AoS Dream Home?
This article in the Guardian today caught my eye: Napoleon-proof your home: convert a Martello tower
"Martello towers were built, at great cost, along the coasts of Kent, Sussex, Essex and Suffolk at the time of the Napoleonic wars. Originally, there were 103 of these 30ft-high towers, with walls 13ft thick and roof-mounted cannons capable of shooting lead balls a mile out to sea.
Duncan Jackson's Martello tower, rising from behind the seawall at Bawdsey in Suffolk, is a daunting structure, yet it has been reworked to provide a warm and unexpected welcome: warm because the thick walls keep the winter at bay; and unexpected because, inside, industrial designer Jackson has shaped one of the most original and soul-stirring modern homes in Britain - from a neglected fort never designed for comfort.
Until it became redundant in the 1870s, there had been troops at Tower Y, as well as coastguards after Napoleon's defeat. The spartan living quarters, however, had been crammed around the entrance floor, above an arsenal of gunpowder and cannonballs, and below the wind-scythed roof deck. Today, from the battlements, or rather the roof terrace, three other towers can be seen, dotted along the shingle coast."
You can read the rest of the article and see some more fabulous pictures of the interior of the tower here.
Cross posted to anteros_lmc
"Martello towers were built, at great cost, along the coasts of Kent, Sussex, Essex and Suffolk at the time of the Napoleonic wars. Originally, there were 103 of these 30ft-high towers, with walls 13ft thick and roof-mounted cannons capable of shooting lead balls a mile out to sea.
Duncan Jackson's Martello tower, rising from behind the seawall at Bawdsey in Suffolk, is a daunting structure, yet it has been reworked to provide a warm and unexpected welcome: warm because the thick walls keep the winter at bay; and unexpected because, inside, industrial designer Jackson has shaped one of the most original and soul-stirring modern homes in Britain - from a neglected fort never designed for comfort.
Until it became redundant in the 1870s, there had been troops at Tower Y, as well as coastguards after Napoleon's defeat. The spartan living quarters, however, had been crammed around the entrance floor, above an arsenal of gunpowder and cannonballs, and below the wind-scythed roof deck. Today, from the battlements, or rather the roof terrace, three other towers can be seen, dotted along the shingle coast."
You can read the rest of the article and see some more fabulous pictures of the interior of the tower here.
Cross posted to anteros_lmc