Randall's Folly was a building on the coast at

Salthouse Salthouse is a village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated on the salt marshes of North Norfolk. It is north of Holt, west of Sheringham and north of Norwich. The village is on the A149 coast road between ...

, Norfolk, England. No trace of it remains, largely because of

coastal erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward ...

. Although called a

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

, the building was habitable. It was built some time around 1860 by Onesiphorus Randall (1798–1873) – a locally born man who had made his fortune as a London property speculator – and sat on a mound of land called the "Great Eye" (shown on later maps as "Lodge Hill"). The ground floor comprised a pair of arches, each with a pair of large wooden doors, allowing Randall to drive his horse carriage in at one side and, after a stay, out from the other. Pictures show the building to be two-storey, with crenellated decoration. After Randall's death, the building was purchased by the

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

for use as a

coastguard A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...

station, equipped with a

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

cart and an adjacent

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

, for the deployment of a

breeches buoy A breeches buoy is a rope-based rescue device used to extract people from wrecked vessels, or to transfer people from one place to another in situations of danger. The device resembles a round emergency personal flotation device with a leg harn ...

. This led to the building being known as Rocket House. From the 1920s, it was in use as a holiday home, known as Rocket Brigade House. In 1937 it was purchased privately and again renamed, this time as Great Eye Folly. It was rented by the writer

Sylvia Townsend Warner Sylvia Nora Townsend Warner (6 December 1893 – 1 May 1978) was an English novelist, poet and musicologist, known for works such as ''Lolly Willowes'', '' The Corner That Held Them'', and ''Kingdoms of Elfin''. Life Sylvia Townsend Warner wa ...

and her partner

Valentine Ackland Valentine Ackland (born Mary Kathleen Macrory Ackland; 20 May 1906 – 9 November 1969) was an English poet, and life partner of novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner. Their relationship was strained by Ackland’s infidelities and alcoholism, but s ...

from 1950 to 1951, during which time Warner wrote her final novel ''The Flint Anchor'' (published 1954) there. She described the house in a 1950 letter to

Alyse Gregory Alyse Gregory (July 19, 1884 Norwalk, Connecticut, United States – August 27, 1967 Morebath, Devon, England) was an American-British suffragist and writer. Biography Gregory's father, James G. Gregory, was a doctor in Norwalk. She showed ...

: The building was badly damaged by the

North Sea flood of 1953 The 1953 North Sea flood was a major flood caused by a heavy storm surge that struck the Netherlands, north-west Belgium, England and Scotland. Most sea defences facing the surge were overwhelmed, causing extensive flooding. The storm and flo ...

and was demolished in June 1956. A painting of the folly by

John Arnesby Brown Sir John Alfred Arnesby Brown (29 March 1866 in Nottingham – 16 November 1955 in Haddiscoe, Norfolk) was an English landscape artist, "one of the leading British landscape artists of the 20th century"Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

in 1923; the work is now in the

Laing Art Gallery The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is located on New Bridge Street West. The gallery was designed in the Baroque style with Art Nouveau elements by architects Cackett & Burns Dick and is now a Grade II listed building. It ...

, who also hold a letter from Brown, describing the work's setting.

References

{{Reflist Demolished buildings and structures in England Buildings and structures in Norfolk North Norfolk Buildings and structures demolished in 1956