30 RECORDS AND REMINISCENCES OF GOODWOOD 



1806. The one at Seaford was one of the most 

 important ; it is seated on the beach, the founda- 

 tions being very deep and wide. At the ground it 

 forms a circle of 136 feet in circumference and tapers 

 upwards, so that at the top its circumference is re- 

 duced to about ninety feet. It is thirty-two feet 

 high, and is built of brick coped with large blocks 

 of granite, the wall facing the sea being six feet 

 in thickness at the base, the strength gradually 

 diminishing as it approaches the summit, where it 

 is two feet in thickness. 



The tower contains a magazine and apartments for 

 an officer and twenty-four men, and space also for 

 one or two large guns. It is surrounded by a wide 

 and deep fosse faced by a strong wall crossed by a 

 wooden drawbridge leading to a door about halfway 

 up the tower. This Martello tower is stated to have 

 cost from £18,000 to £20,000. The others were 

 smaller and less costly. 



In later years, as the destructive power of ord- 

 nance increased, it was thought useless to maintain 

 all these towers, yet the resistance which they offered 

 to demolition by modern guns was extraordinary. 



On the 7th of August, 1860, a temporary battery 

 of Armstrong guns was planted to test by an assault 

 the strength of one of these towers, which was situ- 

 ated upon the beach at Pevensey, and was becoming 

 i^itenable by reason of the encroachment of the 



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