Flounders Folly

Along the A49, between Church Stretton and Craven Arms, you can see a stone tower standing majestically on a nearby wooded hill.

This is Flounders’ Folly, an 80 feet high lookout from which visitors can gain matchless panoramic views across the Marches countryside, the nearby Clee and Longmynd Hills, peaks in north and south Wales, the Malverns, the Wrekin hill at Telford, Cannock Chase and more.

Volunteers open the Folly to visitors on the last Sunday of each month and on many Bank Holidays. Visitors come from all over the world and it’s not unusual for 100 people or more to walk up there on open days. See www.floundersfolly.org.uk for full opening details. Entry is free but any donations help keep the place maintained.

Several public and permissive footpaths lead to the Folly and offer good views on the way, whether or not the Folly is open. The two shortest routes, both waymarked, run from the Callow Hill Forestry Commission pull-in on the Lower Dinchope to Westhope lane (reached from the A49 via Strefford lane). An enjoyable but strenuous 6-mile circular walk from the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre in Craven Arms has the Folly as its high point.

Flounders’ Folly was completed in 1838 by Benjamin Flounders (hence the name) and no-one really knows his reasons for commissioning it. Battered by the elements, the limestone tower began to fall into disrepair over the years, losing much of its top stonework in the 20th century. But with the help of donations from local people and the Heritage Lottery Fund, it was restored and given new internal stairs in 2004-5 by the Flounders’ Folly Trust, the small charity that still runs it.

The Folly has inspired writers, artists, photographers, drone camera operators and film makers. You?