Beckford's Tower

Built between 1826 and 1827, Beckford’s Tower originally housed the collection of William Beckford (1760-1844) and sat at the top of a mile-long garden he created between the Tower and his home at Lansdown Crescent, Bath. Following Beckford’s death in 1844 the Tower was emptied of its contents and converted into a funeral chapel for Walcot Parish, Bath. Since 1972 it has been run as a museum by the Beckford Tower Trust/Bath Preservation Trust. In 2022 Bath Preservation Trust received a £3.9m grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to repair the Tower and take it off the Heritage At Risk register. The core aim of the “Our Tower” project was to fully restore the Tower, but the team has achieved so much more than this: improving access for all using physical and digital means; adding state-of -the art sustainable energy systems to the building; opening up new spaces in the Tower and landscape for visitors to explore, such as the newly uncovered Grotto tunnel; developing the landscape into a green community asset; and retelling the story of William Beckford’s complicity in the transatlantic slave trade.