Survey Data
Reg No
30410906
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Technical
Original Use
Martello tower
Date
1800 - 1810
Coordinates
200454, 216000
Date Recorded
05/08/2009
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached tapered profile two-storey Martello tower, constructed c.1805, currently not in use. Standing on west side of River Shannon at Banagher Bridge. Cut limestone coping and cast-iron rainwater goods. Ashlar limestone walls with projecting plinth course. Square-headed opening at first floor level of south side with sloping sill and with projecting brackets to east side of opening. Square-headed openings to north and south sides with cast-iron grills to openings.
Appraisal
Strategically sited to protect the river crossing at Banagher, this solidly built Martello tower is part of an important group of buildings constructed in Britain and Ireland in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to protect against a threatened Napoleonic invasion. This tower is of special importance due to its inland location on the River Shannon, and forms a group with the impressive Banagher Bridge and 'Cromwell's Castle, an earlier fortication nearby.