{"id":1008919,"date":"2026-06-06T09:57:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T09:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1008919\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T09:57:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T09:57:24","slug":"last-semaphore-tower-in-britain-opens-for-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1008919\/","title":{"rendered":"Last semaphore tower in Britain opens for weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The last surviving semaphore tower in Britain is opening to the public this weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Built in 1822, the Chatley Heath tower helped transmit messages from Admiralty House in London to Portsmouth Docks in just a few minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Grade II* listed structure, near Woking in Surrey, is usually occupied by holiday guests, but owners the Landmark Trust will be opening it for free visits on Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Natalie Craven, engagement officer at the Landmark Trust, said: &#8220;It&#8217;s a chance for visitors to discover history on their doorstep, told by Landmark staff who look after it day to day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"The image shows the inside of a house, with cutlery on the table and a sink and cupboard in the background. A fireplace can also be seen.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/8b590e6f3987468e92f42642981a8752.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Naval officers and villagers lodged in the tower after it was decommissioned [The Landmark Trust]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The brick tower, built after the Battle of Waterloo, played a key role relaying messages during the Napoleonic era.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After it was decommissioned, retired naval officers and local civilians lived in it until 1963, when it was left empty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As a result, it suffered vandalism and then a major fire in 1984; by 2018 the tower was decaying rapidly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Landmark Trust, Surrey County Council and Surrey Historic Buildings Trust began restoration work in 2020 and opened the building in spring 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Now the tower is open to the public on two weekends a year &#8211; in June and September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This autumn&#8217;s event for Heritage Open Days is set to take place on 12 and 13 September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow BBC Surrey on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BBCSurrey\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Facebook;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Facebook&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCSurrey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:X;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;X&quot;}\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcinsurrey\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Instagram;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Instagram&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a> and listen to BBC Radio Surrey on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/live\/bbc_radio_surrey?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Sounds;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Sounds&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Sounds<\/a>. Send your story ideas to <a href=\"https:\/\/ca.style.yahoo.com\/mailto:southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk&quot;}\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk<\/a> or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.<\/p>\n<p>More on this storyRelated internet links<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last surviving semaphore tower in Britain is opening to the public this weekend. Built in 1822, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1008920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,223824,279496,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":["post-1008919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-landmark-trust","tag-naval-officers","tag-northern-ireland","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116702574431140618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1008919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1008920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1008919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1008919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1008919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}