PEEL TOWER AT OS SS 49123674

Peel Tower was built in 1857 for Thomas Mortimer of Franklyn Cottage. It is a creeper-clad rubble tower with three stages and access to the first floor at the rear. The floors and roof have collapsed. The tower features three square-headed openings with timber lintels on the sides and rear of the first stage, although the sill of the rear opening has been lowered due to the loss of rubble. The front wall opening has also been removed, but a mostly intact semi-circular brick arch remains. There is a square opening in the top stage's rear wall with a timber lintel. The inner walls of the bottom stage are splayed at the corners. Originally, the lower basement was intended for a greenhouse, the apartment above was meant to be a study, and the top was designed as an observatory. Between the second and third compartments, there was a niche planned for a statue of Sir Robert Peel, according to the Billings Directory of 1857. The tower was originally topped with a castellated parapet and corner finials. A small plaque in the retaining wall near the back door of Franklyn Cottage is inscribed "Disraeli's Refuge: Sneering, Jeering, Satirical Ben/ most Specious of Sophists and Spiteful of men."