Martello Tower P

Summary

Martello tower P, one of a chain of defensive towers built along the east coast of Essex and Suffolk between 1808 and 1812; used as a coastguard station since the early C19 and as a military observation post during the First World War and Second World War.

Reasons for Designation

Martello Tower P, built between 1808 and 1812, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a particularly complete survival of this rare building type;
* for the high proportion of surviving historic structure, and the legibility of its historic plan form;
* for the design of this heavy-duty defensive structure, reputedly built with 750,000 bricks and dressed in granite, intended to defend the country in the event of a coastal attack.

Historic interest:
* the site is representative of the Napoleonic Wars and the British response to the perceived threat of invasion at the start of the C19;
* for the rich military history of the site and historic use of the tower as a coastguard station, wireless telegraphy station, and observation post during the First World War and Second World War.

Group value:
* it forms an important historic and functional group with nearby Martello Towers such as Martello Tower R, located around 2.5km to the north-east (listed Grade II*), as well as Landguard Fort, around 1km to the south, and Harwich Redoubt, around 3km to the south-west (both scheduled and listed at Grade I and Grade II* respectively).

History

Martello towers are a series of small coastal artillery forts, built on the south and east coasts of England to counter the threat of invasion from France in the Napoleonic era (roughly 1799 to 1815). The name and form of the Martello tower derive from a small defensive tower at Punta Mortella, a point in the bay of San Fiorenzo in Corsica. The British Army struggled to capture the tower in 1794, and when they withdrew from Corsica in 1796, they demolished most of the tower so that it could no longer be used. Contemporary correspondence misspelt Mortella as ‘Martello’, and the misspelling has remained to this day. Between 1796 and 1815, 194 towers were built in Britain and its dependencies as a result of the British being at war with both France and the United States of America.

The proposal to build defensive chains of Martello towers along the south and east coasts of England was agreed in 1804. 74 towers were built along the south coast from Folkestone in Kent to Seaford in Sussex between 1805 and 1808 and were identified by numbers (1-74). 29 towers were constructed along the east coast of Essex and Suffolk between 1808 and 1812; these were identified by letters of the alphabet, starting with Martello ‘A’ at St Osyth, and ending with ‘CC’ at Slaughden just south of Aldeburgh (having started again at AA once they passed Z). Of the 29 towers built along the east coast, 18 survive. Most of the east coast towers had a forward battery, some of which were constructed in the 1790s when the threat of French invasion seemed real; these batteries were of roughly triangular shape, open at the back, with guns mounted on the platform. Dry moats were built around some of the towers; they are typically 16.5ft (5m) deep and 33ft (10m) wide and were formed of a brick lining with compacted soil piled against it to form an external slope. Some towers were also constructed with a defensive sloping bank known as a glacis. All of the east coast towers have an associated parcel of land, sometimes as large as four acres (1.62 ha), which in most cases was defined by boundary marker stones and in some places also by a boundary ditch and bank.

The east coast towers were constructed of locally made red brick bonded with a high strength lime mortar, with each tower requiring around 750,000 bricks in its construction. The outer face of the brickwork was rendered with lime mortar (also known as ‘stucco’) to give a smooth surface finish. In comparison, the smaller south coast towers were constructed of yellow London brick. The east towers are generally all three storeys in height and cam-shaped on plan measuring 55ft (16.7m) in diameter and 33ft (10m) high. The walls taper upwards and are between 8ft (2.4m) and 11ft (3.3m) thick at the base, and between 5ft (1.5m) and 8ft (2.4m) thick at the top; the walls are up to one and half times thicker on the seaward side than the landward side.

Each of the towers had three floors; the entrance at first floor level was reached either by means of a ladder or where a moat and glacis had been constructed, a drawbridge. The first floor was partitioned into three sections, one for billeting a garrison of 24 men, one as a room for the commanding officer and another area as a quartermaster’s storeroom. A substantial central brick pillar supported the vaulted ceiling, radial joists and floor. A musket rack ran around the central column with capacity for 27 guns. The floor at this level was generally one third stone flag, in the garrison accommodation over the powder magazine, and the other two thirds had oak planking. The ground floor was entered from the first floor through a trapdoor by means of a ladder and was used for the storage of provisions and munitions. One third was walled off as a powder magazine with capacity for 240 barrels; the magazine was illuminated by a lantern outside a canted glazed window so that there was no possibility of a spark causing an explosion. Below the powder store was a food store, and below the main storage area was a rainwater tank with a capacity of 2500 gallons, fed by a drain and lead pipes from the roof and operated by a pump at first floor level. Access to the roof level was by means of two stone staircases built into the walls. The roof was armed with a 24-pounder, long range cannon occupying the seaward emplacement and a smaller carronade occupying each of the two lateral emplacements. Howitzers were also installed as short-range guns to defend the tower on the landward side or at close quarters. On the parapet there were two chimneys of light-weight construction which would have been rapidly demolished in the event of an attack (as they would otherwise impede the guns and create blind spots within the field of fire).

