Beckford's Tower

Beckford's Tower
General information
Architectural style	neo-classical folly
Town or city	Bath
Country	England
Completed	1827
Client	William Beckford
Owner	The Beckford Tower Trust (Bath Preservation Trust)
Technical details
Size	120 feet high
Design and construction
Architect	Henry Goodridge

Beckford's Tower, originally known as Lansdown Tower, is an architectural folly built in neo-classical style on Lansdown Hill, just outside Bath, Somerset, England.

History

Standing 120 feet (37 m) high, the tower was completed in 1827 for local resident William Beckford to a design by Henry Goodridge. Beckford wished that he had built the tower forty feet higher and admitted: "such as it is, it is a famous landmark for drunken farmers on their way home from market". Located at the end of pleasure gardens called Beckford's Ride which ran from his house in Lansdown Crescent up to the tower at the top of Lansdown Hill, Beckford used the tower as both a library and a retreat. He also made it his habit to ride up to the tower to view the progress of gardens and works then walk down to breakfast.

Beckford's own choice of the best of works of art, virtu, books and prints as well as the rich furnishings from Fonthill Abbey, which he had sold in 1822, were rehoused in his double adjoining houses in Lansdown Crescent, Bath and at the tower. One long narrow room was fitted out as an "oratory", where the paintings were all of devotional subjects and a marble Virgin and Child stood bathed in light from a hidden skylight.

The most striking feature of the tower is the topmost gilded lantern (or belvedere), based on the peripteral temple at Tivoli and the Tower of the Winds at Athens. From here, with a strong spyglass, Beckford could make out shipping in the Bristol Channel.

After Beckford's death on 2 May 1844 the Tower was sold to a local publican who turned it into a beer garden. Eventually it was re-purchased by Beckford's daughter, Susan Beckford, 10th Duchess of Hamilton, who gave the surrounding land to Walcot parish for consecration as a cemetery in 1848. This enabled the return of Beckford's body from Bath Abbey Cemetery in Lyncombe Vale for reburial near the tower as per his original wishes. His self-designed tomb — a massive sarcophagus of pink polished granite with bronze armorial plaques - stands on a hillock in the cemetery at the centre of an oval ditch. On one side is a quotation from his own Gothic novel Vathek: "Enjoying humbly the most precious gift of heaven to man — Hope"; and on another these lines from his poem, A Prayer: "Eternal Power! Grant me, through obvious clouds one transient gleam Of thy bright essence in my dying hour."

The cemetery was declared redundant and sold in 1971, with the then rector of Lansdown remarking that the tower was of little architectural interest. The tower was restored in 1995.

Museum

Today, the tower is home to a museum collection displaying furniture originally made for the tower, alongside paintings, prints and objects illustrating William Beckford’s life as a writer, collector and patron of the arts. Visitors can follow in Beckford’s footsteps and climb the spiral staircase to the restored belvedere below the lantern and experience panoramic views of the surrounding countryside, including western Bath. On a clear day, it is possible to see King Alfred's Tower at Stourhead, the two White Horse monuments at Westbury and Cherhill, the Forest of Dean and across the Bristol Channel into South Wales.

The tower is now owned by the Bath Preservation Trust and managed by its subsidiary, The Beckford Tower Trust. It has been designated by Historic England as a grade I listed building.

Part of the tower is available to rent as a holiday home through the Landmark Trust.

See also

• Sham Castle, another folly overlooking Bath
• Brown's Folly, another folly overlooking Bath

External links

• Beckford's Tower and Museum
• Beckford's Tower on Flickr
• Landmark Trust
• National historical record from the National Monuments Record
• Images of England record of Beckford's Tower