R o g e r ' s   T o w e r

Travelling along the B3311 Road from Penzance to St.Ives you will come across Castle Gate. There is nothing really here to see apart from a quarry's entrance. But if you can spot it, there is a tiny folly just visible built high up on the escarpment overlooking the quarry works..

Small is beautiful

Roger's Tower is a tiny square folly built on the ramparts of an Iron age fort on the summit of Castle-an-Dinas. It is more a rough stone hut than a tower, fashioned from large irregular stones. The builder then crafted these into the shape of an 'upturned sand castle mould', with a small rounded turret at each corner. The 4 turrets are each crowned with an extra knob of tapered stones. It has open and blind windows at the front and sides, and a single blind quarterfoil above the arched gothic doorway.

The tower was built sometime in the 18th century for a Mr Rogers, a local landowner as a belvedere to gaze across the land and sea to St. Michael's Mount. It is still in a very solid condition considering its windswept position on top of the hill. In its early days it may well have given shelter to passing walkers from the elements outside.

The little tower looks its best as the sun begins to set.

Visiting

The tower is accessible to the public. However, to reach it involves a fairly long walk. There seems to be 2 ways to approach the tower. There is a long public footpath that winds it way up the escarpment. It bypasses the quarry from Castle Gate from the main B3311 road. Although the tower can almost be driven to via the white roads -see map- and then hiking the rest of the way, carefully following the footpaths. A GPS unit may be a good idea here as the tower may just slip from view as you ascend the hill....

A charming little follytower and one of my personal favourites. Well worth a visit, if you can find it!

 

Co-ords 148500 035000 / SW 485 350  

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