Offaly folly still holds its mysteries after more than 200 years

RISING to nine metres on an elevated site close to the Town Park, Acres' Folly offers spectacular views of the town from its rooftop.

And while the 200-year-old folly opens up rarely seen vistas of Tullamore and its surrounding countryside, it also houses some old secrets.

For instance, why is one section of its outer walls curved?

And where is the cannon that once sat at its peak, ready to thunder its approval on occasions like the king's birthday?

Also, why did its commemorative plaque disappear?

Those are just some of the questions posed during a guided tour of the building by Offaly County County Council county architect Rachel McKenna last Wednesday.

An expert on follies – so much so that she has written the go-to publication on the topic - Flights of Fancy; Follies, Families and Demesnes in Offaly, she delved into the fact, fiction and forgotten features of Acres' Folly for those lucky enough to ascend it.

The folly, a two-storey tower house with an undercroft, was built by Thomas Acres in his back garden on Cormac Street in Tullamore, behind what is now the Town Hall and home of the council's Municipal District for Tullamore.

Thomas Acres was the premier property developer of his day, the man responsible for much of the streetscape and residences which still dominate the county town.

The conflict with Napoleon was in full swing in the 1800s and Acres constructed his domineering folly to mark Britain's victory in the Peninsular War.

Ireland's coast, and inland places like Banagher, are home to martello towers, those round structures designed as an early alert system and defence strongholds for naval invasions.

But Acres' Folly is based on an altogether different structure, the Napoleonic signal tower, and Rachel revealed that Thomas Acres' design was inspired by an actual building in Donegal.

“Some people reckon it looks like an old towerhouse and it has certain elements of that but it's also very much like the Napoleonic signal towers,” she said.

“There is a signal tower in Malin Head and it's almost identical to that.”

Tullamore's then owner, the Earl of Charleville, was embarking on significant redevelopment in his town (part of which had been destroyed by the balloon fire of 1785) and Acres was closely linked to him, hence his construction of many of the houses.

“It was a time of great building when many of the more formal streets we see today were built around that time.”

Soldiers were billeted in Tullamore at the time and required accommodation and the barrack masters nearby on High Street (in front of Mr Price, formerly the Kilroy's shopfront) still has vaulted cells.

Some years after building his own house, Acres' Hall, Acres followed the fashion of the wealthy at the time and erected the folly, “A nice little two-storey building in your garden.”

The county architect scotches the notion that it could have been a servants' house.

“It's much more likely that it was a summer house and he could have brought gentlemen there after having dinner inside and they could have wandered across his garden. There was a nice pathway up to it.”

They would have climbed the exterior stone steps, stooped to get in the low doorway and then used a narrow wraparound staircase, first past two rooms with their own fireplaces, and then on to the flat roof itself.

The folly is on a mound behind the street and more than two centuries ago, when much of the ground behind the streets was still grassland, the owners' horses would graze there.

Offaly is home to some impressive follies including a gazebo in Ballycumber, a tower on Mullagh Hill and the arch at Gloster House.

The gentry would visit each other's houses and see the follies. “They were about creating an impression.”

The architect said Acres was probably very pleased with himself as he showed his guests what he had constructed: “He must have been like Ozymandias, 'I built all of this'.”

But like the works of the character in Shelley's sonnet, Acres' Folly fell into disrepair over the years, its roof and floors collapsed, its staircase was destroyed and it was unsafe and inaccessible.

Thanks to the council's programme of folly restoration, it has been rescued from dereliction and vandalism and now offers managed access.

Its design and finish impressed the experts when they set about its refurbishment, not least its very dense exterior lime render: “It was so dense the conservation engineer had to look really closely at it because it looked like concrete. But it was definitely lime.”

A metal staircase now provides a route to the top and in time the surroundings will be landscaped.

Karen Gray from the Offaly heritage office said the council's work on preserving the county's follies is continuing: “We've been engaging with the owners and the agencies, helping with conservation grants and the Creative Ireland funding stream. Under the Creative Ireland funding we've been tackling a folly each year.”