Martello Towers Spotter’s Field Guide

A field guide to Martello towers for adult history fans and walkers: how to read a tower, inside and from above, why they stood in chains, the gun, and who built and manned them, then 12 places from Dymchurch, Eastbourne and Aldeburgh to Orkney, Dublin, Halifax and Kingston, a timeline and the open questions.

What’s inside:

- How to use the guide (check access with whoever looks after each place before you go)

- Recognise it: a slice through a tower and three shapes from above (our own drawings)

- Why a chain? Towers close together

- The gun: a 24-pounder on a turning platform

- The people: who built them, and who lived in them

- 12 places in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada and Corsica, each with facts from named sources and notes space

- Timeline

- Open questions: ten questions without one answer

- Checklist of the 12 places

- Credits, licence and sources

Pages: 18 (including cover and credits). Sizes: A4 (210 × 297 mm) and US Letter (8.5 × 11 in), both PDFs included in one zip.

Printing: Print at 100% / actual size on A4 or US Letter. Inside pages use light backgrounds and print well in black and white; covers are dark, so start from page 2 to save ink.

Every fact is checked against named source pages from English Heritage, Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland, Royal Museums Greenwich, Parks Canada, UNESCO, the James Joyce Tower, the Landmark Trust and the Wish Tower Friends (checked 3 Nov 2026), and the sources are listed on the pack’s credits page. Where the evidence gives no single answer, what each source says is shown with its source.

There are no photos in this pack: all drawings, puzzles and layouts are REALLYBYTE’s own work. Drawings are simplified impressions: not photographs, not reconstructions of any real tower, not to scale, and not copied from any site plan, map, guidebook, print, photo or book. Not affiliated with English Heritage, Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland, Royal Museums Greenwich, Parks Canada, UNESCO, the James Joyce Tower, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, the Landmark Trust, the Friends of Martello24, the Wish Tower Friends, the Seaford Museum and Heritage Society, the UK government or any museum. Their names, and the names of the places they look after, are used only to identify the places and sources we quote.

Licence: personal use. Print as many copies as you need for yourself and your household. Please don’t resell, re-upload or share it publicly. For club, school or commercial use, please email info@reallybyte.com.

Made by REALLYBYTE, the team behind martello-towers.forts.im. Questions: info@reallybyte.com

This is a digital download: no physical item will be shipped.