B o o k e r ' s   T o w e r

 

There is a lovely four storey, octagonal, buttressed Gothic tower in Guildford, situated just off of Beech Lane, the lane that runs alongside the Mount Cemetery.
The tower was built by a Mr Charles Booker, a one time Mayor of Guildford, and when the project was conceived it was to have been in memory of his two sons who had died earlier in tragic circumstances. One had drowned, the other a victim of smallpox.
The tower was finished in 1839, but when in the following year on the 10th February, Queen Victoria decided to 'make it a family affair' and went and married her cousin Albert, the tower found itself being dedicated to this event instead.

Photo Submitted by and Copyright of Mr. Richard Clarke, Guildford.

The tower later saw use in Victorian experiments that utilised lightning. The high location of the area no doubt helping. The mental image of this Gothic tower overlooking a cemetery, being used for lightning experiments on a dark winters night, seems straight out of the script of a horror film to me.

Visiting:-

The tower is neither open or accessible to the public.

As a point of interest Mount cemetery, that the tower overlooks, contains the grave of the Rev Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, and if that name rings a bell but you can't quiet place it, well everyone either knows of, or has read, one of his books!
So why did Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson change his name ? A web search has the answer..

'The story is often told of how Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson came to adopt the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll which would be suitable to repeat here. The disappointed staff of 'The Comic Times' whose editor was Edmund Yates had reformed themselves to a monthly publication called 'The Train' which made its debut in January, 1856. Dodgson thought that the opening number "only average in talent, and an intense imitation of Dickens throughout", but he was soon offering Yates contributions. The first of several pieces were submitted under the mysterious initials "B.B.", but this form of signature did not please Yates who asked him to choose a nom de plume. The author first suggested "Dares" (the first syllable of his birthplace, Daresbury) to Yates, "but, as this did not meet with his approval, he wrote again, giving a choice of four names: (1) Edgar Cuthwellis, (2) Edgar U. C. Westhall, (3) Louis Carroll, and (4) Lewis Carroll. The first two were formed from the letters of his two Christian names, Charles Lutwidge; the others are merely variant forms of those names -- Lewis = Ludovicus = Lutwidge; Carroll = Carolus = Charles." Yates chose the last of these, and we cannot doubt that the choice was a happy one.'

 

Co-ords 499140 148830/ SU 991488  

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