Castle Howard Hawksmoor pyramid of 1728

The large pyramid is easy enough to find as it looms high on the hill, we found it on a dark december night in the mist and snow. From the village you can walk up the first footpath you see on the left hand side (going into the village from the Castle Howard estate turning) and walk up the field, bearing right when the sign directs you to do so. The pyramid can be seen in a north easterly direction from the footpath, on top of the prominent brow of a hill.

The pyramid is flanked by 8 towers, which seem designed to hold lamps atop them.
The architect for this folly was the Freemason Nicholas Hawksmoor, described as 'the Devil's architect' because of his use of risky quotations in the religious themes in his work from throughout history, from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and other non-christian ideologies.

We threw caution to the wind by visiting the twenty-eight feet high pyramid with no prior preparation, no map, no real directions beyond a knowledge that the pyramid was on a hill over the village. A dog barked in the distance the whole time we climbed the hill, but when we reached the pyramid there was (finally, short lived) silence. The mist around the hill was below us so we could finally see the stars. One of the towers was partially destroyed and we stood on it to see across the land. The inscription on the side of the pyramid had deteriorated quite badly:

TO THEE O VENERABLE SHADE

WHO LONG HAST IN OBLIVION LAID

THIS PILE I HERE ERECT

A TRIBUTE SMALL FOR WHAT THOU'ST DONE

DEIGN TO ACCEPT THIS MEAN RETURN,

PARDON THE LONG NEGLECT.

TO THY LONG LABOURS, TO THY CARE

THY SONS DECEAS'D, THY PRESENT HEIR

THEIR GREAT POSSESSIONS OWE:

SPIRIT DIVINE WHAT THANKS ARE DUE

THIS WILL THY MEMORY RENEW

IT'S ALL I CAN BESTOW

The pyramid has a tiny door to the rear, you can only access it on special tours but we found a photo of the bust of Lord William Howard housed inside the beehive shaped interior:

Yoinked from Neil Levine's Castle Howard and the Emergence of the
Modern Architectural Subject.

Is there a correct way to disembark from viewing such a magnificant folly, you may or probably will not ask? One of our number log rolled from top to bottom of the ridge on which it stands, and it did seem the finest way to do it. Not so much so that the rest followed suit!