Landmarks
The distinctive Victorian Gothic water tower at the top of Shooter's Hill is a landmark that can be seen from far around. Other local landmarks include Severndroog Castle, a folly designed by the architect Richard Jupp in 1784 and built to commemorate Commodore Sir William James, who on 2 April 1755 attacked and destroyed a pirate fortress at Suvarnadurg along the western coast of India.
Another water tower (of 130 ft) is further down Shooter's Hill. This was originally built in the 1890s to designs by Thomas W. Aldwinckle to supply water to the 'Brook Fever hospital', which was demolished in the 1990s, to be replaced by a housing development. The tower consists of a plain brick pillar ornamented simply with bands of terracotta tiles and windows like arrowslits. It is not listed, but it has just been cleaned, repointed and underpinned for conversion into a family home. It is the centrepiece of the housing estate.
In 1749, 'The Bull' public house opened just west of the summit of the hill, and was used as a refreshment stop by the coaches, although not by the Royal Mail, which had an interchange of mail bags at the Post Office by the Red Lion on the London side of the hill.
Read more about this topic: Shooter's Hill
Famous quotes containing the word landmarks:
“The lives of happy people are dense with their own doings—crowded, active, thick.... But the sorrowing are nomads, on a plain with few landmarks and no boundaries; sorrow’s horizons are vague and its demands are few.”
—Larry McMurtry (b. 1936)
“Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)