Further to my stumbling attempts at showing you Brightlingsea on Tuesday, here's another photograph from the same location on my day out in estuarial Essex. The reason why I've been spending time here will become clear, but I just wondered if anybody knew anything about this tower? Just a name would be good. Most of it looks Victorian, but the top is obviously comparatively new. The Ordnance map just says 'tower', unhelpfully. I expect it's used as an observation post for local yacht racing now, the commodore sitting up there with a big pair of binoculars. I was going to say with a packet of twenty Senior Service open on a navigation chart of the Colne estuary, but that's probably unlikely. My first encounter with those fantastic russet-sailed Thames barges was here in Brightlingsea in the late 70s, much later I actually helped 'crew' one, ie: went and hid in the cargo hold when the wind got up. Avast there, land ahoy,your turn in the barrel!
3 comments:
Seems to be Bateman's Tower, and there a whole bunch of information about it here: http://www.colneyachtclub.org.uk/bateman's_tower.htm
Thankyou so much for the link Philip, just what I needed. Cornettos all round.
When you look at the estuarial waters, you think that the area hardly needed a lighthouse-type tower. Who would it warn? and of what? Interesting then that it was created in the first place (in 1883) as a folly.
I can imagine charming wedding photos being taken of the bridal couple at the water edge :)
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