Battery, Bray, Co. Wicklow

Where a flat military parapet once sat, there is now a glazed drum topped with a conical glass roof, giving the old fortification the appearance of a lighthouse crossed with a Victorian conservatory. The circular tower below it, built of coursed granite with small defensive openings punched into its thick battered walls, is otherwise much as it was when it was constructed in 1804 to 1805.

The structure at Bray is recorded as Martello Tower and Battery No. 2, part of the chain of coastal defences thrown up along the eastern seaboard of Ireland during the period of heightened anxiety about a French invasion under Napoleon. Martello towers, squat round forts with walls thick enough to deflect cannon fire, were built in considerable numbers along the Irish and British coasts during this period, many of them paired with artillery batteries designed to cover the approaches from the sea. The Bray example sits on a bailey-like artificial mound, a raised platform contained by its own battered stone revetment wall, which places it in a commanding position overlooking the shoreline. By 1816, when John Taylor produced his detailed survey map of the environs of Dublin, the tower and its associated battery were sufficiently established features of the landscape to appear clearly on the sheet. The tower has since passed out of military use and into private hands, its interior converted to a residence while the granite shell remains largely intact.