Racton Monument
Last weekend I visited one of my old friends from Uni down in Southampton. On the Sunday we decided we would go out for a drive and see where it took us. While looking for something that was listed on my atlas as an 'abandoned village' we came across an interesting looking ruin on top of a large hill. It took a while to find somewhere where we could park and gain access to what eventually turned out to be a folly. My friend and I both tried taking some panoramic shots of the building but at least in my case, they didn't come out that well - too many errors in the stitched images due to not having a panoramic head on my tripod but they are not noticable at smaller web resolutons so I have uploaded a couple of the panoramic shots that I took for you to look at. The odd compositions come from me cropping out the blank areas around the panorama so the the composition isn't that great but the picture of the monument looks OK enough for me not to be embarrassed by it after uploading.
When we got back to my friends place at the end of the day we looked on the map and discovered that it is Racton Monument (or folly, or Tower) and some later Googling made it more interesting. Apparently the tower was built somewhere around 1772 and seems to serve no useable function. It's too small for someone to use as a house and the 'rooms' are only really big enough to put a staircase in the get to the next floor. I suppose you would have good views of the surrounding countryside given that it's situated on top of a big hill. Despite it's age, and the complete lack of flooring as can be seen in the previous link, there was a wooden window frame in at least one of the windows which I supose indicates that at least at some point, someone has tried to 'do it up' as I doubt that the original frame would have survived that long. It seems that the monument is mostly used now by kids as the place is full of rubbish, graffiti and broken glass but at one point someone was seriously thinking of renovating it. A Mark Talbot applied to Chichester District Council for permission to convert the folly to a dwelling in 1996 and was granted permission. In 2001 he reapplied for the permission to be extended and you can read all the file notes from the application along with his sketches of what it would look like. Obviously nothing has happened to convert the place but since Mr Talbot went to a lot of trouble to get the permission extended, I wonder why he never continued on with his grand plan for a house?
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Comments
I thought it was cool as it
I thought it was cool as it is. Its a shame the kids and vandals had got to it though. But that guys designs are awesome. I think it'd look sweet. Old kingdom/empire style sat up on top of the hill looking over the landscape...
I like your pano's. you've got a better eye than me for stitching problems...
I tried to stitch my internal panorama and it was fubar... I'd like to be able to stitch it into a circle. so you've got the whole in the roof shot in the middle and then the floors splayed out in a circle around it. The equirectangular stitch was just really distorted with windows bending and having multiple joints...
I'll try and get the rest of the pics sorted before I go away and I'm definetly going to link to you and the pdf's of the plans,
DavidJaymz.com // Photography of Rock
Photos
I've got a lot to still put up as well but my mum, when she posts, only puts the main site address in the links she posts in other forums so they all point to the front page - I figure I'll leave it for a bit otherwise when I post, unless I don't put them on the front page, they'll disappear under the scroll window for users on small screens and it'll look like she's just spamming.
I tried stitching your 'trees' panorama and it came out reasonably. You can still see a stitch line in places but I can ftp it to you if your tree one didn't come out ok.
I might try stitching your 'inside the folly' panorama at the weekend. I'll leave it till then as it'll take a while to stitch on my computer so I'll set it to run overnight.
As I said your pano eye is
As I said your pano eye is better than mine. I can't see a problem in the tree pano we did on aggie... its a bit skinny but i like it :-)
Figuring out how to post such a long image on my strictly laid out blog :lol:
Point taken
Funnily enough, I had thought of the address to other than the front page; I'll try to remember to post a full address to the particular entry next time. I hope you both are careful when visiting such "Follies" since the additional links seem to suggest that the building is in imminent danger of falling down. I still like the stitched picture of the Kaui tree you did for me. It's a pity we didn't get more of the people in the bottom of the picture so that the scale of the tree is more readily appreciated.
Talking of trees, the Apricot tree in the garden is in full bloom and the magnolia buds are opening. The forsythia bush is a blaze of yellow flowers and the good old daffs are up once again. Spring is sprung, the grass is gris, and it's lawn mowing time again now that we don't have the guinea pigs to mow it for us.
Smudge (Smuge)
Speaking of guinea pigs (Smudge, Snugglepus, Whizz 1 and 2-I'm sure I've left one out), I still have their pictures together with the hundreds of others taken over the years which I still need to scan in to the computer when I have a spare year or so. John reminds me of the famous spelling mistake ---Smuge for Smudge.
this is cool
Very Cool PICS, very nice description could you add some more pics please, btw how old is this fort?
