The Unique Property Site

Martello Towers

Martello Towers are gun towers which were constructed between 1805 and 1810 along the coast of East Sussex, Kent, Essex, and Suffolk as a systematic chain of defence against the threat of invasion by Napoleonic forces.

The design is based on a fortified tower at Mortella Point in Corsica, which had put up a prolonged resistance to British Forces in 1793.

The ground floor of the towers was used for storage, with accommodation on the first floor and the gun platform on the roof. The towers in East Sussex and Kent carried a single 24 pounder.

Most of the towers were abandoned or were demolished during the nineteenth century, altho some continued in use into the twentieth as signalling or coast guard stations, or look-out stations during the two world wars.

The cost and logistics of these defences were not inconsideable: from Beachy Head to Dover 73 were built. In some areas where the land was very flat, such as at Pevensey, they were placed about 600 yards apart.

A further tower was added later at Seaford.

Most of the towers are of the same design. Each took an estimated 500,000 bricks, and cost between £2,000 and £3,000.

Because of the large number of bricks required, those on the south coast were built with a mixture of local red brick and yellow London brick.

Each structure was about 30 feet high with walls up to eight feet thick

Each tower had a magazine to hold explosives, plus usual stores of food etc, plus a systern to hold water which was collected on the gun turret and piped down lead pipes.

There are still quite a few of the towers left along the south coast. We have now, or have had, most of them on the site.

There are the three at Folkestone, and there is one which has been renovated outside Rye, and several near Dover.