Martello Tower P was built between 1808 and 1812 overlooking the North Sea, supporting Landguard Fort (1.4km south-west) and Martello Tower Q (1.3km north-east). Defensive requirements were reduced following the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. This swift obsolescence meant that as early as 1819 the War Office sold some towers for building materials, and some were adapted for other uses; Martello Tower P was occupied by a caretaker and his family and the Coastguards from 1831. A view of Martello Tower P at Walton Beach, drawn by Henry Davy in 1837, shows the tower from the south with a timber lifeboat house between the tower and the sea. By the 1850s developments in artillery meant the towers were not strong enough to withstand an attack, and all the Martello towers in the area had their guns removed, except Landguard Fort and Harwich Redoubt which remained armed. In the second half of the C19 Martello Tower P and other nearby towers were re-armed with a 68-pdr smooth-bore (SB) gun and two 8-inch SB guns to enhance the defences of Harwich. A survey of the site undertaken in 1864 for the War Office and published in 1866 records Martello Tower P standing near the centre of a square parcel of land, measuring 4 acres in area, with a boundary stone (BS) to each corner of the land parcel, and a wooden ‘Lifeboat House’ and ‘Gun Shed (Volunteer Artillery)’ between the tower and the sea. The wooden lifeboat house is later shown on the 1881 Ordnance Survey (OS) map, but the gun shed had by that time disappeared.

In 1897, wireless telegraphy was introduced to the Royal Navy by Guglielmo Marconi and Captain HB Jackson, RN and Martello Tower P was chosen as one of Britain’s first Type ‘C’ shore stations. Two tall transmitter aerials were erected on the roof of the tower, held in place by four cemented iron anchors, after which the parcel of land became known as Wireless Green. During the First World War (1914-18) the wireless station played a vital role in naval intelligence, intercepting messages between enemy warships operating in the North Sea. A 1917 report by the sub-committee of the War Cabinet identified Martello Tower P as one of a number of vulnerable targets likely to come under attack by Zeppelins or enemy aircraft, and determined it should receive anti-aircraft defences, plus a full-time military guard. In 1919, an Approved Arms Report declared that Martello Towers P and Q should remain armed, equipping each tower with a machine gun. By the time of the 1926 OS map the lifeboat house had been demolished, and a terrace of coastguard cottages and a coastguard station had been built within the north-west quadrant of the parcel of land, north-west of the tower.

During the Second World War (1939-45) Martello Tower P continued its coastguard duties and became a post for the Observer Corps, (which became the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) in 1941). Their task was to plot the number, height, speed, and heading of enemy aircraft and V-1 Flying bombs passing overhead using a Micklethwaite Height Corrector, situated on the former gun platform. During the Cold War an underground ROC post was constructed north of the tower on Wireless Green, designed to protect ROC volunteers from nuclear attacks and allow them to monitor radioactive fallout in the event of nuclear attack. The station was opened in June 1962 and closed in October 1968 and followed a standard design consisting of a 14 foot (4.3m) deep access shaft, a toilet / store and a monitoring room; it is one of 39 built in Suffolk.

Martello Tower P was scheduled in 1960 in recognition of its national importance. In 1976 naval control of shipping transferred from HMS Ganges to Martello Tower P, where it remained until 1979. In the same year, a new Coastguard lookout office was constructed on the roof of the Tower and was later adopted in 1998 by the volunteer National Coastwatch Institution (NCI). Martello Tower P was listed at Grade II on 10 February 1986 in recognition of its special architectural and historic interest. The coastguard station and cottages in the north-west quadrant of Wireless Green were demolished around 2008 and a housing scheme built along the south and west side of Wireless Green around 2015.

Details

Martello tower P, one of a chain of defensive towers built along the east coast of Essex and Suffolk between 1808 and 1812; used as a coastguard station since the early C19 and as a military observation post during the First World War and Second World War.

MATERIALS: the walls are constructed of red brick, originally stuccoed, now with cement render. The door and windows have granite dressings and the parapet has granite coping.

PLAN: the building is cam-shaped on plan, thicker on its seaward side.

