Watch Tower is a Grade II listed building in the Westmorland and Furness local planning authority area, England. First listed on 6 May 1976. Customs house.
Watch Tower
- WRENN ID
- fossil-hall-shade
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Westmorland and Furness
- Constituency
- Barrow and Furness MP: Michelle Scrogham (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 6 May 1976
- Type
- Customs house
- Address
- Watch Tower, Tower Street
- OS grid reference
- SD 231 648
- Coordinates
- 54.07397, -3.17542
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The watch tower, built in 1849, is located on Tower Street in Roa Island and was originally a customs house that has since been converted into a workshop. The structure features pebbles laid in chevrons with red sandstone dressings and a graduated slate roof. It has a central archway flanked by a two-storey, one-bay boathouse wing on the left and a small square tower on the right. The building displays quoins and a chamfered plinth.
The archway is two-centred, double-chamfered, and includes a keystone, with two patterned shields positioned below a corbel table that supports three merlons. The boathouse, which is set forward on the left, has a doorway with a deeply-chamfered, quoined surround and a square-sectioned hoodmould. Above this doorway is a two-light chamfered, mullioned window featuring latticed iron casements. There is also a stair turret on the left with slit windows, and a shield beneath the corbel table leading to incomplete embattlements, along with a corner turret on the right. The tower on the right side of the arch has a lancet window and a door on its left return. At the rear, there is a blocked pointed arch leading to the boathouse, with a two-light window above it, mirroring the front.
Local climate
Watch Tower sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,670 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 99% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 99% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 19 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 80% of listed buildings. Of these, 8 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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