Naze Tower, Walton-on-the-Naze (EHER 3576)

The Naze Tower was built as a Navigation Tower for Trinity House in 1720. It was designed to serve with Walton Hall Tower as a guide to vessels through the Goldmer Gap and also, with a light in Suffolk, to lead into the Suffolk and Essex border rivers. Constructed of plum-coloured brick and octagonal in design, it is built of three reducing stages with clasping buttresses to the angles. The upper stage is thought to date to the 19th or 20th centuries and a concrete brick plinth was added, below the original brick plinth, at the bottom of the tower in 1979. The third stage of the tower features two upper round headed window openings as well as three windows above the second stage, two of which are blocked. The second stage has two round headed windows whilst there is merely one window at the first stage of the tower. The tower has twentieth century vertically boarded doors above which is a lead plaque, stating 'Trinity House 1720'. The interior has several storeys reached by an iron spiral staircase and has an iron framework to the top section. It was used as a radar tower during the Second World War as part of the Chain Home Low Station here.

Built in 1720 by Trinity House as a seamark, presumably on the site of an earlier tower shown on maps from 1610 onwards. <1> <2> <3> But according to Pevsner it was built in 1796 as a beacon, by Trinity House. Described as tall, slim, polygonal and embattled. <4>; "Designed to serve, with Walton Hall tower, as a guide to vessels through the Goldmer Gap and also with a light in Suffolk to lead into the Suffolk/Essex border rivers". Dated 1720 for Trinity House. The upper stage is thought to date to the 19th or 20th centuries and a concrete brick plinth was added, below the original brick plinth at the bottom of the tower, in 1979. The third stage of the tower features two upper round headed window openings as well as three windows above the second stage, two of which are blocked. The second stage has two round headed windows whilst there is just one window at the first stage of the tower. The tower has twentieth century vertically boarded doors above which is a lead plaque, stating 'Trinity House 1720'. The interior has several storeys reached by an iron spiral staircase and an iron framework to the top section. <14> Aerial photographs in EHER. <5> and <6> "The Naze Tower at Walton, The First Line of Defence", written by Reg O'Neil, MBE, is a booklet published in 2006. <7> It concentrates on the history of the tower during World War Two when it was used as a CHL (Chain Home Low) radar station. The large rotating aerial was mounted on the top of the tower to increase the range that the aerial could "see" over the horizon, this being particularly important as the CHL stations were designed to detect low-flying aircraft. The equipment was split into two parts, the transmitter which was first installed on the ground floor and later moved to the top floor, and the receiver which was located on the floor below. The station passed its information to the CH station at Great Bromley who would then pass it on to the filter room at Stanmore in Middlesex. In 1944, the booklet records that "a mobile type 13 height finder was installed close to the tower and a mobile type 57 was positioned close by at Holland Haven, (both centimetric radars), both radars feeding information into the CHL". The station clearly played an important part in detecting enemy aircraft and, later, V1 flying bombs throughout World War Two until its final closure in 1946. Visited in February 2010 by F. Nash Visited and viewed externally, the tower survives well having been opened to the public in June 2004 "after fairly extensive renovation". Opening days are 1 April to 31 October annually. Along the cliff edge are the final remains of concrete bases, on which the accommodation huts once stood. The erosion of the cliff face here has been extensive and the edge is now advancing towards the tower. Thirty yards south of the tower is a square building, possibly a Generator House (see EHER 21363). Two photos were taken of the site. <8> Visited with Clacton VCH Group in October 2010: The interior of the tower was visited, with Clacton VCH Group, in October 2010. it is now managed as a visitor attraction with tea bar on the ground floor and all floors renovated and accessible via a winding staircase. None of the radar equipment remains although small parts of unidentified steelwork survive in the side walls. Reg O'Neil, who served as a Radar Operator at the tower during the war, met the group on the grass outside the tower and kindly passed on his memories and answered many questions on the wartime operation of the site. Photos were taken of the site. <9> When the radar site was first established on the Naze the separate transmit and receive aerials, and the associated technical equipment, were all sited, not in the tower, but on the cliff edge 50/60 yards to the east of the tower. <7> Accommodation for the personnel who operated and serviced the equipment was in the town, "other ranks" with local residents and officers in hotels. An aerial photograph taken in February 1941 shows the site. There were around seven buildings and other structures plus a zig-zag trench. <13> "Seaside Front Line", Rayner, G, has a blown-up reproduction of this photograph and states, "The RDF (radar) site lies on the cliff edge between the Naze Tower and Tower Breakwater. The shadows of the 'transmit' and 'receive' aerials can be seen at either end of a short zig-zag defensive trench. Later in May 1942, the two aerials were combined into a single aerial erected on top of the Naze Tower". <11> "The Naze Tower at Walton" states that the early aerials on the cliff-top site were mounted on 'Lewisham' wooden gantries. "Later, as the results of cliff erosion and also that more updated equipment becoming available, it was decided to install an aerial type that had a common T & R (Transmit/Receive) switched system…. It was also discovered that to position the aerial at a greater height would benefit the search results by increasing the distance of the first pick-ups of incoming raids, as the system would be looking further over the horizon. So the new equipment was installed at the top of the Trinity House Tower….." <7> It was probably then, with the movement of the aerials and technical equipment to the tower, that the decision was taken to convert the cliff-top site to accommodation and domestic facilities. "The Naze Tower at Walton" states, "…. A domestic site was built on the cliff edge to facilitate the housing of the airmen with the necessary provision to feed the crews". An aerial photograph taken in July 1946 shows this change. Although on the same site as that shown on the 1941 photograph, the hutting is completely different. In 1946, there are around ten huts, some Nissen, including one large unidentified building. No trench or aerials can be seen. <12> The corner co-ordinates of the rectangular site are: TM 2654 2354, TM 2656 2353, TM 2655 2346 and TM 2652 2346. Coastal erosion of the cliff-top has continued and very little now remains of the concrete bases of the huts. Additional reference <14>