We spent last weekend in the only remaining working semaphore tower in the country. Commissioned in the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo and amidst concern about a possible French invasion, it was part of a chain of fifteen semaphore stations stretching the seventy-five miles from Admiralty House in London down to the Naval fleet in Portsmouth.

At the top of the tower is a mast with two pivoted arms that can spell words out by semaphore as illustrated by this poster below:

Between 1822 and 1847 there would be two people working in the tower during daylight hours, one looking through a telescope to the next tower to the north and the other looking at the one to the south. When all went well, the Navy could send a message between London and Portsmouth in fifteen minutes. However, electric telegraph was invented in 1839 which eventually superseded the need for the semaphore system and the towers were decommissioned.

After that time, Chatley Heath tower was used to house the families of estate workers, but it had fallen empty by 1963. Then, in 1984, it was gutted by a devastating fire. Although Surrey County Council repaired it, by the start of the 21st century water was getting in and threatening its structural integrity. Its future was looking very uncertain.

But the good news is that the Landmark Trust now cares for Chatley Heath Semaphore Tower. This charity rescues and sympathetically restores buildings at risk and then lets them out for self-catering holidays, using the income to pay for any future maintenance costs. The necessary restoration work began on the tower in early 2020, a few weeks before the pandemic struck, but the tower did eventually open to paying guests in the summer of 2021.

The Chatley Heath tower was the junction for a second branch of stations going down to Plymouth but this line was never completed:

The building has a basement and the main bathroom is on the ground floor. There are bedrooms on the first and second floors and the sitting room is on the third. The kitchen is on the fourth floor and there is a roof terrace above that. In total, there are a hundred steep and winding steps connecting all of these rooms:

From up on the roof you looked down onto the crowns of the surrounding trees:

The trees were alive with small birds searching for invertebrates:

The building is set in 800 acres of woodland and heathland, but is also very close to the M25/A3 intersection:

Anyone who has travelled south round the M25 recently will know that there have been major roadworks at its junction with the A3 over the past few months. In fact the A3 was completely closed over the weekend that we were staying because the Cockcrow Heathland Bridge was being lowered into place. This resulted in chaos on the other roads in the area – along with the dog being unable to manage the stairs, this was the second major challenge of the weekend.

The Cockcrow Bridge will be the UK’s first heathland bridge, connecting up the precious heath habitat that had been bisected by the A3:

We walked to the site of the bridge works to see how they were getting on:

As well as the new bridge, there was evidence that much heathland restoration work had already taken place:

It was all very interesting and we would love to return in a couple of years to see how it all looks once things have settled down.

Over the course of the weekend, we visited three National Trust properties, all of which were very generous with their dog policy. Polesden Lacey was bequeathed to the Trust by Mrs Greville in 1942.

The house itself was closed on the day of our visit but we would have loved to have seen the Edwardian interior. It was extensively remodelled by Mrs Greville in 1906 when she bought the house as her weekend retreat.

Hatchlands Park has been cared for by the National Trust since 1945. This house was also closed but we managed an invigorating walk in the extensive parkland and ate lunch in its cafe:

This twisted sweet chestnut in the grounds was planted in the 1740s:

Our third National Trust property, Claremont Landscape Gardens, was another interesting place:

After our walk, a little robin was very interested in the cake that we were eating at the cafe:

Meanwhile, back in the meadows, ghostly white barn owls are appearing on the cameras most nights:

Good to see that they are managing to catch some food:

A barn owl has even been seen in the vicinity of the new barn owl nest box:

The ringed female kestrel is still hunting in the meadows:

And the partially leucistic jay has reappeared after a few weeks absence:

A firecrest in the baking tray bath:

A badger in its characteristic tummy-scratching position:

And the weasel continues to pass to and fro along the gate:

January often feels like a long month and it was good to have visited somewhere new and interesting. I had actually always fancied staying in a tower, but now I feel that this itch has been well and truly scratched and I never need do it again. I know for sure that the dog agrees with me.