Category: Hedon

This is a little companion post to the one that the lovely Folly Flâneuse and I have recently collaborated on. You can read her fantastic piece and subscribe to her blog here:

Albina’s Tomb, Hedon, East Riding of Yorkshire.

While Albina’s Tomb is still in a precarious condition, it’s in a vastly better state than it was a couple of years ago and I thought people might be interested in this early stage of the restoration process. 

I am not unbiased when it comes to this site; it’s my favourite place in Hedon. Once a country squire’s magnificent, mad garden ornament, now a ravaged and haunting spectacle, these stones have an undeniable presence. I first saw Albina’s Tomb up close in 2020 when the new owner of Ivy House, Greg Butterworth, opened the garden for Heritage Open Day (until then, I’d had to make do with trying to stick my head through the hedge on Ivy Lane) and lo, I was smitten.

When Greg bought the house, the folly was completely hidden by a thicket of ivy, elder, brambles and nettles. Decades of neglect, vandalism and Mother Nature had resulted in the roof and upper storey caving in and, after a heroic Greg had removed all the vegetation from the facade, it was clear that Albina’s memorial was in a sorry state. The interior — open to the elements since the collapse — was filled with fallen masonry, broken branches and weeds. So, with naive enthusiasm, I offered to help clear the site… how hard could it be?

Ah. Very hard, as it turned out. Inside the tomb, the debris was a dismaying thigh-high jumble of stones, roof slates, bricks and glass. It was immediately obvious why no one had yet attempted to tackle it! We had no idea what was underneath the rubble, so it was painstaking work that took many weeks. We didn’t want to miss anything that might be hidden in there and every scrap was carefully sorted.

First up were the roof slates, which we collected and stacked up outside the Tomb. Then the bricks: again, stored for future use. Any interesting pieces of stonework were put aside and our care paid off, as you will see. The remaining debris was put through a giant sieving machine. It was backbreaking graft shovelling it all in to the sieve and then shovelling the resulting piles into wheelbarrows; the brick fragments etc were collected to use as hardcore and the remaining topsoil and leaf mould were dug into the herbaceous borders. That sieve was the bane of my life and there were definitely moments when my muscles deeply regretted taking this on. We stopped for a lot of tea breaks during this stage!

But it was worth it. Our first glimpse of the floor was a real highlight (I think we had beer instead of tea that day).

As work continued, we uncovered the beautiful Norman carved pillar bases, and the steps at the rear entrance. Once the internal ivy was removed, the gap where the early 18th century Pulteney plaque — rescued by Hedon Museum after the roof collapse — had been became visible, and we found Iveson’s ivy leaf crest that was originally set into the archway opposite that of Drogo de Bevrière. 

Our major discovery among all that smashed stonework was the amazing medieval rose window. Greg brought his jigsaw puzzle skills to the table here and we managed to piece it back together. James Iveson didn’t mention this feature in his manuscript (see the Folly Flâneuse’s piece for more details) so I suspect it was a later addition to the rear of the upper extension of the Tomb. It’s plausible that the window came from a demolished section of St Augustine’s church, just across the green from Ivy House (thanks to Dr Martin Craven for his thoughts on this).

This is merely the beginning of what is undoubtedly a daunting journey towards restoration, a journey that will require a lot more time, aching muscles and, of course, money. Ironically, the Tomb as it looks today — a simple arch with an open interior — is far closer to Iveson’s original vision than the grand two-storey edifice that it became. To the Georgians, the whole point of a Gothic folly was to conjure an atmosphere of ancient stones, long-dead tales and ruined beauty… an atmosphere that Albina’s Tomb still carries, and I hope it can be preserved it for generations of future Romantics.

Thanks to Greg and Bruce Butterworth, The Folly Flâneuse, Tony Porter and Dr Martin Craven. And big up to Dr Stephen Campbell for the title — I’d gone for “Tomb Aider” but his idea was better!