Broadway Tower is a

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 ...

on Broadway Hill, near the large village of

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

, in the English county of

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

, at the second-highest point of the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

(after Cleeve Hill). Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 65 feet (20 metres) tall. While a folly, it is functional in the sense there are rooms inside.

History

The 'Saxon' tower was the brainchild of

Capability Brown Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English la ...

and designed by

James Wyatt James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806. Early life W ...

in 1794 in the form of a

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

, and built for Barbara, Countess of Coventry in 1798–1799. The tower was built on a

beacon A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. A common example is the lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be used to navigate around obstacles or into port. More mode ...

hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered whether a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

—about away—and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. Indeed, the beacon could be seen clearly. For some years, the tower became home to the

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...

of Sir

Thomas Phillipps Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1st Baronet (2 July 1792 – 6 February 1872), was an English antiquary and book collector Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, ...

. By the mid-1870s, it was being rented by C J Stone and Cormell Price, the latter being headmaster of the

United Services College The United Services College was an English boys' public school for the sons of military officers, located at Westward Ho! near Bideford in North Devon. Almost all boys were boarders. The school was founded to prepare pupils for a career as of ...

Westward Ho! Westward Ho! is a seaside village near Bideford in Devon, England. The A39 road provides access from the towns of Barnstaple, Bideford, and Bude. It lies at the south end of Northam Burrows and faces westward into Bideford Bay, opposite Sau ...

, and a close friend and confidant of artists

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...

, and

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

: "I am up at Crom Price's Tower among the winds and the clouds," Morris wrote in a letter to Aglaia Coronio in the summer of 1876. 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, Broadway Tower monitored

nuclear fallout Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...

in England; an underground Royal Observer Corps bunker was built from the Tower. Staffed continuously from 1961 and designated as a master post, the

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. ...

was one of the last such

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

bunkers constructed and, although officially stood down in 1991, the bunker is now one of the few remaining fully equipped facilities in England.

Broadway Tower Country Park

The tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee, as well as a gift shop and restaurant. The place is on the

Cotswold Way The Cotswold Way is a long-distance footpath, running along the Cotswold Edge escarpment of the Cotswold Hills in England. It was officially inaugurated as a National Trail on 24 May 2007 and several new rights of way have been created. His ...

and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the

A44 road The A44 is a major road in the United Kingdom that runs from Oxford in southern England to Aberystwyth in west Wales. History The original (1923) route of the A44 was Chipping Norton to Aberystwyth. No changes were made to the route of the ...

at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village.

References

External links

Official site
{{Worcestershire Castles in Worcestershire Monuments and memorials in Worcestershire Folly towers in England Tourist attractions in Worcestershire Cotswolds Towers completed in 1799 Towers in Worcestershire