“Old John” is a famous “folly” at Bradgate Park, Leicester well known to people in the East Midlands. A great place to visit. It is built to look like a beer tankard!
Here’s a new recording of a song I have written and recorded about a building on a hill at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire, England. It is a strange building (known as a folly) that is built to look like a beer tankard. My friend Al Owens wrote the lyrics and I did the music. It was built as a memorial to a miller who’s name was “Old John”
A FOLLY CALLED OLD JOHN Lyrics: Al Owens Music : Kenny Wilson Old John worked at the windmill On a hill in Bradgate Park. John was there when the mill collapsed In a storm; the night was dark. Too long it took to lift the beam That threatened certain death And no-one in that howling gale Heard John breathe his last breath. Later on in that same year The owner of the lands Built a tower from the scattered stones - He and his farmyard hands. They stuck an archway on the side Of that folly on the hill. From the left and right Old John looks quite Like a tankard you could fill. Bradgate house has become a ruin - Crumbling, ghostly, stark. No Lords or Ladies dwell there now And the public own the park. Footprints of those darker days Have faded out and gone. Yet upon that hill upright and still Stands a folly called Old John.
