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The Vandalian Tower sits high on the Downs, above the village of South Harting, in the grounds of Stansted House close to the Sussex border. Unfortunately it is now just a ruin in a rather dangerous state, and it is obvious that any restoration work could never be done on it. Why it has ended up in this state I do not know, although the very exposed position does not help matters.
It is difficult unfortunately to imagine what the tower originally looked like by simply viewing the remains today. A mid 20th century map shows four corner turrets linked by walls arranged in a diamond shape, whilst an 1880 map shows an aerial view of the tower as being that of a cross of the type you would use for a plus sign '+'.

Vandalia
The rather unusual title came from the name given to an American colony - Vandalia, which had been founded around the same time Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh had the tower built for his son, Harry.
Sir Matthew engaged Henry Keene to build the tower (in 1774) but it is not recorded how excited his son Harry actually was at the prospect of having his very own folly tower. The reason being that he was most likely more interested in a certain young lady maid of the household, who in the later Victorian times would have been described as having "loose morals".

     Photo Submitted by, and Copyright of Carl Curtis.

Cabaret
It is recorded that the maid, and also mistress of Harry, was known to dance naked on the dining room table at Stansted House - presumably when daddy was away. The dancer Emma Lyon See Footnote **  would no doubt have admired the tower in all its glory if her mind had not been on other things at the time. Emma was eventually banished from the house after giving Harry a child and went onto eventually becoming the second wife of Sir William Hamilton, the British Minister to Naples. On one of her husband`s official engagements she later met a certain Horatio Nelson, and the rest is history as they say.

Life Begins At Seventy
Harry, the subject of her early attentions later became Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, and at the age of 70 went and married a twenty year old dairymaid on his estate, this would cause raised eyebrows even nowadays, so the news in those days must have come as a bombshell! Thankfully it seems his early encounters with Emma had not harmed or tired him in any way.

One of those little 'tit-bits' of information I also came across was that a young man called H G Wells was also probably familiar with the - by then - ruins, as his mother was a housekeeper at Uppark in the 1880's.

Visiting:-
It is not possible to visit or see the ruins, although the long distance footpath, the 'South Downs Way', passes within several hundred metres. The pathway though is in a wooded dip on the hillside, fifteen to twenty metres below, so no direct view is possible.


Footnote:-

**  Emma was actually born Amy Lyon, the daughter of a blacksmith, and used the names of both Emily and Emma Lyon and also that of Emma Hart. The latter name was the one that she preferred on her amazing and varied journey to her eventual title of Lady Hamilton, the lover of Lord Horatio Nelson.
Thank you to Marcel Fleming for bringing this issue to my notice.

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