Google Earth Folly Maps
Thanks to the sterling work of Paul Brooker, we can now offer a magnificent and ever-growing map of Follies in the UK. This is not complete, and probably never will be, but Paul continues to add to it, so it’s the best we have to date. Not only has he listed over 1700 follies, but he’s added photos to around 1450 of them. Many of these photos are taken from the Flickr and Geograph websites, so in this day and age, it is possible to compile this kind of map without actually stepping out into the undergrowth. As these are taken and described by multiple people we cannot check which of them are genuine follies and which are just houses with battlements, memorials etc, so you’ll have to use your judgement as to whether you consider them follies or whether you’ll use them as a guide for an exploratory day out. Have a look below and I’m sure you’ll find at least some you haven’t heard of before. Please note that there is no assumption that they are open to the public or indeed visible from a public road or footpath. You will have to do your own homework to find many of them.
Please help further this project by sending any photos you are happy to add to the map, or any new follies (with name, brief description and map reference), to Paul at the Maps address through the contact form.
Follies in Belgium and the Netherlands can be found on a similar map here
The map below shows all the buildings found so far . Each red marker indicates a folly with a photograph, the blue ones those without pictures and the yellow ones show follies which no longer exist.