The Shot Tower at the Lambeth Lead Works was a shot tower that stood on the

South Bank The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial district in central London, next to the River Thames opposite the City of Westminster. It forms a narrow strip of riverside land within the London Borough of Lambeth (where it adjoins Alber ...

of the River Thames in London, England, between Waterloo Bridge and Hungerford Bridge, on the site of what is now the

Queen Elizabeth Hall The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten. The ...

. It was a prominent landmark on the river and featured in a number of paintings, including by

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...

History

The Shot Tower was built in 1826 for Thomas Maltby & Co., to a design by David Riddal Roper. In 1839 it was taken over by Walkers, Parker & Co., which also operated the square shot tower to the east of Waterloo Bridge. They operated the tower until 1949. Shortly after that it was featured near the end of the film '' Night and the City (1950)''. In 1950 the gallery chamber at the top of the tower was removed and a steel-framed superstructure was added instead, providing a

radio beacon In navigation, a radio beacon or radiobeacon is a kind of beacon, a device that marks a fixed location and allows direction-finding equipment to find relative bearing. But instead of employing visible light, radio beacons transmit electromagnet ...

for the Festival of Britain held in 1951. The tower was the only existing building to be retained on the site for the Festival. The tower was demolished in 1962 to make way for the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which opened in 1967.

Description

The tower was brick-built, with a slight taper. At the base it was in diameter, with thick walls. At the gallery located at the top, it was in diameter with walls. The gallery chamber was surrounded by a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and parapet, with an iron

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

. The gallery was high and was reached by a spiral staircase attached to the inside face of the wall. Halfway up there was a floor for making small lead shot. The gallery level at the top was used for making large shot. In a lecture given in 1991 (now preserved in the British Library Sound Archive) Hugh Casson, who had been the Director of Architecture for the Festival of Britain in 1951, described the tower as "an extraordinary device. It's a factory chimney, with a staircase inside it, and you take hot lead up to the top, and you drop it down, in drops, and the drops don't make tears as you'd expect, to get thicker as they go, they're absolutely perfect globes, and they're tiny, you see, as you know, I mean, they're absolutely wee, like the shot you get inside a cartridge. And there were two old men, one at the bottom and one at the top. The one at the top was the one with the hot lead, and he dropped it down into a cold bucket at the bottom, and it cooled it off at once, and then it was taken away and sold. And these two old boys were rather like two old fishermen in a boat, they'd been there for years. And they didn't speak, most of the time they were separated by 150 feet of shaft." .

References

External links

Shot Tower and Lead Works, No. 63 Belvedere Road
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British History Online

Shot Tower drawing
by William Lionel Wyllie in the National Maritime Museum {{coord , 51, 30, 24, N, 0, 7, 0, W, type:landmark_region:GB-SWK, display=title Towers completed in 1826 Shot towers Demolished buildings and structures in London Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Lambeth Festival of Britain Former towers 1826 establishments in England Buildings and structures demolished in 1962