Overbury's Folly is an unfinished construction, or architectural folly

Folly

In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs...

, that now serves as a recreational park located in Thalassery

Thalassery

Thalassery , also known as Tellicherry, is a city on the Malabar Coast of Kerala, India. This is the second largest city of North Malabar in terms of population. The name Tellicherry is the anglicized form of Thalassery. Thalassery municipality has a population just less than 100,000. Established...

, south India

South India

South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...

.

The folly is located on a hill near Thalassery District Court and is adjacent to a park. It slopes down from the sub-collector's bungalow

Bungalow

A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...

 to the rocks below and is named after its builder, E. N. Overbury, a Briton

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 who served as a local judge at Thalassery in the 1870s.

In 1879, Overbury wanted to construct a picnic spot at the cliff. He couldn't complete it, but the spot later earned the name "Overbury's Folly". The folly commands sweeping views of the Arabian Sea

Arabian Sea

The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui in northeastern Somalia and Kanyakumari in India...

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Today, Overbury's Folly has been renovated and redecorated as a tourist attraction. It is frequented by local people in the evenings as a place to relax. A seaside open-air coffee shop has also been opened on the folly.