Martello tower

Martello Towers are small defensive forts built at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The model for the towers was a round fortress at Mortella Point in Corsica, which, in 1794, had beaten off the attack of two British Warships, HMS Fortitude [74 guns] and HMS Juno [32 guns] but was eventually defeated by land based forces after two days of heavy fighting. Scetches and plans were subsequently used in 1803 by a military engineer, Captain William Ford, to propose a chain of such structures to defend the South Coast against possible invasion.