Cabot Tower is a tower in
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland.
The city spans and is the easternmost city in North America ...
, situated on
Signal Hill. Construction of the tower began in 1898 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of
John Cabot
John Cabot ( it, Giovanni Caboto ; 1450 – 1500) was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is the earliest-known European exploration of coastal North ...
's discovery of
Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
, and
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to celebrate a Diamond ...
.
In 1901,
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...
received the first trans-Atlantic wireless message at a position near the tower, the letter "S" in
Morse Code
Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
sent from
Poldhu
Poldhu is a small area in south Cornwall, England, UK, situated on the Lizard Peninsula; it comprises Poldhu Point and Poldhu Cove. Poldhu means "black pool" in Cornish. Poldhu lies on the coast of Mount's Bay and is in the northern part of th ...
,
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, United Kingdom. Cabot Tower is now the centre of the Signal Hill
National Historic Site of Canada
National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment
An environment minister (sometimes minister of the environment or secretary of t ...
, with walking trails and an interpretation centre.
History
![Cabot tower stamp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Cabot_tower_stamp.jpg)
Begun in 1898, to commemorate both Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and the 400th anniversary of John Cabot's (Giovanni Caboto) voyage to the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
, Cabot Tower was completed in 1900 and has been a part of a number of historic events.
Although now one of the most recognizable symbols of St. John's and Newfoundland and Labrador, its construction was not well supported in the town. Most of St. John's burned to the ground in 1892 and the banks in Newfoundland crashed in 1894. When Judge
D.W. Prowse, a prominent local man, suggested building Cabot Tower, one person said in a local paper that "it's like putting a silk hat on the head of a man who can't afford to buy a pair of boots." Another project, the Victoria Wing of the local hospital, received much more public support.
The building was used primarily for flag signalling. The
British military
The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, su ...
first used Signal Hill, originally known as the Lookout, for this purpose in around 1704. There was a mast at the highest point on the hill, and it would be the job of a signalman to keep an eye out for ships approaching the city. When one was spotted he would indicate by flag what type of ship it was, what country it was from and fire off a cannon so that the men below in the town would know to look towards the hill. Those townsfolk would then fire off a response. By the end of the 18th century, a blockhouse had been constructed on the site. By the 19th century, the signalling was done mostly for the various merchants who operated out of St. John's. Cabot Tower was the last in a line of signalling blockhouses built on Signal Hill. It was used for flag signalling until 1958.
In 1933, a
Marconi station
A list of early wireless telegraphy radio stations of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. Guglielmo Marconi developed the first practical radio transmitters and receivers between 1895 and 1901. His company, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph ...
, which operated until 1960, was opened on the second floor of Cabot Tower.
In 1920, one of the first wireless transatlantic transmissions of the human voice was made there. Men at the wireless station were able to talk with the steamship Victoria which was steaming out of England. Today, the Society of Newfoundland Radio Amateurs operates a
ham radio
Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...
there.
Architectural value
Located at the highest point of Signal Hill, overlooking the city and the ocean, Cabot Tower is an example of late-
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
style. Built of irregularly coursed red
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
, it is composed of a two-story, 30 foot, square structure with a three-story, 50 foot octagonal tower that stands on the southeast corner of the building. The corners are buttressed at the first floor level and further emphasized through the use of heavier blocks of stone. On the main body of the building, at the top of the second storey level, is a line of repeating pattern like an exaggerated
dentil
A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...
row or inverted
crenelation
A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...
s. The attached tower, which houses the main entrance, is very plain with a double string course marking the divisions between second and third storeys and heavy
corbel
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...
tables marking the eight corners of the turret at the flared upper level. The windows on both the corner turret and the body of the tower proper are rectangular and set under heavy stone lintels.
The architect of Cabot Tower, William Howe Greene, was a prominent St. John's architect and an associate of the
Royal Institute of British Architects
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...
.
File:Cabot Tower on Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland.jpg, View from south
File:Cabot Tower and St John's.jpg
See also
*
Dingle Tower,
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
– bronze plaque to
John Cabot
John Cabot ( it, Giovanni Caboto ; 1450 – 1500) was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is the earliest-known European exploration of coastal North ...
*
Cabot Tower, Bristol
Cabot Tower is a tower in Bristol, England, situated in a public park on Brandon Hill, between the city centre, Clifton and Hotwells. It is a grade II listed building.
The tower was built in the 1890s to commemorate the 400th anniversary of t ...
References
{{NHSC
Gothic Revival architecture in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
Guglielmo Marconi
Towers in Canada