Flounders Folly on Callow Hill near Craven Arms in Shropshire is an example of a folly, that is, a building with no practical purpose, but usually intended to resemble a much older building or ruin. Benjamin Flounders (1768-1846) was a Yorkshire landowner from Yarm, a wealthy Quaker who invested in the North East’s industrial revolution, including the historic Stockton and Darlington Railway of 1825. Benjamin’s uncle, Gideon Bickerdike, bequathed him an estate at Culmington in far-off South Shropshire, and though Benjamin never lived there, and visited only twice a year, he raised this tower in 1838 on the highest point of Wenlock Edge, to mark his seventieth birthday and the forthcoming marriage of his daughter Mary.