Although some collapsed after their foundations were eroded by the sea, and others were blown up by the Germans during the Occupation, Jersey has a remarkable record of retaining its coastal towers. Although some have been incorporated into residential buildings, the majority of the 24 surviving towers are in more-or-less original condition. This 75% survival rate compares very favourably with nine out of 103 on the English east coast.
- Jersey's Martello Towers an article from the 1971 Annual Bulletin of La Société Jersiaise, the title of which perpetuates the mis-naming of the towers as 'martello', although the article does explain that few of the total number were of the 'martello' design. The article provides little detail about the individual towers.
Battle of Jersey
Only three years after approval was given in 1778 for the construction of the towers, Jersey was indeed invaded, leading to the Battle of Jersey on 6 January 1781. Ironically one of the first towers had already been built close to where the French landed, but failed to detect the arrival of the invading troops. And although the construction programme continued after the Battle, not a single shot was to be fired in anger from any of them.
Considering how prominently they feature in the island's coastal landscape, it is remarkable how little is known about the coastal towers. Even the scholarly work The Coastal Towers of Jersey by William Davies, published by La Société Jersiaise in 1991 only refers to some of the towers by name, giving no further details on when they were built.
We also acknowledge the assistance given by Fortifications of Jersey, written and first published in 2021 by David Dorgan on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
There are no records of the order in which the towers were constructed, nor, indeed, of how and when some of the original towers disappeared over the past 200 years.
This website is now putting this right by creating far more detailed histories of each tower than have been published before - see links below.
General Conway
What is known is that the towers were the brainchild of Jersey's Governor, General (later Field Marshal) Henry Seymour Conway, who was horrified at the state of Jersey's defences when he first came to the island in 1778, six years after his appointment. Using his connections in the English government, Conway was quickly able to obtain approval to build 30 defensive towers.
On 20 May 1778, the same month when he first arrived in Jersey, he wrote to the Secretary of State, Thomas Thynne, Marquess of Bath:
- "The plan I have formed for that purpose [defence] is that of erecting on the shore of the several bays, a number of Round Towers..."
The reason why Conway was able to come up with this plan so quickly was that he was a student of military history and warfare, and the idea of defending a large town with a ring of towers had already been conceived by Maurice, Comte de Saxe, who was appointed Marshal of France by Louis XV. Conway saw that the idea could readily be adapted to the defence of an island the size of Jersey and quickly calculated the number of towers which would be needed to provide a strong defence against invasion. The towers were concentrated in the sections of coastline he thought were most likely to be used for a landing of enemy troops.
The towers were not Martello towers. It is generally agreed that the word is a corruption of Mortella, the name of a Corsican cape where a tower fired on two British warships in 1794, repulsing their attack. This engagement impressed the British Government, which ordered the construction of 150 towers of similar design on England's south and east coasts to defend against a possible invasion by Napoleon.
The Martello towers were of a quite distinct design to those commissioned by Conway. The towers in Jersey which are closer to the Martello design and were all built after 1800 are L'Etacq (destroyed), Fort Kempt and Fort Lewis in St Ouen's Bay; Portelet, Noirmont, Icho, Victoria and La Collette. These are of a much squatter design than Conway's upright towers and do not have the overhanging machicoulis, which are unique to Jersey's towers. However, there is no record of their being referred to as 'Martello towers' at the time they were built and the description is believed to have arisen at some time in the 20th century, when the informal designation of the towers along the English east coast was incorrectly applied to all of those in Jersey.
Conway towers were even described as Martello in contracts passed by the Royal Court when privately owned towers changed hands.
Further proof that Conway was well ahead of his time in defensive thinking is found in a letter he wrote to the Duke of Portland, Home Secretary, on 15 October 1794:
- "The plan I had formed as long as 1779: the same mentioned by Lord Balcarres [Commander of forces in Jersey in 1793] and consisting in the erecting of a number of Towers of Masonry with corresponding Batteries in all the accessible parts of the coast, the whole number at first projected thirty-two, of which twenty-two have been built..."
What's the difference?
A further detailed explanation of the difference between Jersey's earlier coastal towers and those more akin to Martello towers:
- "An easy way to distinguish between Jersey Round Towers (sometimes called Conway Towers after the Governor of Jersey at the time) and 'Martello' Towers is to look at their appearance and therefore their function. Jersey Round Towers have musket loop holes and were designed to be occupied by infantry. Their purpose was to hold up a landing of French troops until reinforcements arrived from elsewhere in the Island. They date from the 1780s. Examples: Le Hocq, all the round towers along Grouville Bay, Greve de Lecq, Ouaisne etc.
