The Follies of Mad Jack Fuller

Rebecca Ffrench

If you travel to the small village of Brightling (about five miles from Hurst Green) you might notice something rather unusual sitting in the churchyard.

Incongruous to the village’s pretty cottages with gently dipping wisteria so abundant this time of year, the Pyramid is prominent in the cemetery and is the last resting place of Jack Fuller – also known as Mad Jack Fuller, but preferring to be known in his lifetime as Honest Jack Fuller. Yes, he is buried in a structure resembling those great wonders of the world, the Pyramids of Egypt.

Commissioned by the man himself for his future mausoleum, this is just one of the strange and remarkable structures around the Brightling area, all created by Fuller.

Indeed, you can also see, jutting from the surrounding fields and woods, other follies, such as the Sugarloaf (built by Fuller to win a wager that he could see the spire of Dallington Church from his land – upon realising he could not, he apparently had the Sugarloaf erected in one night); the Rotunda Temple, built in the Grecian style; the Tower; the Needle; and the Observatory – perhaps the only building not to be such a ‘folly’ as it was a fully functioning observatory and is now a private home with stunning views.

Fuller’s inspiration for building the Observatory allegedly came from famous astronomer Sir William Herschel, known for his discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781. Appointed private astronomer to the king the following year, Herschel subsequently discovered the Uranian satellites Titania and Oberon in 1787 and Mimas and Enceladus, two of the moons of Saturn, in 1789. The Observatory was furnished with expensive equipment including a Camera Obscura and high powered telescope. The Camera Obscura is considered a forefather of the modern portable camera.

Jack Fuller, born in 1757, is remembered in history as both a controversial and eccentric character, depending on who you speak to. Upon inheriting Brightling Park (then called Rose Hill) from an uncle, he also inherited several plantations, and with them around

250 slaves. The Fuller family fortune was based on the manufacture of iron goods, especially cannons and gunneries for the Royal Navy – plus a substantial income from the sugar produced on their Jamaican slave plantations.

Fuller also became an MP, a patron of the sciences, funding Fullerian Professorships at the Royal Institution, and commissioned Turner to create several paintings of his estate and the view from the Observatory. He bought Bodiam Castle to save it from demolition. Allegedly he used the Rotunda to entertain friends as a place to drink wine and gamble. Several anecdotal pieces of evidence suggest that he commissioned so many of his structures – as well as the vast wall surrounding Brightling Park – to give employment to many of the local people who found themselves without industry. He financed Eastbourne’s first lifeboat; and yet was a staunch supporter of slavery, arguing against abolition in his position in the House of Commons. He was known to claim that slaves in the West Indies had a better quality of life in England – although there is no evidence that he ever visited Jamaica himself where doubtless he would have been disabused of this falsehood.

The last remaining holder of a Fullerian Professorship has discontinued the use of this title, and the Royal Institution has stopped awarding such positions in recent decades. To visit his follies is to walk through history, to glimpse the history of a man who was recognised as a local benefactor; an eccentric; and as we learn more over time, one whose wealth and influence was accumulated through the horrors of slavery.

Wandering through the bucolic Wealden countryside to find strange and intriguing buildings with no discernible function jutting from fields, unnoticed by the sheep and cows that graze nearby, there are several ‘folly trails’ one can follow – and one can even go inside the Sugarloaf which, as bizarre as it may seem when standing inside it, once housed a family.

Legend has it that Fuller was interred in his Pyramid sitting at a wrought iron table, wearing top hat and tails, with a large meal and full bottle of claret in front of him.

Given his reputation as a well-known drunk, once being removed from Parliament for public disgrace after an incident with the Speaker of the House, the choice of the final imbibement to see him into the afterlife should not come as a surprise.