Shot Tower - Examples

Examples

The tallest shot tower ever built in Australia still stands in the Melbourne, Australia suburb of Clifton Hill. This brick structure was built in 1882 and is 160 ft (49 m) high.

The Jackson Ferry Shot Tower, located in Wythe County, Virginia began construction around the end of the Revolutionary War in this rural area. It was built of stone with walls almost a meter (2.5 feet) thick, as it was not practical to use brick in that region for such a large structure. The 23 meter (75 foot) tower was built at the edge of a cliff and utilized a subterranean shaft of the same length to double the overall height the lead would drop.

In 1855-56, the architect James Bogardus built two shot towers in Lower Manhattan, the 175-foot McCullough Tower on Centre Street and the 217-foot Tapham Tower on Beekman Street. Both structures were demolished in the first decade of the 20th century.

The Shot Tower on the South Bank of the River Thames in central London, England was constructed in 1826, and was in use until 1949, but was demolished to make way for the Queen Elizabeth Hall (opened in 1967), after being retained as a feature in the 1951 Festival of Britain. Another square shot tower was also located not far away downstream along the Thames.

Another shot tower is the Taroona Shot Tower situated 11km out of Hobart, Tasmania. This shot tower is the tallest stone shot tower in the southern hemisphere. Other surviving examples of shot towers include:

• Cheese Lane Shot Tower, Bristol, UK - now part of an office development called 'Vertigo' - this was the reinforced concrete tower built to replace the very first shot tower built in Redcliffe by William Watts;
• Chester Shot Tower, Boughton, UK - circular brick tower, built in 1799; the oldest surviving shot tower in the UK
• Clifton Hill Shot Tower, Melbourne, Australia
• Coops Shot Tower, Melbourne, Australia
• Daugavpils Shot Factory Tower, Daugavpils, Latvia – the oldest shot tower in Europa still in operation (www.dsr.lv).
• Crane Park Shot Tower, Twickenham, UK
• Drochtersen Shot Tower, Drochtersen, Germany
• Helena Shot Tower, Spring Green, Wisconsin, US - built in 1831, now part of a state park.
• Dubuque Shot Tower, Dubuque, Iowa, USA
• New Vienna Shot Tower, New Vienna, Iowa USA
• Jackson Ferry Shot Tower in Wythe County, Virginia, USA - built in the 1790s, now part of a state park and open to the public during the tourist season.
• Peters Shot Tower, Kings Mills, Ohio, USA
• Pispala Shot Tower, Pispala, Tampere, Finland
• Rossie Shot Tower, Rossie, New York, USA
• Phoenix Shot Tower at Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Shot Tower (Spring Green, Wisconsin), listed on the NRHP in Wisconsin
• Remington Shot Tower, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA
• Sparks Shot Tower, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA - built in 1808
• Taroona Shot Tower. Hobart, Australia
• Winchester Shot Tower, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
• Colonial Ammunition Company Shot Tower, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand