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Pelham's Pillar

Monument
Pelham's Pillar
Photo: David Wright, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Original Geograph photograph · Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Pelham's Pillar is a 39-metre limestone viewing tower celebrating the first Earl of Yarborough's vast programme of tree planting and estate improvement.

Read the whole record

Pelham's Pillar is a 39-metre limestone viewing tower celebrating the first Earl of Yarborough's vast programme of tree planting and estate improvement.

Why it was made

The tower commemorated Charles Anderson-Pelham and recorded his claim to have planted more than twelve and a half million trees on the Brocklesby estate.

People and events

His son laid the foundation stone in 1840, architect Edward James Willson designed the work, and his grandson completed it in 1849.

How it worked

An internal brick stair climbed through the tall square shaft to a viewing room from which the Yarborough family could survey the planted estate.

What remains

The ashlar pillar, entrance, stair and high viewing room survive in Brocklesby Park, dominating the woods that its inscription celebrates.

Why it mattered

It turns nineteenth-century landownership and large-scale forestry into a highly visible claim about one family's control and improvement of the landscape.

Sources for this account

Sources checked 16 August 2026.

From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) n2591992637

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Photo credits
  • Jonathan Thacker, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • David Wright, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Chris, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Chris Morgan, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Gary Brothwell, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Michael Garlick, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Ian S, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • David P Howard, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Ian Paterson, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Jonathan Billinger, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
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