Folly, Sydenham Hill Woods by Steve Grindlay from Wikimedia Commons
When Alderman Stone bought a house at number 53 Sydenham Hill, it came with a beautiful Victorian garden sitting on a nice plot of land. In 1864, he commissioned the building of a folly in the garden. A purely ornamental feature that was usually a stone tower or archway, a folly was a popular architectural concept in the 18th and 19th centuries. Alderman Stone later became Lord Mayor of London, and the folly later fell into ruins, abandoned and forgotten. Today, the site sits in Dulwich Woods right next to the Sydenham Golf Course.