Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Boyle Tower and garden entrance, Home of Compassion

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Garden entrance, of the late C18, and tower, probably of early C19 date. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1420712
Date first listed:: 04-Jul-2014
List Entry Name:: Boyle Tower and garden entrance, Home of Compassion

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Also of interest

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1420712
Date first listed:: 04-Jul-2014
List Entry Name:: Boyle Tower and garden entrance, Home of Compassion
Location Description:: Home of Compassion, Thames Ditton, Surrey, Elmsbridge TQ1615567157

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Surrey
District:: Elmbridge (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ1617867271

Summary

Garden entrance, of the late C18, and tower, probably of early C19 date.

Reasons for Designation

Boyle Tower, an early C19 stock brick tower thought to have been a ferryman's watch house, and the attached C18 brick garden entrance are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Date and intactness: both structures pre-date 1840 and are substantially intact; * Rarity and architectural interest: the tower has circular openings overlooking the River Thames at a point where historically there was a ferry. It is possible that this functioned as a ferryman's watch house, an extremely rare building type. Also garden entrances do not usually have tunnels as here; * Group value: part of a group with the listed Home of Compassion and the former stable block with which they were functionally related.

History

Boyle Tower appears to date from the early C19 but is set in a section of C18 brick walling which includes a garden entrance leading between the house and River Thames. The circular openings facing the river at two levels suggest that it may have been used as a ferryman's watch tower but it may also have been used as a gardener's hut.

A ferryman's watch house is an extremely rare building type providing historical witness to a former means of transport across a river. Here a ferry was known to have been in this position since at least the reign of Henry VIII but access to Boyle Island is now provided by an iron bridge.

Details

Garden entrance, of the late C18, and tower, probably of early C19 date.

MATERIALS: the tower is constructed of stock brick in Flemish bond with C20 pantiles to the gables. The garden entrance and section of wall is mainly constructed in red brick.

PLAN: three storey tower, square on plan, containing one room at each level, accessed by ladder, and an adjoining garden entrance to the north.

EXTERIOR: tower of two storeys with gable ends with kneelers to the north and south sides and an oculus in the north side facing the river. This side also has a low external chimneystack. The east or entrance elevation has a brick stringcourse and a flat-arched entrance. The garden entrance consists of a west-facing wooden architrave beneath an elliptical arch, and with a plank door. It is set in a section of brick wall adjoining the tower to the north. This entrance leads into a round-headed brick tunnel with a gabled roof, terminating in a round-headed arch supported on brick corbels at the eastern end.

INTERIOR: the tower has the remains of a brick fireplace and wooden shelving on the ground floor and ladder access only above.

Sources

None.

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.