Hisroric England
The Gothic style Pigeon Tower in Rivington Gardens, Lancashire, originally known as the Lookout Tower and then Dovecote Tower, was built by R. Atkinson to a design by the landscape architect Thomas Mawson, for the soap magnate William Lever. Completed in about 1910, Lever is said to have given it to his wife Elizabeth Ellen as a birthday present. She supposedly used the top floor as a sewing room, while the lower floors housed ornamental doves and pigeons. The wall adjoining the tower was built to house white doves.[1][2]
Following Lever’s death in 1925, his Rivington estate was purchased by John Magee
Brewery operating from the Crown Brewery in Bolton, Lancashire, England from 1888 until being taken over by Greenall Whitley in 1958., and after Magee’s death in 1939 was acquired by Liverpool Corporation. In 1974 the site passed to the North West Water Authority as a result of local government reorganisation, by which time the Pigeon Tower was little more than a “ruined shell”; it was renovated at a cost of £5,000 in 1975.[2]
The Pigeon Tower was designated a Grade II listed building in 1987.[2]
Architecture
The tower is built in rock-faced gritstone with stone dressings, and has a steeply pitched stone slate roof. It is square in plan, with an attached semi-circular stair tower to its west. The three-storey tower has a basement entrance on its south side.[2]
