Clavell Tower, also known as Clavell Folly or the Kimmeridge Tower, is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

Tuscan style tower built in 1830. It lies on the

Jurassic Coast The Jurassic Coast, also known as the Dorset and East Devon Coast, is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about , and was ins ...

, on the top of Hen Cliff just east of Kimmeridge Bay in the

Isle of Purbeck The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome, Dorset, River Frome and Poo ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It is now a

Landmark Trust The Landmark Trust is a British architectural conservation, building conservation charitable organization, charity, founded in 1965 by John Smith (Conservative politician), Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or ...

property and in August 2006 was moved back from the crumbling cliff edge.

History

Clavell Tower was built in about 1830 by Reverend John Richards Clavell of Smedmore House as an

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

and

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

. The Reverend John Richards had changed his name to John Richards Clavell after inheriting the estate in 1817. The tower is about high and rises over what is known as Hen Cliff which rises about above the sea. The main tower is constructed of mortared selected stone and the windows are formed from brick. The ground floor is surrounded by Tuscan

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

and the roof has a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

built in stone. In total the tower has four floors; a stone ground floor, a wooden first, a wooden second and a wooden third floor. The tower is surmounted upon a shallow stone basement. Evidence suggests there were fireplaces within the ground floor which indicated the tower was intended to be occupied throughout the year. However, access to the first and second floors would have been accessible solely via a ladder.

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

, the novelist, often took his first love Eliza Nicholls to Clavell Tower. He used an illustration of it in his ''Wessex Poems''. The local Coastguards used it as a lookout until the 1930s, when it was gutted by fire. The desolate condition of Clavell Tower was the inspiration behind Baroness

P. D. James Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuri ...

's 1975 novel '' The Black Tower''. The tower was used by

Anglia Television ITV Anglia, previously known as Anglia Television, is the ITV franchise holder for the East of England. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional news bureaux in Cambridge and Northampton. ITV Anglia is owned and operated b ...

as a principal location in their six-part adaptation of the story starring

Roy Marsden Roy Marsden (born ''Roy Anthony Mould''; 25 June 1941) is an English actor who portrayed Adam Dalgliesh in the Anglia Television dramatisations (1983–1998) of P. D. James's detective novels, and Neil Burnside in the spy drama '' The S ...

in 1985, and it featured in the music video for

The Style Council The Style Council were an English pop band formed in Woking in 1982 by Paul Weller, the former lead vocalist, principal songwriter and guitarist with the rock band the Jam, and keyboardist Mick Talbot, previously a member of Dexys Midnight Ru ...

's 1985 single "Boy Who Cried Wolf".

Relocation

Clavell Tower is owned by The

. The turret above Kimmeridge Bay was threatened by shoreline erosion and was in imminent danger of toppling into the ocean below. The Landmark Trust have moved the tower landwards, away from the crumbling cliff top. The tower was rebuilt to be suitable for letting. Work started on 5 September 2006. Each of the tower's 16,272 stones was removed, numbered and photographed by engineers and specialist builders, before being reassembled slightly inland. The interior was renovated so that it can be used as a holiday home. The final stone was replaced onto the tower on 25 February 2008 in a traditional topping-out ceremony. The tower used 298 new carved stones, about of pipes and cables, 10 tons of render on the walls, 1,344 bags of lime and about 100 tons of sand. The building preservation charity hopes that the tower's maintenance will be paid for by rental income from holidaymakers. The monument accommodates two people. The living room on the top floor has a 360-degree view of the surrounding coast and countryside. The location was chosen for one of the five locations for the installation of sculptures by

Antony Gormley Sir Antony Mark David Gormley (born 30 August 1950) is a British sculptor. His works include the ''Angel of the North'', a public sculpture in Gateshead in the north of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected in February 1998; ''Another Pl ...

to mark the 50th anniversary of the Landmark Trust. The sculpture fell into the sea in September 2015.

References

External links

The Landmark Trust - Our Landmarks - Clavell TowerThe Landmark Trust - Search & Book - Clavell Tower
{{Jurassic Coast Isle of Purbeck Jurassic Coast Folly towers in England Towers completed in 1830 Towers in Dorset Tourist attractions in Dorset Grade II listed buildings in Dorset Landmark Trust properties in England 1830 establishments in England

History

Relocation

See also

References

External links