Planning Your First Folly Walk: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

A tower on a hill, ten minutes from the car and an hour from anyone's expectations of a Saturday. That is the appeal of a folly walk: an odd little building at the end of it, put up for no good reason except that somebody once wanted it there. Broadway Tower, King Alfred's Tower, Penshaw Monument, the Pineapple at Dunmore — the best of them sit in landscapes that reward a bit of effort, which is precisely why a first outing deserves twenty minutes of planning rather than none at all.

None of it is complicated. You need to know where you are going, that you are allowed to be there, what you are wearing, and when you will be back. Get those four right and the day looks after itself.

Start With the Folly, Then Build a Walk Around It

Choose the building first. Estates, county councils and heritage trails all publish lists of follies, and a quick search for "folly" plus your county will usually turn up three or four within an hour's drive. Then look hard at where each one sits. A folly on a wooded estate is a different proposition from one on an exposed hilltop, and distance on the page tells you very little about effort underfoot.

For a first walk, five to eight kilometres is plenty. Work out the climbing, too: a two-hundred-metre rise spread over two kilometres is a proper pull if you are not used to hills, and it will feel twice as long on the way back if the route goes up and over. Build the loop so the folly lands roughly halfway rather than at the very end — you get a breather, a reason to stop, and a walk with two halves instead of one long trudge.

Finally, check where you will leave the car. Village halls, National Trust car parks, pub car parks where you buy something before and after, and marked laybys are all sensible. Avoid blocking farm gates, passing places and narrow verges; a badly parked car is the quickest way to sour a landowner against walkers.

Check Access Before You Get Attached to a Route

This is the part beginners skip, and it is the part that causes the trouble. In England and Wales, public footpaths, bridleways and byways are recorded on the council's definitive map, and they are what you are entitled to walk. Everything else is either permissive — allowed by the landowner, and revocable — or private. Use a 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey Explorer map, which shows field boundaries, gates, stiles and rights of way in far more detail than a phone's default view, and read the legend rather than guessing what the dashes mean.

Open access land is a separate category. Under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, areas of mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land in England and Wales are open for walking on foot, subject to restrictions that are published and can change. Scotland works differently: the Land Reform (Scotland) Act gives broader access rights, but they come with responsibilities, including keeping away from houses, farm steadings and growing crops. On access land in England and Wales, dogs must be on a short lead between 1 March and 31 July, and at all times around livestock.

Many follies, though, stand on private estate land. You may be able to see one from a footpath without ever being able to reach it, and that is fine — some of the best views of a tower are from a mile away across a field. Where access is possible, it is often on set days, by ticket, or by asking at the estate office. Ask. Landowners generally give a straight answer, and a polite enquiry costs nothing.

Kit and Footwear: What Actually Matters

Folly walks are short, but they are often muddy, tussocky and steep in places, and the ground around an old building is frequently uneven. Dress for the going, not the distance. You do not need much, but what you take should work.

• Footwear with real grip. Broken-in walking boots are ideal. Trainers are fine for a flat estate path in dry weather and miserable on wet clay, boggy moorland or a steep grass descent.
• Layers and a waterproof. A jacket and, in wet months, waterproof trousers. Hilltops are windier and cooler than the village you parked in.
• A paper map and compass, or a charged phone with offline maps downloaded. Signal is unreliable in valleys and on remote estates, so do not rely on it. A small power bank weighs almost nothing.
• Water, a snack and something hot in a flask if the weather is raw. Follies rarely have a café, and the nearest one is often a drive away.
• Small extras: a basic first aid kit, sun cream, insect repellent, and a tick removal tool in spring and summer.
• A torch or headtorch from October to March, even if you plan to be back by four.

Weather, Daylight and Mud

Check the forecast for the area you are walking in, not the town you live in, and look at the wind as well as the rain. A windy day on an exposed ridge is far less pleasant than the same weather in a sheltered valley, and wind chill will make a mild afternoon feel sharp. If the forecast is marginal, choose the shorter option and save the bigger loop for another day.

Be realistic about daylight. Allow yourself time to be back at the car well before dusk, factor in the fact that a folly visit always takes longer than you think, and set a turn-back time before you set off. Mud matters too: after a wet week, lowland paths on clay can be genuinely hard going, and a route that took an hour in August may take two in February.

On the Day: Gates, Livestock and Ruins

Follow the Countryside Code and most of this looks after itself. Leave gates as you find them, or as the signs ask. Take everything home with you. Keep dogs under effective control and on a lead around sheep and cattle — cows with calves are the ones to give a wide berth, and if cattle move towards you, let the dog off the lead so you can both walk away calmly rather than being caught between them.

Treat the folly itself with care. Many are roofless, cracked or held together by little more than habit, and climbing on them is both dangerous and disrespectful. Stonework falls. Keep off walls, out of fenced enclosures and away from anything propped up. Drones are best left at home unless you know the landowner permits them.

One sensible note on health: if you have a heart or lung condition, joint trouble, or you are returning to walking after illness or injury, speak to a GP or another health professional before planning anything ambitious, and keep the first outing short.

Your First Folly Walk, Step by Step

1. Pick a folly within an hour's drive, and note what is nearby — a village, a pub, a car park.
2. Buy or borrow the relevant OS Explorer map and study the rights of way around it.
3. Plan a loop of five to eight kilometres, with the folly near the halfway point.
4. Check access: public path, access land, permissive route, or private with permission.
5. Check the forecast for wind, rain and daylight hours, then pack for the wetter version.
6. Tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back.
7. Set a turn-back time and stick to it, even if the tower is still twenty minutes away.

Then go. The reward of a folly walk is quietly disproportionate: a strange building in a good place, a flask of tea, and a route you worked out yourself. Pick something modest for the first one, learn how long you actually take, and the next walk can be a little further from the road.

Photo: Laura Stanley / Pexels