The Stormtower at Compass Point is beginning to rise again.
Councillor Peter La Broy’s facebook post is fascinating.
Talking to the construction team, it seems a few dated coins were found when dismantling the Pepperpot, which suggests it had been rebuilt or had major surgery at least twice since the last recorded full reconstruction.
He Adds:
To the top of the masonry will be the original Compass Point stones and above that was a cast concrete fascia/moulding.
Copies of the profile were carefully recorded and this is currently being cut by specialist stonemasons at Wells from stone as near as we can get to that used in the Tower.
Construction time was lost in July to the wet weather and we are a few weeks behind schedule.
But…the risk of losing the Tower is now over, the unexpected discoveries of original construction are now known, and the remaining work should be straightforward.
An insight from the contractor; if this work hadn’t gone ahead this year, it is probable that it would have been too late…
Captain John Acland wrote (in 1914) that “the Storm Tower was used as a Coast guard look-out, built around 1830. Fifty years later, owning to the wasting away of the cliff, it was taken down and rebuilt in a safer position.”
History is repeating itself.