydro-pneumatic waterworks.
Little Moreton Hall from the outside
Congleton, England

Little Moreton Hall

This logic-defying 16th-century Tudor manor still stands to the delight and astonishment of onlookers.