A cone-shaped folly Mad Jack Fuller reputedly built overnight to win a wager about seeing Dallington church spire
John Fuller — ‘Mad Jack’ to everyone since — was the wealthy squire of Brightling in the early 1800s, and this odd white cone in a field near Wood’s Corner is the most-told of his follies. The story goes that he bet a friend he could see the spire of Dallington church from his house, then found that he couldn’t, and had this spire-shaped cone thrown up overnight to settle the wager. Whether that is quite true or not, the folly itself is real enough: a rendered cone about the height and shape of a church spire, standing alone in the grass. A field footpath from Wood’s Corner leads out to it, and it’s free to visit. Fuller put up several other oddities nearby, including The Tower & Observatory and the Brightling Needle, and all of them lie within the High Weald.
