September 26, 2013

"It was the most inconvenient and the most delightful place ever seen."

Wrote William Morris of Broadway Tower (which was built in 1799, to please the Countess of Coventry).
The Tower... certainly was absurd: the men had to bathe on the roof — when the wind didn't blow the soap away and there was water enough — and the way supplies reached us I don't quite know; but how the clean, aromatic wind blew the aches out of our tired bodies, and how good it all was!

7 comments:

BarrySanders20 said...

But was the Countess delighted with her phallic monument?

Did it give her pleasure?

All those sweaty, bathing men sure aimed to please.

How good it all was!

MadisonMan said...

A shame nothing similar was ever built on Blue Mound.

Richard Dolan said...

A civilization that delights in building follies like this has a quirky, off-beat sense of humor at its core. Long live England. Or as Barnes reimagined it, England, England.

Crimso said...

So I take it the theme for today is phallusy.

Broadway Tower looks like one of my Kerbal Space Program creations.

Clyde said...

Looks like background scenery for a Monty Python movie, dunnit?

Andy Freeman said...

This is yet another monument built by a man to please, impress, or honor a woman.

What things has a woman built for comparable reasons wrt a man?

I'm willing to equate Clapton's learning guitar to impress a woman with women learning to cook. The above question is about bigger efforts.

Michael K said...

It's a great place to hike to. You begin in a pasture off the main drag in Broadway and it's at the top of a hill to the south.