It began when I stumbled on photos online of a ruined monument on the outskirts of a quiet hamlet a 20 minute train ride out of the city. The desecrated tower of Rackton Folly looks forlornly over the treeline, yellow corn fields and distant cobalt waters of the Solent, astride the gentle hills of West Sussex, and sits just a couple hours hike across my nearest nature haunt — the broadleaf and coniferous expanse of Stansted Forest. With a general path mapped out, I had to hop on a train and make the trek for myself.
And so on a perfect late May day through the ancient woodland and open fields and meadows, it looked to be a perfect setting for backcountry adventures and it turns out I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s what happened.
The journey starts from Rowlands Castle, a parish on the main route from Portsmouth to London and the last stop before the train plunges into the immensity of the South Downs National Park. Following the pavement down under a railway bridge, past the white-washed Castle Inn, I stole from the road, taking one of many beaten paths west into Stansted Forest, a 480ha ancient woodland through acreages of broadleafed stands and coniferous plantations of hazel and chestnut, the latter planted over the centuries for their high timber yield combined with their ability to regrow quickly from the stump.
The coppices form jigsaw puzzle-like segments of the forest proper, making it a diverse living space for a wide range of wildlife as well as offering walkers an everchanging experience, from open grassey tracks verdant with the late spring, flanked by marches of douglas fir and beech, to claustrophobic tunnels of birch, their branches knitted together over the path so that the forest floor is perpetually steeped in twilight.
It’s along this stretch of path where Blair Witch Project vibes are evoked to wary travellors like me. I passed eerie tent-like structures of sticks built under the boughs of gnarled yew trees. I came across a few of these across the forest, but here they offer a yet more sinister quality to the dimly lit glades alongside the path. Were they built by the local cub-scouts? Random kids? Somebody else? As I stand in one such glade and take a picture, I feel in the vicinity of a witch of celtic lore who lives here, perhaps watching me from the shadows as I take my photo of the creepy tree — *shiver*.
Before I know it, I’m back in the open again, mid-afternoon sun beating on my back. I’ve cut a diagonal crossing through the entire length of the woodland’s extremity from south-west to north-east. I crossed the road into Forestside — little more than an old picturesque church and a Village Hall which fancied itself more like a holiday cabin than anything else — and as I wheeled south, keeping to the eastern borders of the forest, I made it to the Estate of the red-brick Stansted House.
The handsome gates to the property give way to broad avenues and driveways that cross wide sun-drenched lawns to the early 20th century House. I read it’s an example of Carolean revival decor: the entrance is dominated by a central portico of handsome pillars, beneath a wide balcony and triangular pediment flanked by two wings either side. The building, nearly symmetrical in design was clearly put together with a certain nostalgia for 200 years past. My map tells me the Monument resides east from here, and a restricted bridleway would take me cross-country straight to my destination. I’m so excited I almost twist my ankle on the uneven knots of dirt. Flies buzz frantically. I think I’m walking through shit.
After taking a path west through open fields, I wondered if I could see the structure in the distance. I was back beneath the treeline, heading down the lane to the monument, all the while hoping to catch a distant glimpse of the tower.
And then it was there, looming over me twenty yards off the path. On first glimpse, I was reminded off a lost city nestled in the trees.
Pulling aside the branches and stepping into the shadow of the monument, I immediately felt something haunted resonating from its ghostly tower. Its darkened window recesses and doorframes are enough to stir the imagination of any supernatural-inclined explorer. While not particularly that way inclined, I still think it’s fun to imagine and speculate!
The structure is 18th century in origin, built by the Second Earl of Halifax, George Montagu-Dunk, who may have erected it as a summer house to the adjoining Standsted estate. For whatever reason, it wasn’t in use long and has been a ruin for the last couple hundred years.
Now a frequent haunt for raves, ghosts and occultists, I had wondered on the journey over whether I would see any creepy-goingson. But ghosts, satanists, kids and whoever else were long gone by the time I arrived. The errie silence of the place lent to the sense of trebidation that followed me as I explored the ruins.
I circled it once and took it all in. The central tower is flanked, as far as I can tell, by two wings each with a doorway into the passageway, which both connect to the central room — a “pit” of sorts. At least it is now. The brick walls and alcoves are decorated with modern graffiti. Some pentagrams, a stormtrooper helmet and some general tags. It was all pretty awesome.
Much of the buttresses set at the angles of the tower are overgrown, tendrils of ivy reaching in and out of broken windows lending an ancient desolate quality to the tower.
The central tower is hollow all the way up with only a second level still present, although access up there is long eroded with time. This said, the evidence of graffiti along its circular walls shows it didn’t stop one or two ambitious passersby making it, and after some exploring, I found some rope hanging from a window.
On heading back home, I turned one last time, to see the tower, an apparition above the trees bordering sun-drenched open fields, peering out south towards the Solent — probably its intended purpose. And I think of a journey to that monument as a perfect opportunity to explore something new in a familiar stretch of country.