Stand at the top of Broadway Tower on a clear day and you can see across a dozen counties. Stand at the top of Hadlow Tower and you are looking at a Gothic fantasy that was built to be seen, not to see from. Both are towers. Both are follies. But only one is really a prospect tower. The words are often used as if they mean the same thing. They don't. Understanding the difference helps you read the landscape — and it changes what you look at when you finally get to the top.
What Makes a Tower a Folly?
A folly is a building with no useful job to do. It doesn't defend anything, it doesn't house anyone for long, and it doesn't store anything. It exists because somebody wanted it to exist — for pleasure, for status, for a joke, or simply because they could afford the whim. The word comes from the French folie, and it carries a faint, deliberate suggestion of delightful madness.
Most British folly towers belong to the great age of the landscape garden. In the eighteenth century, wealthy landowners rebuilt their parks as idealized landscapes and needed punctuation marks to make them legible: a sham castle on a hill, a ruined arch at the end of a lake, a classical temple in a clump of trees. Landscape designers had a name for these ornaments — eyecatchers — and the rule was simple. They were placed to be looked at, usually from the big house, from a carriage drive, or from one particular seat on one particular path.
A tower made an excellent eyecatcher, because a tower can be seen from a very long way away. Hadlow Tower in Kent is the textbook case. Finished in 1838 for Walter Barton May and standing around 170 feet tall, it is a Gothic Revival confection of pinnacles and pointed windows, often called May's Folly. Its job was to lift a skyline and announce a house, a fortune and a man's taste from miles off. That you could also climb it was almost beside the point.
What Makes a Tower a Prospect Tower?
A prospect tower is defined by a single thing: it exists so that people can go up it and look out. "Prospect" is old landscape vocabulary for a view — the same word you find in eighteenth-century accounts of a "fine prospect" over a valley — and the Italian equivalent, belvedere, means exactly what it sounds like: a beautiful view.
So a prospect tower needs a staircase, or at least a ladder. It needs a platform, a balcony or a gallery with something to lean on. It needs windows or open arches at the top. It needs to be sited where the view is worth the climb, which usually means a ridge, a cliff edge or a hilltop. And it is judged by what you can see from it, not by how handsome it looks from the road.
A folly tower is an object placed in the landscape. A prospect tower is a window onto it. The best ones are both at once.
The Overlap — and Why Everyone Gets Confused
Here is the trap. Every prospect tower built for ornament is a folly, but not every folly tower is a prospect tower. The categories overlap, and the overlap is where the famous buildings live.
- Broadway Tower, Worcestershire. Designed by James Wyatt for the 6th Earl of Coventry and completed in 1799, it crowns the Cotswold escarpment. It is a folly — a romantic, castellated ornament on a hill — but legend says it was also built to test a practical question: could a beacon lit at the earl's seat be seen from 22 miles away? That is a prospect tower's job, and the views from the top are the reason most people climb it today.
- Alfred's Tower at Stourhead, Wiltshire. Raised in 1772 for Henry Hoare, it is triangular, 160 feet high and commemorates King Alfred. It is simultaneously a monument, a folly and a prospect tower, with a viewing platform that looks out over three counties.
- Faringdon Folly, Oxfordshire. Built in 1935 for Lord Berners, it is often called the last great folly in England. It is a hundred feet of concrete playfulness, topped with a platform that opens to visitors on selected days — an eyecatcher you can stand inside.
- Hadlow Tower, Kent. A folly, a landmark, an astonishing silhouette. A prospect tower only by accident.
Five Questions That Tell You Which One You're Looking At
- Where does it stand? A prospect tower wants the best available view, so it sits on the highest, most exposed ground around. A pure eyecatcher can stand anywhere — including in a hollow, where it can be seen but cannot see.
- Can you actually get to the top? Look for a complete staircase, a proper platform and a parapet at leaning height. Some ornamental towers have a spiral stair that stops short, or a first floor with nothing above it.
- Who was it built to impress? If the answer is "someone standing in the windows of the big house two miles away," it is an eyecatcher first. If the answer is "whoever climbs it," it is a prospect tower.
- What direction do the openings face? Windows and arches on all sides point to a viewing platform. A single decorative window, or none at all, points to sculpture.
- What is it called? Names give the game away. "Belvedere," "Prospect," "Lookout" and "Observatory" all promise a view. "Castle," "Tower" and a family surname usually promise a silhouette.
Why the Distinction Matters
First, it changes how you look at a landscape. Eyecatchers were positioned with almost mathematical care along sightlines, and the view from the house to the tower was designed as a picture. Stand where the owner stood, and the whole park suddenly makes sense. The tower is not a destination; it is the last brushstroke in a composition.
Second, it affects how these buildings survive. A prospect tower has a reason to be maintained and opened: people pay to climb it, and its value depends on its stairs, railings and safety. A folly that was only ever meant to be admired from a distance is far more fragile, often stands on private land, and may have been hollow from the day it was finished. Restoration, listed-building consent and public access all follow from what the tower was built to do.
Third, it saves you a disappointing afternoon. If you drive to a tower expecting a panorama and find a locked door and a blank wall, you have confused the two categories. Check first: is this a thing to see, or a thing to see from?
The honest answer, of course, is that the best towers refuse to choose. They stand on a hill because the view is magnificent, and they are built with absurd Gothic pinnacles because the view of them is magnificent too. Broadway does it. Alfred's Tower does it. Hadlow, gloriously, does not — and that is precisely what makes it worth the detour.
Photo: YL Lew / Pexels
