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Naze Tower is a navigation tower built by Trinity House and completed in 1720. Situated at the start of the open area of the Naze, near Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, it was designed to serve in combination with Walton Hall Tower as a guide for vessels sailing through the Goldmer Gap.[1]
Eighty-six feet (26 m) high, the tower overlooks the North Sea, Hamford Water and the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich. When originally built it would have had beacons lit on it to aid navigation, an early form of lighthouse. It was taken over by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and used as a radar station.[2]
The land on which the tower is built is subject to coastal erosion, in an attempt to arrest which a 110-metre (361 ft) Crag Walk, consisting of more than 16,000 tonnes of granite, has been built along the Naze, completed in 2011.[3]
Naze Tower was designated a Grade II* listed building
Structure of particular architectural and/or historic interest deserving of special protection. in 1984.[1] It was bought by the Nye-Browne family in 1996 for £50,000, with the intention of converting the landmark into a house, but they decided instead to run it as a tourist attraction.[4]
Architecture
Naze Tower is built of plum-coloured brick. It is octagonal with three reducing stages, the upper dating from the 19th or 20th century. The tower’s eight floors house an art gallery, a museum, café and roof viewing platform, and are reached by an internal iron spiral staircase of 111 steps.[1][4][5]
