Timeball Tower Museum

The Timeball Tower Museum, originally built between 1820 and 1821, is a four-storey structure located at the entrance to the old Navy Yard. It was one of ten royal signal towers intended to send semaphore messages to the Admiralty from the fleet at the Downs during the Napoleonic Wars, although the semaphore line was never completed. Instead, the tower served as the headquarters for the coast blockade aimed at suppressing smuggling until 1831.

In 1855, the tower was converted into a Time-Ball Tower. This adaptation followed the installation of the first Time Ball at Greenwich in the same year, which allowed ships on the Thames to check their chronometers. A similar copper Time Ball, mounted on a 14-foot mast, was placed atop the old semaphore station in Deal. Each day at 12:55 PM, the ball was raised halfway, then fully raised at 12:57 PM. At 1 PM, a time signal from Greenwich activated a slave Shepherd clock at Deal, which controlled the mechanism for the ball's descent. This system operated until 1927 when it was replaced by wireless time signals.

The building features a stuccoed exterior and a hipped slate roof, with a copper ball and a cross topped with points of the compass and an arrow at its peak. The upper floors contain two sashes with intact glazing bars, while the ground floor has modern metal casements and a doorcase.