- "Martello Towers are artillery towers and have no musket loop holes and their purpose is to keep shipping and invading forces from landing. They can be found built on islets out to sea, and often have gun platforms at their base in addition to a roof mounted cannon. As they are at least 30 years later (about 1810) than the basic round towers, they have the advantage of improved cannon firepower developed during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Examples: Icho, Noirmont, and Portelet.
- "Martello Towers were named after the French tower at Point Mortella, Corsica, of a similar design, which the Royal Navy had found very difficult to overcome from the sea in 1794.
- "Kempt, Lewis, La Collette and Victoria (also Martellos) are all from the 1830s, a period of significant British military fortification building to counter perceived renewed French aggression. Just to confuse matters, Archirondel and Rocco are transitional designs of the 1790s, being a combination of a round tower and a lower artillery gun platform that would be expected of a Martello."
Design
Although there is no doubt that Conway conceived the idea of building a ring of round towers around the coast of Jersey, it is not known who was responsible for the original design. No drawing has been found and it has been suggested that the design, incorporating the distinctive machicoulis, was drawn up by Conway and his engineer, Frederick Basset. But Basset did not supervise the construction of Jersey's towers, having been transferred to Guernsey, where the towers are of a distinct design. Would Basset have designed towers of a particular design for Conway and then built something different in Guernsey?
H R S Pocock suggests in an article on the towers for the 1971 Annual Bulletin of La Société Jersiaise that the Board of Ordnance would have produced the detailed drawings and specifications for the towers, but the fact that Jersey's towers were built of granite, rather than the brick used elsewhere, suggests that there must have been a strong input from the island.
Specification
The records of the Board of Ordnance contain details of construction and cost:
- "General Conway (20 May 1778) in his report on Jersey proposed the erection of 30 Round Towers for the defence of the island. Towers to be of masonry, 30-40 feet high and about 500 yeards from each other - to be absolutely solid for 10-12 feet from the bottom. Wall above to be strong, pierced with loop-holes for musketry in two stages, and on top, where it is proposed to place cannon, a parapet of brick ... ... the engineers to estimate the expense of erecting these 30 towers for the King's orders."
- "Board report (3 July 1778) to Lord Weymouth: that they had caused an estimate to be made of the charge for erecting 30 towers in Jersey. £156 each = £4,680. Have order4ed 100 wallpieces and 200 rounds of ammunition to be sent to Jersey.
Construction
Responsibility for building the towers passed to a Captain F G Mulcaster, who distinguished himself during the Battle of Jersey by refusing to surrender Elizabeth Castle to the French, and after whom Mulcaster Street was named. Records show that after the rapid sanctioning of his proposals by the British Government, Conway was frustrated that no building work had started by 1779. Mulcaster arrived in Jersey on 14 March 1779 and is believed to have built four towers that year, although it is not known which they were.
The histories of individual towers
- Fliquet Tower
- St Catherine Tower
- Archirondel Tower
- Victoria Tower
- Grouville No 8
- Grouville No 5
- Grouville No 4
- Grouville No 3
- Grouville No 2
- Grouville No 1, La Rocque Tower
- History of La Rocque Tower, Giles Bois' detailed history of Grouville Bay No 1
- Platte Rocque
- Seymour Tower
- Icho Tower
- Le Hocq
- La Collette
- First Tower coastal tower
- Bel Royal
- Beaumont
- Noirmont
- Portelet
- Ouaisne
- St Brelade
- La Rocco
- St Ouen A
- St Ouen B
- St Ouen C
- St Ouen D
- Kempt Tower
- Lewis Tower
- Tour Carre
- L'Etacq
- Greve de Lecq
Although they are not strictly coastal towers, the two forts on Grouville Common, which are older, were an integral part of the chain of defensive installations conceived by General Conway and had the military designation Grouville Bay No 6 and No 7, although they were never popularly known by these descriptions
And follow these links to articles on much earlier military installations:
And the biggest of them all
See also Other fortifications for a gallery of miscellaneous fortification pictures
Miscellany
Tower plans
A section through a tower
