Built as a military fortification, later converted into a private residence, and now standing empty and derelict, it occupies an odd position between ruin and domesticity. A raised extension added to the roof around 1990 sits atop the original circular form like an afterthought, visible evidence of the tower's awkward passage from garrison to home and back again.

Construction of this tower, designated Tower No. 1 in Paul Kerrigan's survey of Irish Martello towers, began in 1804. The work across the Dublin area was carried out under the supervision of Colonel Benjamin Fisher of the Royal Engineers, and by December 1805 all towers in the network were armed and complete. Martello towers are squat, thick-walled circular structures, designed to resist artillery fire and to mount a cannon on their flat rooftop parapets. This one carried a single 24-pounder gun, the standard armament for the twelve towers constructed north of Dublin; no associated batteries were built alongside them. The tower's specific purpose was to protect Sutton Creek, the tidal channel running through the mudflats on the northern shore of Dublin Bay. Built from granite rubble with rendered masonry, it follows the characteristic tapered profile of the type, with a string course marking the parapet level and rectangular windows at two storeys, finished with decorative plasterwork. The north-facing doorway is defended by a machicolation, a projecting stone gallery supported on brackets through which defenders could drop projectiles on anyone attempting to force the entrance.

The tower stands on Strand Road in Sutton South and is listed on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH Reg. No. 11366017). As a private property in derelict condition, it cannot be entered, but the exterior is visible from the road and the surrounding area. The location on the edge of the Howth peninsula means that the tidal mudflats Kerrigan described are still very much part of the view, and the relationship between the tower's position and its original defensive logic is easy to read from ground level. Taylor's map of the environs of Dublin, surveyed in 1816, already marks the tower's presence, a reminder that it has been a fixed point in this landscape for well over two centuries.