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Towering achievements
General Conway’s plan was ahead of its time, because it took the British Navy another 16 years to realise the value of such fortifications
SCATTERED around the coast of the Island are a series of towers which once protected Jersey’s shores but now serve as monuments of the past – and even as curious features of Island homes.
When the decision was made to build the towers around the coast the reason was to protect the Island from French invasion during the Napoleonic wars. Aristocrats fleeing from France had settled in the Island and become loyal British subjects, but the threat of attack from France was still high.
In 1776 France began sending arms and money to help the Americans in their War of Independence, and the decision was taken to circle Jersey with watchtowers to improve the defences. A plan was drawn up by one of the Island’s Governors, General Conway, who wanted 32 towers to be built around the coast. He based his drawings for them on a round design by a French nobleman, but gave some the addition of a battery at the base.
The idea was, according to Conway, to erect ‘a number of towers of masonry with corresponding batteries in all the accessible parts of the coast’. Conway’s plan was ahead of its time, because it took the British Navy another 16 years to realise the value of such fortifications and start to construct Martello towers along the English south coast.
Work started in Jersey in 1778, and one of the first towers to be built can be seen immediately opposite Grève de Lecq Barracks. The towers went up quickly around the Island and had their own unique design, with tall, tapering walls built with granite and a design far more elegant than that used to build their English counterparts.
When Conway died in 1795, a total of 22 towers had been built and La Rocco Tower was ready for construction. After his death the construction continued but with some alteration to Conway’s design: instead of building towers with batteries at ground level, the new designs were based on a tower at Mortella, on the island of Corsica, which had defeated British warships in 1794 and had a battery not at the bottom, but at the top.
Eight of these Martello towers were constructed at various points around Jersey. The last towers to be built in the Island can be seen to have been influenced by the design of the English Martello tower. This influence is evident in the appearance of Victoria Tower, which was one of the last towers to be built in Europe. Constructed in 1837, it has a far larger base and a steeper battery, giving it a squat appearance in comparison with the look of the Jersey round tower.
In total 31 towers were built, of which 24 remain. The original towers encircled the south and ease coasts, while the true Martello towers, which were built from about 1810 onwards, were placed on the west, south and east coasts.
Of the seven towers that have been lost, six were of the original Jersey design and only one of the Martello pattern. Three fell victim to coastal erosion, three were destroyed in the Occupation and one seems simply to have disappeared.
author - Anna Heuston
This article updated: 2004/02/04 11:38:41
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| ......timelines...... |
| As early as 1823 a steam-powered vessel visited Jersey, but the Age of Steam really began with the advent of iron hulls and screw propulsion in the 1840s. |
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