The Tarring Folly - A Grade 2 Listed Building Sadly Decaying

This post was updated on 1 May 2024. Reason for update: Unconfirmed reports that the property owner has died.

The Tarring Folly

Photograph of the Tarring Folly. © South Coast View.

The Tarring Folly, located behind 100 South Street, Tarring, Worthing, is a flintstone tower built by solicitor Mr W. Osborne Boyce in 1893 as a private study. Despite restoration in the 1950s, the structure has again fallen into decay.

Source: Roger Davies, 1990, Tarring: A Walk Through Its History. Privately published. p. 121.

Attempts to restore the Tarring Folly appear to have failed

The only recent Worthing Borough Council references to the Tarring Folly are found on the council’s website.

The first is an enforcement report from 4 March 2015. The second is an update dated 3 June 2015.

We learn from the documents listed above that the Tarring Folly is a Grade II listed building, as detailed on the Historic England website’s National Heritage List. We also learn that the folly appears to be suffering from significant structural degradation.

Council documents show that Worthing Borough Council supported remediation to restore the folly, but that cooperation from the then-owner of 100 South Street in Tarring was lacking.

Sources: Enforcement Report of 4 March 2015 and Enforcement Report of 3 June 2015. PDF documents.

View the full listing for the Tarring Folly on Historic England’s website

Folly to the rear of number 100, South Street. Historic England website. Date first listed: 24 July 1989.

View the structural report on the RBC Surveyors website

This undated report was commissioned by Adur & Worthing Council:

Report: The Folly, South Street, Worthing, West Sussex

Reports in April 2004 that the owner of the property at 100 South Street has died

The Bygone Worthing private Facebook group has a post dated 30 April 2024. One comment states that the property owner has passed away. Disclaimer: This report has not been verified.

How to see the Tarring Folly

There is no public access point from which the complete structure can be viewed. The only place from which there is a partial view of the folly is from the west side of South Street, immediately south of Athelstan Road.

Another view of the Tarring Folly

The Tarring Folly and The Victoria Tea Gardens

The Victoria Tea Gardens, owned by Alfred Carter, occupied numbers 94 to 98 South Street for ten years around the 1900s.

Source: Roger Davies, 1990, Tarring: A Walk Through Its History. Privately published. p. 121-122.

The Bygone Worthing private Facebook group shares photographs of the Victoria Tea Gardens. It seems to me that at one time, these tea gardens, with their splendid view of the Tarring Folly, were an oasis of tranquillity.