Broadway Tower, Worcestershire

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Broadway Tower in 2007 Broadway tower edit.jpg
Broadway Tower in 2007
Broadway Tower in 2012 Broadway Tower 2012.jpg
Broadway Tower in 2012

Broadway Tower is an 18th-century folly near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire. It is a Grade II listed building. [1]

Contents

The tower is built of limestone ashlar and is four storeys high, hexagonal, with three round corner turrets, [a] battlements and gargoyles. [1] It stands above the village of Broadway on Broadway Hill, the second-highest point of the Cotswolds, at an elevation of 1,024 feet (312 m). [2] [3] The tower itself is 65 feet (20 m) tall. [3] Although a folly, it is a functional building with interior rooms, the top three floors being used as a museum. The rooftop viewing platform can be accessed for good views. [4] Two of the turrets each contain a spiral staircase leading from the ground to the roof.

The tower is on the Cotswold Way, and can be reached by following this footpath from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village. It is now the centre of Broadway Tower Country Park, which has exhibitions open to the public for a fee, as well as a gift shop and restaurant. [4]

History

The Saxon-style tower was the brainchild of landscaper Capability Brown, designed by architect James Wyatt in 1794 [3] [5] in the form of a castle, and built by the 6th Earl of Coventry for his wife Barbara in 1798–1799. Broadway Hill was a beacon hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. The tower was just visible from the Coventrys' home at Croome Court in south Worcestershire, [4] about 15 miles (24 km) to the north-west, past the north escarpment of Bredon Hill. One theory for its construction says that Lady Coventry wondered if a beacon on the hill could be seen from her house. Another is that it served to signal to the Croome Court staff that the earl and his wife were returning from their Spring Hill estate. [6]

From 1822 to 1862, the tower housed the private printing press of Sir Thomas Phillipps. [1] By the mid-1870s, it was being rented by C. J. Stone and Cormell Price. [7] Price was headmaster of the United Services College at Westward Ho! and a friend of artists William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti; in 1876 Morris wrote in a letter to Aglaia Coronio that he was "today at Crom Price's Tower among the winds and the clouds". [8]

Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

In the late 1950s, an underground Royal Observer Corps monitoring post was built nearby. It was decommissioned in 1991, but has been restored, and is now one of the few such Cold War monitoring facilities in England still extant and accessible to visitors. [9]

The Tower is the site of the Campden Wonder Executions

Notes

  1. Actually towers, because they reach the ground.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cotswolds</span> Protected area mostly in South West England

The Cotswolds is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat that is quarried for the golden-coloured Cotswold stone. It lies across the boundaries of several English counties: mainly Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and parts of Wiltshire, Somerset, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire. The highest point is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 ft (330 m), just east of Cheltenham. The predominantly rural landscape contains stone-built villages, towns, stately homes and gardens featuring the local stone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worcestershire</span> County of England

Worcestershire is a ceremonial county in the West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands county to the north, Warwickshire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south, and Herefordshire to the west. The city of Worcester is the largest settlement and the county town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earl of Coventry</span> Title in the Peerage of England

Earl of Coventry is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of England. The first creation for the Villiers family was created in 1623 and took its name from the city of Coventry. It became extinct in 1687. A decade later, the second creation was for the Coventry family and is still extant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malvern Hills District</span> Non-metropolitan district in England

Malvern Hills is a local government district in Worcestershire, England. Its council is based in Malvern, the district's largest town. The district also includes the towns of Tenbury Wells and Upton-upon-Severn and a large rural area covering much of the western side of the county, including numerous villages. The district is named after the Malvern Hills, which are a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Wyatt</span> English architect (1746 - 1813)

James Wyatt was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadway, Worcestershire</span> Human settlement in England

Broadway is a large village and civil parish in the Cotswolds, England, with a population of 2,540 at the 2011 census. It is in the far southeast of Worcestershire, close to the Gloucestershire border, midway between Evesham and Moreton-in-Marsh. It is sometimes referred to as the "Jewel of the Cotswolds".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worcestershire Beacon</span>

Worcestershire Beacon, also popularly known as Worcester Beacon, or locally simply as The Beacon, is a hill whose summit at 425 metres (1,394 ft) is the highest point in Worcestershire. It is part of the Malvern Hills which run about 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north-south along the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bredon Hill</span> Natural feature in Worcestershire, England

