Many years ago I spent hours wandering around Askern in South Yorkshire searching for two follies which the great folly expert Barbara Jones had erroneously listed as being in the village (they were in fact miles away in West Yorkshire).
But there was once a wonderful structure in Askern that, if not quite folly, was certainly a great curiosity. Mr Clamp of Askern needed a greenhouse, but being a Yorkshireman had no intention of spending large sums of money. Instead, he collected empty glass jars from his neighbours and painstakingly assembled a 9' x 5'6" greenhouse out of 1,800 jars mortared together.
His work was recorded for posterity by Pathe news in 1942 for one of those quirky "and now..." stories used to fill slow-news-days.
The film can be viewed on their website http://www.britishpathe.com/video/jamjar-house-aka-jam-jar-house
Let's just hope that when it was demolished all those jars went in the recycling bin.
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