Sham Castle, Bath, Somerset, England

HI!

Sitting having a quiet lunch at the Cowshead Restaurant in Bath, England and I look out across the valley to a hill on the other side of the river Avon and spy a castle on the hill top (look just to the right of the top of the umbrella in the picture on the left). I asked the waiter the name of the castle, and he says "It's the Sham Castle." Being busy with other patrons, he moves away without explaining the history of the Sham Castle.

I learned one thing on this trip to Europe that I intend to continue now that we're back in the USA - there are an layers upon layers of information that we'd miss if we didn't use a tool like the internet to peek at each layer. The peeks yields a wealth of new knowledge and an understanding of people and their circumstances that one would miss using only guide books and listening to conversations.

So, being inquisitive, I check the internet, and find that it's not the "Sham Castle" - a proper name, but a noun, sham castle.

This "castle" is merely a screen wall with a central pointed arch flanked by two 3-storey turrets, which extend sideways to a 2-story square tower at each end of the wall. The castle was probably designed around 1755 and built in 1762 for Ralph Allen "to improve the prospect" (view) from Allen's townhouse in Bath. 

The Sham Castle is a fake. Officially, the English use the term "folly" to describe a structure that was built in the 18th century to mimic a Medieval structure. It's smaller in scope, but appears to be the real thing from a distance. It seems that 18th and 19th Europeans, who had a lot of money, were so obsessed with castles they hired someone to build a fake one in their own backyards!