Bredon Hill is a hill in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Evesham in the Vale of Evesham. The summit of the hill is in the parish of Kemerton, and it extends over parts of eight other parishes. The hill is geologically part of the Cotswolds and lies within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. However, it now stands isolated in the Vale of Evesham due to natural causes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanderson Miller</span>

Sanderson Miller was an English pioneer of Gothic revival architecture and landscape designer. He is noted for adding follies or other Picturesque garden buildings and features to the grounds of an estate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Coventry (British Army officer)</span> English cricketer (1867–1929)

Colonel Charles John Coventry was a British Army officer and an amateur cricketer who played in two retrospectively-recognised Test matches for England in 1889. Those were his only first-class appearances and he was never a member of any first-class county team.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pirton, Worcestershire</span> Human settlement in England

Pirton is a small village in the English county of Worcestershire. The village has been occupied since at least 1086, when Domesday listed the village of Peritone within the hundred of Pershore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Croome Court</span> Country house in Worcestershire, England

Croome Court is a mid-18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland at Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn in south Worcestershire, England. The mansion and park were designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown for the 6th Earl of Coventry, and they were Brown's first landscape design and first major architectural project. Some of the mansion's rooms were designed by Robert Adam. St Mary Magdalene's Church, Croome D'Abitot that sits within the grounds of the park is now owned and cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Coventry, 8th Earl of Coventry</span> British politician (1784–1843)

George William Coventry, 8th Earl of Coventry, styled Viscount Deerhurst from 1809 to 1831, was a British peer and Tory Member of Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Coventry, 5th Earl of Coventry</span> British Whig politician

William Coventry, 5th Earl of Coventry, of London and later Croome Court, Worcestershire, was a British Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1719.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Coventry, 6th Earl of Coventry</span> British peer and Tory politician

George William Coventry, 6th Earl of Coventry, styled Viscount Deerhurst from 1744 to 1751, was a British peer and Tory politician.

Croome may refer to:

The Croome collection – the archive of the Earls of Coventry – came into public ownership in 2005 as part of the Acceptance in Lieu of Inheritance Tax Scheme, whereby the nation accepts valuable assets to set against tax liabilities. In 2006, after making a case to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) for housing the collection, Worcestershire Record Office was identified as its new permanent home. A project is currently underway to catalogue the collection according to the International Standard for Archival Description (ISAD, making it fully accessible to the public for the first time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Croome D'Abitot</span> Human settlement in England

Croome D'Abitot is a village and civil parish, which shares a joint parish council with Severn Stoke, in the Malvern Hills District in the county of Worcestershire, England. The parish church of St Mary Magdalene is situated in the grounds of Croome Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Mary Magdalene's Church, Croome D'Abitot</span> Church in Worcestershire, England

St Mary Magdalene's Church is a former Anglican church in the grounds of Croome Court, at Croome D'Abitot, Worcestershire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is under the care of The Churches Conservation Trust. The church, which is dedicated to Jesus' companion Mary Magdalene, stands on a hill in Croome Park. Commenting on the church, the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner stated it is "one of the most serious of the Early Gothic Revival outside, one of the most elegant inside".

Horewell Forest was a royal forest, i. e. a royal game preserve. In the west, it bordered the river Severn, and Strensham in the south and extended to Pershore. Parts of it ceased to belong to the royal forest in 1229.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Broadway Tower". Historic England. Retrieved 9 September 2024. It refers to Cormell Price as "Camel Price, an Oxford tutor".
  2. "Broadway Tower & Park". Broadway Tower. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 "History of Broadway Tower". Visit Broadway. 2 January 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 "Broadway Tower Country Park". Broadway Cotswolds. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  5. Colvin, Howard (1995). A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840 (3rd ed.). New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 1118. ISBN   0-300-06091-2. drawings by Wyatt dated 1794 in Estate Office, Croome
  6. "Broadway Tower: Thank Goodness for English Folly". Sat Nav and Cider. 26 September 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
  7. Price, Lorraine (1983). "Cormell Price Esq., The Tower, Broadway" (PDF). The Journal of the William Morris Society. 5 (4): 30–39. ISSN   1756-1353. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 March 2024. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  8. MacCarthy, Fiona (1994). William Morris: a Life for Our Time . Alfred A. Knopf Inc. p. 370. ISBN   0-394-58531-3.
  9. Stilliard, Ed (25 February 2023). "The nuclear bunker under a Cotswolds landmark you can actually visit". Gloucestershire Live. Retrieved 9 September 2024.

52°1′27″N1°50′9″W / 52.02417°N 1.83583°W / 52.02417; -1.83583