Tower 61 at Pevensey is currently on the market for £300,000.
Above: the main entrance; the swing is hanging from the iron ring originally used with block and tackle to haul provisions into the tower.
Right: the doorway to the stairs, soldier's fireplace, a modern spiral straircase to the magazine level and the west window.
Left: the bathroom is situated in the magazine; ironically, this was supposed to have been the dryest room in the tower! The alcoves are part of the original ventilation system intended to prevent gunpowder from becoming damp.
Below: the stairs open into the kitchen area on the roof; this was the Battery Observation Post for the Emergency Coast Defence Battery situated to the south-east in 1941.
Below: looking back towards the kitchen; note the WW2 concrete blast walls (shuttered with corrugated iron) and the absence of the top of the central pillar
Below: one of the embrasures. The brick pillar is modern, probably to support the roof where the WW2 concrete walls have been cut back to provide more space. Note the iron ring (used to help manhandle the original cannon on its gun carriage) and the shot locker hidden behind a modern panel.
Below: on the top of the tower is the housing for the rangefinder, reached by a floor hatch from the observation post below.
Below: two views of the scenery from the roof.
For more information and photographs of the upper levels of the tower, see my blog at: http://www.pillbox.org.uk/blog/?ID=152; the tower is also described in Concrete Evidence
See the Tower 61 page for more about its history.
I've spent the past few months working on a new pillbox website to be launched in early 2007.
http://www.pillbox.org.uk/ will include several South Coast Martello Towers in its central database, known as Concrete Evidence.
During the invasion scare of 1940-41, the Martello Towers once again found themselves in the front line and occupied by military forces.
The uses to which South Coast Towers were put include:
The screen-grab at right shows the Tower 64 page, including a diagram of the 1940 roof layout.
The Tower entries will concentrate only on the wartime occupation and modifications, building on this site's World War Two page.
Previously unpublished photographs of the interior of Tower 64, showing the wartime fortifications, will also be included.
For more details, see the holding page at http://www.pillbox.org.uk/ , or read my blog at: http://www.nbcd.org.uk/blog/detail.asp?ID=99.
21 October 2005 marks the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar that effectively foiled any plans Napoleon still had of invading England. The Grande Armée had actually been dispersing from Boulogne several weeks before the battle, indicating that Napoleon had already given up hope of invading in 1805. Lord Nelson had died in the hour of his greatest victory, but England's safety had been confirmed.
With the Royal Navy still dominent in the oceans and the loss of most of the combined Franco-Spanish fleet, Napoleon lost his last realistic opportunity of securing a safe passage across the English Channel for an invasion force. Beaten at sea, Napoleon quickly established the intiative on land when his army won a crushing victory over the Austro- Russian forces at Austerlitz on 2 December.
Construction of the Martello Towers was far from complete at this time; although some towers were in advanced stages, they were nowhere near ready to have guns mounted. Although we can look back with hindsight and say that Trafalgar effectively rendered further construction work on the Martello Towers as unnecessary, the threat of Napoleon was still there, and it would be another ten years before he was finally defeated.
Tower W at Bawdsey in Suffolk, currently standing just 10 metres from an eroding cliff edge may be physically moved back from the brink of certain destruction, according to BBC News. Although moving the tower would be a last resort, it could cost more than £2m, and locals would prefer any such funding to be spent on sea defences to prevent further cliff erosion. Tower W was in the news a year ago - see below. English Heritage Buildings at Risk: Tower W
Several Martello Towers were featured in the first programme of BBC2's new series 'Coast', including brief views of Towers 1, 2, 60, 64 and a quick internal tour of Tower 3. Some interesting aerial shots of Dymchurch Redoubt were also shown. Judging by the way in which visitor stats for this website quadrupled in a day, many of you saw the programme! See the BBC's Coast website for more details of the series.
This mysterious structure stood about 100m north-west of Tower 64 and probably bemused anyone who ever bothered to give it a second thought. Known as the 'concrete armchair' to members of my family, archive documents reveal that it was in fact one of a pair of magazines used in guncotton trials in 1873.
The aim of the trial was to establish the effect of storing wet guncotton under the most unfavourable conditions and setting fire to it to see the potential for accidents.