Rake
284 Years
2006 - 1772 (from the post) = 284 years or thereabouts. ;-)
me and my m8s went there its
me and my m8s went there its awsome we climed to the second floor. thre are many stories about the place very scary!!!!!!
Stories?
I'm intrigued by these stories....any that are not too rude to share? I found no mention of stories or urban myths about the place when Googling for information when I made the original post.
dumb
then your dumb
Wow!
And with just 4 short words my opinion of you has halved. I thought of not approving your comment but that wouldn't be honest. I then thought of writing a really witty and sarcastic comment back that disparaged you but unless you're careful you can end up looking an idiot yourself. Eventually I settled on just letting your words speak for themselves. I don't need to make you look silly as you already seem to have done it.
Anyway...to make this comment relate to the original post: I did a quick 10 minute search for urban myths and stories with Racton Monument and came up with nothing. Admittedly 10 minutes is hardly enough time to say conclusively that there are no urban myths or stories about Racton Monument on the web but it does suggest that it's not exactly littered with them. Maybe there are none? Maybe they're just not interesting enough to write down or maybe the information is locked up in peoples heads rather than put on the internet? I guess given your comment we won't know.
the main story that goes
the main story that goes with racton is when charlie t hung him/herslef inside the tower. aparantly if you stand in the middle on a full moon and yell Rest in peace charlie t a ghost appears.
so im told
Good luck trying it.... its really scarry up there on a ful moon
gotta be a little bit mad 2
gotta be a little bit mad 2 do that aint yaa .. who wud do tht lol i went up ther last night n shat maself just outside tha buildin .. lol byeee x
i was there when a group of
i was there when a group of travellers were having a rave up there in 94 they had a bass horn hoisted up in the main turret the sound was amazing i notice none of you have mentioned the resovior opposite unfortunately the police ruined the rave but its nice to chill on top of one of the resovoir buildings until of course when the water board show up with police and move you on
i was there in 94 when a
i was there in 94 when a group of travelers had a rave there they had a bass horn hoisted up in the main turret the sound was great. i notice that none of you have mentioned the resevior opposite its a nice place to chill until the water board turn up with the police by the way the police ruined the rave as well
racton
Hi all. racton brings back a lot of memories for me i first used to go there in the 60s and my mum used to go their when she was a girl in the 40s the place has changed as far as the building goes its been wrecked with the first floor being vandalised. When i was 15 in 1975 i managed to climb to the next level above the first floor its an amazing veiw from their right across langstone harbour up to bracklesham bay the witterings all chichester harbour and of course chichester cathederal. when i was a kid i went to a jumble sale where i got this book. It was a small green hardback and i remember it being called sussex in black writing well when i read this book it was full of places in sussex and racton was in there and the story of it went that back in the 1700s a man called lord halifax had it built so that he could see out to chichester harbour as he was waiting for his son to return home from sea thats about as much as i can remember on that but ive also read that it was part of staunton house which isnt to far away from the ruin if you continue up the track you can see it in the distance and if you follow the track to the end it will bring you back down to swan lake. We spent many weekends in the early 70s walking from leigh park up to racton ruins going down the hill into westbourn to spend the shilling pocket money on sweets on the way. We used to walk miles in them days couldnt afford a bike portsdown hill and the forts was another good walk and langstone in the summer to play on the raft outside the shp inn the old billy track havant thicket getting newts from the second lake. Racton isnt haunted i have slept their a few times just the deer walking around is the only noises you will hear
What a strange and
What a strange and interesting 'folly'.
If I had the money I'f tastefully renovate it myself - I't be awesome.
Or better still, build a daft folly of my own in a similar style :)
Winona
Very interesting place. I
Very interesting place. I wonder what it was used for.
Went there tonight
Me and a few friends went up there tonight. They were tryin to freak me out about it, and it was done well as soon as I saw the tree outside with "RIP CT" painted on it, and weird paintings underneath i could only make out a gouly faces.
My friends got out of the car and were about to go inside, then they came running back after one said "what was the noise?". Like its been said, it could have been an animal, but really the pitch black, the tree, and just the fact that the building is creepy and has been rumoured to have had a hanging inside, is enough to freak you out. But now I've become really interested in the place. Doubt I'd ever go back though.
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