page_title: Egyptian Revival architecture in the British Isles
section_title: Obelisks
hierarchical_section_title: Egyptian Revival architecture in the British Isles / Forms and motifs / Obelisks
caption_attribution_description: English: Compton Pike, sixteenth-century pyramidal stone beacon
context_page_description: Egyptian Revival architecture in the British Isles is a survey of motifs derived from Ancient Egyptian sources occurring as an architectural style. Egyptian Revival architecture is comparatively rare in the British Isles. Obelisks start appearing in the 17th century, mainly as decorative features on buildings and by the 18th century they started to be used in some numbers as funerary or commemorative monuments. In the later 18th century, mausoleums started to be built based on pyramids, and sphinxes were used as decorative features associated with monuments or mounted on gate piers. The pylon, a doorway feature with spreading jambs which support a lintel, also started to be used and became popular with architects.
  As a result of the Napoleonic conquest of Egypt in 1798, more accurate records became available to architects and Egyptian Revival became a recognised architectural style. As the 19th century progressed Egyptian features were, on occasions, used for industrial buildings and particularly for suspension bridges, and after 1830 the Egyptian Revival style was often used for cemetery buildings and monuments in cemeteries.
context_section_description: The first obelisks may start to appear in the later 16th century and it is suggested that the obelisk on Compton Pike is Elizabethan in date. More securely dated is a series of obelisks which start to appear in the 18th century. The first of these was the Wakeman obelisk of 1702 by Nicholas Hawksmoor, which is set in the square at Richmond, Yorkshire. Probably several hundred obelisks exist in the British Isles dating from 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of these obelisks, which are often landmarks commemorate famous people and their achievements. At Stowe in Buckinghamshire an obelisk was erected in memory of Wolfe's victory at Quebec in 1752, while at the death of the Duke of Cumberland in 1765 was noted by an obelisk at Englefield Green in Surrey. Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, Coke of Norfolk the farming pioneer has a particularly fine obelisk, set up in the park he created at Holkham in Norfolk. Sometimes an obelisk was used to mark the site of a battle such as the obelisk on the site of English Civil War battlefield at Naseby in Leicestershire. Occasionally obelisks are used as mile markers, as on the Great North Road at a mile from Westminster. In Lincoln an elaborate obelisk was set up on the High Bridge in 1762–63 as a conduit for dispensing water, while Anthony Salvin used obelisks as water fountains on the Belton House estates in Lincolnshire.
  In Ireland an early obelisk was constructed as a family funeral memorial by Sir Edward Lovatt Pierce for the Allen family at Stillorgan in Ireland in 1717, one of several Egyptian obelisks erected in Ireland during the early 18th century. Others may be found at Belan, County Kildare; and Dangan, County Meath. The Casteltown Folly in County Kildare is probably the best known, albeit the least Egyptian-styled.
caption: Compton Pike, sixteenth-century pyramidal stone beacon
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