Nash was drawn to the site on several occasions taking many photographs of the curious architectural feature, and making a highly finished pencil and chalk drawing, Folly Landscape, in 1937. Thinking them decidedly surreal, Nash was always attracted to follies of every sort. He described the Creech structure as ‘an utterly mad gateway on top of the downs, a true folly if ever there was one.’

Photographs of Creech Folly are included in the large portfolio of black and white photographs taken by Nash (1,267 negatives held by the Tate Gallery, TGA 7050 PH). The arch forms a cluster from September 1937 with the references TGA 7050 PH / 177 through to 183. Nash took other photographs of the surrounding landscape, including one of the formal gardens of the Grange. The portfolio of photographs was presented by the Paul Nash Trust in 1970. See: Simon Grant, Informal Beauty: the Photographs of Paul Nash (Tate Publishing: London, 2016).

See: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/items/tga-7050ph-177/nash-black-and-white-negative-creech-folly-dorset

It was built by a former owner of Creech Grange, Denis Bond, in 1746, which sits in the valley below. Designed as a triple arch of ashlar stone, the central archway is topped by battlements and flanked by low stone walls with smaller doorway arches. In some renditions of the archway, it was described as Bond’s Folly.

A poster by John Stewart Anderson from 1937 depicts the arch set in the Purbeck Hills and was part of an advertising campaign series entitled ‘To Visit Britain’s Landmarks’. The series comprised a selection of follies and sometimes unusual attractions, encouraging the public to explore the British countryside. 

Paul Nash

Folly Landscape

(1937)

Pencil, Chalk with colour notes on paper, H 38.7 x W 57.2 cm 

Courtesy of Bristol Museums: Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. 

Also known as Creech Folly; Folly Landscape, Creech, Dorset, and Castel on the Downs. 

References: 

Andrew Causey, Paul Nash Catalogue Raisonné (Oxford, 1980) cat. no.900, p.438. 

Penny Denton, ‘Seaside Surrealism’ Paul Nash in Swanage (Durlstone, 2002) 

cat.no.65. 

J. Wilkes, A Fractured Landscape of Modernity: Culture and Conflict in the Isle of Purbeck (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2014) 

See: https://thefollyflaneuse.com/bonds-folly-or-creech-grange-arch-dorset/