Hoad Monument
Hoad Monument, properly named the Sir John Barrow Monument, is a 100-foot tower at the top of Hoad Hill (436 feet), to the north-east of Ulverston in the Furness area of Lancashire. Paid for mainly by public subscription, the monument was erected in 1850 at a cost of £1,250.
The monument commemorates Sir John Barrow who was born in the tiny village of Dragley Beck near Ulverston in 1764, the son of a tanner. Sir John was a founder member of the Royal Geographic Society, and held various government posts in the 19th century, serving as Second Secretary to the Admiralty for forty years almost without interruption, in which time he saw out the Royal Navy's victories of the Napoleonic Wars and afterwards sent out countless expeditions by sea and land to explore the unknown places of the Earth, in Africa, the oceans and in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.[1]
Construction
The monument is not a lighthouse: it has never had a functional light. However, it was designed to resemble one, and is similar to the Third Eddystone Lighthouse (Smeaton's Tower).[2] It is a Grade II* listed building.[3]
The tower is built of limestone quarried locally at Birkrigg Common. Due to its elevated and exposed position, it is one of the most prominent landmarks in Cumbria. The hollow tower can be ascended via a spiral stone staircase of 112 steps. At the top, eight apertures provide a 360-degree panorama of the Furness Peninsula, Morecambe Bay, the Lancashire coasts and the southern Lake District. In recent times the formerly open apertures have been glazed.
Sometimes simply known as "Hoad", the tower is also occasionally referred to as "the pepper pot". This epithet was infamously used by Lord Haw-Haw during one of his propaganda broadcasts of Second World War, when he warned the residents of Ulverston that the German Air Force would bomb their pepper pot. (They did not.)
Hoad Monument is normally open during the summer months when a flag is flying outside the monument. Ulverston Towns Lands Trust owns both the monument and Hoad Hill.
Restoration
In 2009/2010 the monument underwent a £1.2 million restoration. The majority of funding came in the form of a £891,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund with the Friends of the Sir John Barrow Monument collecting grants and donations for the rest.
The restoration included a series of structural improvements to make the monument watertight, the most noticeable of these being the addition of a copper roof covering the stone dome, which was itself removed and rebuilt.
The official reopening was on Sunday 22 August 2010 and was marked by a gala at Ford Park, barn dance and firework display.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Hoad Monument) |
- Location map: 54°12’9"N, 3°4’58"W
- Friends of the Sir John Barrow Monument
References
- ↑ Fleming, Fergus: Barrow's Boys (Granta Books, 2001) ISBN 9781862075023
- ↑ http://www.ulverstoncouncil.org.uk/education/john-barrow-monument/
- ↑ Barrow Monument - British Listed Buildings
- Ashburner, Dorothy: 'A Story of the Growth of Ulverston' (1993)