In charge was Colonel C.W. Younghusband (Royal Artillery) who had destroyed Tower 38 with guncotton the previous year.
Both magazines were constructed of concrete; No.1 (situated in the north-west corner of the plot of land belonging to Tower 64) had an arched brick roof, No.2 (near Tower 65) a concrete one. Inside, six brick piers supported a grid of furnace bars upon which one ton of damp guncotton was placed. In No.1 magazine the guncotton was placed inside a wooden tank; that in No.2 in 80 'Service boxes.'
At 10.05 a.m. on 9 May, 1873, a fire was started underneath the guncotton in No.1 magazine. Four minutes later, the same was done in No.2. The fire in No.1 burnt more fiercely but faster than that in No.2, which burnt in bursts as more boxes fell into the flames.
At 12.15, both magazines were approached, and although the heat prevented anyone getting too close, it could be seen that all the combustible material had been burnt up. The roofs of both magazines were cracked and the wooden doors burnt up, but crucially, there had been no explosion in either magazine.
It was concluded that damp guncotton could be safely stored, providing that it was contained in buildings made of non-flammable materials and away from anything else that might burn.
The fate of No.2 magazine is not known; No.1 remained in a ruinous state until the 1990's, when it was removed during the Crumbles Marina development.
Source: Report on Guncotton Experiments near Eastbourne, 9th May, 1873 p470-472 in WO 33/25
Two of the Redoubt Fortress Museum's casemate displays have been redesigned to provide a fresh look and feel, with brand new display cases and interpretation panels.
The arrangement of the exhibits has opened up the casemate interiors and allows visitors to see more of the casemate's features, such as fireplaces, equipment racks and ventilation systems.
Casemate No.2 contains a new exhibition entitled 'The Life of the Redoubt' which sets out the story behind the fortress and the various uses to which it has been put over the past 200 years. A new display panel is also devoted to the Martello Towers.
Casemate No.3 contains an exhibition looking at Eastbourne's experience of war during 1939-45, including the Home Guard and Air Raid Precautions. (The Redoubt was initially earmarked to be used as an air raid shelter, but it was quickly realised that bomb blast and poison gas would travel through the passage linking the casemates, putting all the occupants at risk.)
For more on Air Raid Precautions, see my other website (no, I don't just do Martello Towers!) at http://www.nbcd.org.uk/arp.
The Redoubt is well worth a visit this summer: Redoubt Fortress Museum website
Work on Tower 15's facelift has recently been completed. The Tower, one of five still owned by the Ministry of Defence, has had restorative work carried out on the outer brick skin that was originally designed to weather-proof it when built 200 years ago.
The problem of crumbling brickwork is neither new nor just suffered by Tower 15; the 1873 Report on Coast Defences stated:
"In several cases the outer half brick ring has separated from the mass of the masonry, and has fallen away. This appears to be attributable to three causes, viz.:-
1. The use of superior bricks for facing the wall.
2. Defective bond with the interior.
3. Frost, and expansion and contraction from alterations of temperature.
Where this has occurred, the towers have either been rough-cast or rendered in cement."
The work has left the tower with a fesh appearence, and provides an idea of how the tower looked 200 years ago when new.
Wire mesh has been fixed over the windows to prevent birds from entering the tower.
The Government has come under attack from all sides for not allocating more funds for coastal defence in Suffolk. Tower W at Bawdsey is just 16 yards from a cliff edge.
Suffolk fort in front line as sea levels rise Daily Telegraph 13 Oct 2004
Sea threatens to engulf Aldeburgh
BBC News 13 Oct 2004
Parliamentary Question
UK Parliament Hansard 19 Apr 2004
Homes threatened by the sea
BBC News 4 Feb 2004
English Heritage Buildings at Risk: Tower W | Tower Z
Sale of Tower 55
Tower 55 (right) was sold at auction in April 2004 - see BBC News.
Latest News: 7 April 2004 - Tower 55 has reportedly been auctioned for £285,000 according to BBC News .
Media reports have aptly used the phrase 'under the hammer' regarding the forthcoming auction, perhaps without realising that 'martello' is the Italian word for 'hammer' and that Torre di Martello (Hammer Towers) is sometimes given as a possible origin of the term 'Martello Tower!'