This Dartmoor ‘folly’ was built for a Mr Thomas Levett Princep in 1848 and is located on and adjacent to Gidleigh Tor. Today, all that remains is a roofless octagonal ‘look-out’ tower with a pointed-arch doorway and a small window but once the folly comprised a house and possibly two towers. The house was incorporated with the rocks of the tor with today’s remaining ‘look-out’ tower located a few ten’s of metres away to the west.
William Crossing in ‘Gems in a granite setting’ (page 57) recorded that Prinsep’s (sic) Folly was once occupied by a caretaker although never by Thomas Princep himself as he died suddenly on his boat at Teignmouth before he could occupy it. Crossing learnt the history relating to the buildings from a Mr Whipham as it was his father (Rev. Arthur Whipham, rector of Gidleigh and owner of the estate), who granted a lease for 99 years for two and a half acres of land immediately adjoining the land at Gidleigh Tor to his friend Thomas Princep. Princep’s widow surrendered the lease in 1851, but prior to this the house was pulled down and the fittings and materials sold by auction.
0
