a trip to the tower

It was drizzling when I went out to let the chickens into their run, a fine silt of moisture that collected in tiny beads on the black cat's fur, and clung to every leaf and blade of grass.  I wasn't planning to do any gardening first thing, as I had a morning booking to talk about the woodland charity, but I got rather damp collecting my basket of twigs for the lecture.

The booking was made by somebody from the council for easily the most unusual venue I have ever talked in, the Martello Tower in Jaywick.  It sits down just behind the sea wall, next to the caravan site, and as you approach it you can see Clacton, itself not the smartest town on the east coast, give way to Jaywick, the most deprived settlement in the entire country.  The bungalows get smaller and more shanty-like, and by the time you get to the shed selling second hand car parts and used tyres, in a wasteland of rough grass, you feel as though you have driven on to the set of Fish Tank.

I arrived with plenty of time to spare, having allowed for getting stuck at the level crossing gates (didn't happen) and getting lost (ditto), which gave me a good chance to have a look at the tower.  It is absolutely fascinating, and until the end of September it is open between 10am and 5pm, Wednesday to Sunday.  Admission is a pound, and it is well worth a visit.  Don't let Jaywick's position at the top of the deprivation stakes put you off.  It's fine, and nothing happened to my car, which is more than you can say for the Systems Administrator's experience in the station car park at the leafy university enclave of Wivenhoe.

Martello Towers were built during the Napoleonic wars, as a defence against invasion.  They take their name from a small circular fort at Mortella Point in Corsica, which successfully held off the British Fleet.  Impressed, the naval authorities decided to copy the idea to guard their own shores.  The first towers were built along the south coast in 1803, and in 1805 the east coast was added to the Martello programme, 29 being built between Brightlingsea and Aldeburgh.  There are three around Clacton, at Point Clear, Jaywick and in Clacton itself, and they are the only three currently regularly open to the public.

The circular walls are enormously thick.  You can see this at Jaywick, because in the 1960s a door was made at ground level through the thinnest part of the walls, and that is a good couple of metres deep.  Access originally was via the first floor, which I think was characteristic of small defensible buildings (there was an entertaining Dan Cruickshank programme about a fortified house on the TV a couple of weeks back).  You entered via a metal ladder, which could be pulled up behind you in case of attack.  With its very thick walls, underground water storage tank and supplies, the Martello Tower was designed to withstand a sustained assault.  Nowadays there is an outside staircase to the first floor door, as well as an internal stairway, not original, fitted with a chair lift (which was being mended when I arrived.  I gathered from their website it had been playing up).

The first floor is where the troops would have lived, when the tower was fully manned.  A hugely thick column runs down the centre of the tower, and the first floor roof is extraordinary and beautiful, consisting of a circular barrel vault.  Imagine you are standing inside a hollowed out ring doughnut, and look up.  That is the shape of the Martello Tower ceiling.  The ground floor was originally used for storage, accessed via a trap door from above.  It now has rather restricted headroom, not because everybody was short in Napoleonic times, but because during construction the entire tower in the space of just half an hour suddenly tipped five feet to one side.  Built on very badly drained ground, one side had sunk.  Local volunteers have photographed and transcribed the contemporary military reports of this mishap, and while there is no copy to buy, you can read their efforts on site.  The tower was eventually righted, by dint of draining the ground under it, but ended up sunk five feet into the ground below where it should have been.  It's a tribute to the builders (750,000 bricks were used in its construction, shipped up from Kent) that it didn't crack at all during its adventures.

There was no invasion, and while the tower had gun defences mounted on it during the early nineteenth century, and was used as a lookout station during both world wars, it never saw military action.  Since 2005 it has been operated as a historical and cultural centre by Essex County Council.  They will be doing a Napoleonic re-enactment of a military camp of the 95th Rifles on 19th and 20th May, and tomorrow an exhibition opens of photographs of derelict military defences and spent hardware that people have picked up, that looked rather interesting.

Nowadays the tower has a lookout post on top, with proper inclined glass to minimise reflections, but there weren't enough local volunteers to man it, and it is just used as part of the exhibition space.  I went to have a look while I was there, and got a fine view of the Gunfleet wind array in one direction, and the caravan park in the other.

The tower has a website, so you can read all about it, and if you go there you can get a useful little booklet for £2.50, which is where I found the information about its history and construction.  The booklet says that it is recognised nationally as an important monument.  I'm not sure that all that many people would bracket it with Stonehenge or Whitby Abbey, or console themselves for the loss of the Euston Arch with the thought that at least the Jaywick Martello Tower was saved.  But it is an interesting building.  Jane Austen may not have mentioned the Napoleonic wars very much in her novels, but at Jaywick you can see a tangible reminder.