Looking rather like a lighthouse after the tide has (considerably) receded, this is the Tower (or Pillar, or Spire) of Lloyd, County Meath. A plaque on the building reads ‘This pillar was designed by Henry Aaron Baker Esq. architect, was executed by Mr. Joseph Beck stone cutter, Mr. Owen Mc Cabe head mason, Mr. Bartle Reilly overseer Anno 1791’. One hundred feet high and with 164 steps to its summit, the cut limestone tower was commissioned by Thomas Taylour, first Earl of Bective, perhaps in memory of his father. But the octagonal lantern at the top served as a signalling station during times of unrest and a viewing platform from which could be seen much of the surrounding landscape. The name of the site incidentally derives from a Colonel Thomas Lloyd who during the Williamite Wars encamped on the hill here with a number of soldiers.
It has been suggested that the Taylor family often used the viewing platform to watch the local hunt & horse racing which was very popular on the estate.
Your followers may be happy to know that this impressive structure now forms part of a community park, so interested parties have the chance to view it at close range.
I’m scared and hurt by this post (and this tower)…not everything from the XVIII century is beautiful, nor even aesthetic!
A few days ago a friend of mine shaw me his collection of “blue butterflies” collected by prisoners in French Guinea…Even violence, control, military arrogance could become beautiful. I think at the convict of Port Arthur in Tasmania, or at the Italian Forte di Bard entering in the Alps and blocking the passage…with all the legends that the invasion of Napoleon left in Ivrea.
But this tower remains simpling hurting. How life and nature have reconciled the violence that the tower of Lloyd brings? ..we cannot see that from the picture, but I found something similar with the “la phare d’Islande” of Claudio Parmiggiani.