The threat of invasion

Between 1793 and 1802, Britain was involved in two European coalitions fighting against Revolutionary France. Armed conflict ended in 1802 but the fundamental differences were not resolved, and in 1803 Britain went to war with France again.

With his attention now focused on Britain, Napoleon Bonaparte began to assemble ‘the Army of the Ocean Coasts’ in the area around Boulogne on the Channel coast. French shipbuilders made barges to transport this army across the English Channel, while Napoleon considered how he might defeat or elude the Royal Navy to deliver his soldiers onto English soil.

From 1793, the British government had improved coastal defences and increased the size of its army by raising volunteers. But in 1803 much remained to be done – army numbers were about 30,000 short of the French 160,000. With such an imminent threat, planning began on measures to prevent the French from landing and then capturing a major port from which their army might be re-supplied.

The clear objective of the French was to capture London, the heart of the nation. There were several potential locations for a landing. The most likely were in the south-east, including the port of Dover and beaches west of it as far as Eastbourne, and on the east coast, including the deep-water port of Harwich and the long beaches north and south of it in Suffolk and Essex. To cover these possibilities, the government began to build defences to protect both areas.

Building the towers

Work on the south coast towers began early in 1805 and most of them – numbered 1 to 74 from east to west – were completed by 1808, though some work carried on for another two years. The new towers covered the most vulnerable stretches of beach and significant harbours, plugging gaps between existing gun batteries and forts built from 1793 onwards, for instance at Dungeness. There were three main concentrations – between Folkestone and Dungeness, along Winchelsea Beach, and between Rye and Eastbourne. There was a solitary tower further west, at Seaford.

The towers had to be built quickly, although the immediate threat of invasion was over late in 1805. Nevertheless, a possible threat remained until 1812 and work on defences continued.

The work was under the general supervision of Major General William Twiss, who was the military engineer in charge of the entire Southern District. It may have been one of his officers, William Ford, who drew up and refined the tower design.

The construction work was given to a civilian contractor, the London builder William Hobson, who subcontracted some of the work to two others, John ‘Yorky’ Smith and Edward Hodges. Each tower required about 250,000 bricks, a colossal quantity to produce and transport. Many came by ship from brick makers around London and in south-east England, while some were made from clay dug more locally, notably at several sites along the Sussex coast.

Life in the tower

Each tower was intended for a garrison of 25 men – one officer and 24 other ranks. Ideally, these were to be regular gunners to operate the 24-pounder gun, but in practice such men were in short supply. Some towers may have had a few regulars – often veterans and ‘invalids’ – but most probably housed militia (who were raised by ballot, trained in peacetime and called up in wartime) or volunteers. Volunteer artillery units were raised and served in the Hythe and Romney areas between 1797 and 1802. William Pitt the Younger, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, revived them in 1803 as a single regiment of Cinque Ports Volunteers, and some may have served in the towers. The Fife Militia, from Scotland, were at Dymchurch in 1806–7, and probably occupied or guarded tower 24.

The first-floor accommodation was divided by radial partitions into three – a room for the officer, a tiny room for a quartermaster, and a room for all the men. The officer’s room was only slightly smaller than the men’s, who would have been tightly packed. However, such cramped and unpleasant quarters would probably have been taken up fully only in emergencies. Ordinarily, there was probably a system with smaller detachments of men on alternate watches, while those off duty may have stayed in local inns.

The Coast Blockade and Coastguard

An invasion did not come, and the towers never saw any fighting. At the end of the Napoleonic War in 1815, the garrisons were disbanded, and the towers were disused, with only a caretaker to look after them. Towers 1 to 27 had all been disarmed by 1817, with the guns, carriages and platforms removed to storage. However, a new use was quickly found for some of the towers, including tower 24.

In 1816 a new naval force was created to combat smuggling, which was commonplace along the coast of Kent and Sussex. Known as the Coast Blockade, it conducted patrols in small ships and boats at sea and foot patrols on shore. Small detachments occupied coastal buildings and several Martello towers were made available to them.

Martello tower 24 was a Coast Blockade station from 1819, possibly earlier, and continued as such until 1832. It was a small naval barracks, usually for one officer (occasionally two) and between eight and thirteen ratings. In some stations, the ratings (non-officers) could have women living with them.

Patrol work and intercepting smuggling gangs were dangerous. The gangs were large, well-armed and ruthless and often enjoyed support from local people who benefited from their activities. One infamous band, the Aldington Gang, operated from the area of Romney Marsh until its members were finally brought to justice in 1826. In April 1830, Lieutenant Gustavus Baker from Martello tower 23 and Sentinel Martin Donovan of tower 24 were severely wounded in the head and legs in a fight at Dymchurch Wall.