EXTERIOR: Martello Tower P stands complete to its original height of about 10m and, like the entire east coast group of Martello towers, is squat and cam-shaped on plan, with an average diameter of around 17m. It is constructed of brick and was originally stuccoed, now cement rendered, with granite dressings and copings. The door to the west side of the tower and four window openings to the north, north-east, south-east and south sides are segmental arched with denticulated granite dressings. The entrance, which is at first floor level, retains its original heavy door and is reached by a straight wooden stair (built in the early C21), which has metal treads and sits on concrete pads. A segmental-arched vented drain opening was introduced on the south side of the tower in the C20. The roof is flat and nearly quatrefoil on plan, with two stair exits occupying the west foil and three former gun emplacements occupying the north, east and south foils. The level of the roof within the three emplacements has been raised by about 0.5m with steps leading up to it, covering the original gun steps and reducing the visible height of the box-like expense magazines inset below the parapet. Within the two lateral (north and south) gun emplacements, the upper part of the pivot for the gun carriages remains visible. The majority of the iron hauling rings for traversing and preparing the guns are still in place. A single-storey coastguard hut, irregular on plan and constructed of brick and timber, was erected in 1979 occupying the forward (east) gun emplacement, with an aluminium flagpole attached to its landward side; the coastguard hut is excluded from the listing as it is not of special architectural or historic interest. Two round, red bricks chimneys rise above the parapet on the north-east and east sides; the north-east chimney survives to its full height. Two single-storey, red brick surrounds were added over the stair exits around 1979; these are excluded from the listing as they are not of special architectural or historic interest.

INTERIOR: the first floor is a single space, although evidence shows that it was originally divided into three rooms as with the other east coast Martello towers: one room for billeting a garrison of 24 men (on the east side), a room for the commanding officer (north-east side) and another room as a quartermaster’s storeroom (north side). A substantial central brick pillar, approximately 1.8m in diameter, fans out to form a barrel-vaulted ceiling and support the former gun platform on the roof. A musket rack formerly ran around the central column (no longer present). Inside the front door, an iron ring at the apex of the vaulted ceiling was used to haul provisions or munitions to and from the basement, via a trapdoor. A water pump which originally stood within a niche to one side of the entrance has been removed. The former garrison accommodation over the ground floor powder magazine, has a stone flag floor and the remainder of the first floor has timber plank flooring, originally oak. Both the former garrison accommodation and officer’s accommodation (in the north-east part) each have a replacement fireplace and a segmental-arched window opening with deeply splayed reveals and a vent over. Two segmental-arched doors on the north and south walls lead to curved stairways in the thickness of the wall to the roof-top gun platform, and both stairs survive intact. Access to the ground floor, originally via a trapdoor and ladder was replaced by an L-plan stair in the early C21. The entire ground floor was used for the storage of provisions and munitions and the walls contain segmental-arched recesses with vents. The central column is thick at this level (around 2.4m in diameter), supporting radial joists for the floor above. The east quadrant is walled off from the rest as the former powder magazine or store and was illuminated from an interior light passage by a canted glazed window and lantern to prevent a spark causing an explosion; the window survives although the original blast glass has been replaced with modern safety glass. The ground floor originally had a timber-boarded floor over a food and water store however this has been replaced by a poured concrete floor.

The tower is surrounded by a brick lined, dry moat the width of which is estimated to be 12.5m. Typically the moats were up to 5m deep. The ditch has been infilled but survives as a buried feature and is evident as an earthwork on the surface; it is included in the Schedule entry for Martello Tower P (NHLE 1006013) and forms part of a wider military landscape on Wireless Green.

Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the two late-C20 stair surrounds on the roof and late-C20 coastguard hut are not of special architectural or historic interest, however any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require LBC and this is a matter for the LPA to determine.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

286271

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Sutcliffe, S, Martello Towers, (1972)

Websites
Martello Towers, accessed 29 May 2025 from https://martellotowers.co.uk/uk
National Coastwatch Institution, ‘The history of NCI Felixstowe’, accessed 29 May 2025 from https://www.ncilivinghistory.org.uk/sites/default/files/content/Station%20Histories/Felixstowe%20History.pdf
Suffolk Heritage Explorer, 'Monument record FEX 294 - South Seafront and Martello Tower P, Felixstowe', accessed 29 May 2025 from https://heritage.suffolk.gov.uk/Monument/MSF26571
East Suffolk Council, 'Regeneration, Martello Tower P', accessed 29 May 2025 from https://www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/business/regeneration-projects/martello-tower-p/#:~:text=HM%20Coastguard%20built%20the%20first,lookout%20was%20built%20in%201979.

Other
English Heritage, ‘An Assessment of the East Coast Martello Towers – Desk Top Assessment’ Research Department Report Series no. 89-2007, (2007)

End of official list entry

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