Ferry Reach -- St. George's Parish, Bermuda
N 32° 21.775 W 064° 42.899
20S E 338641 N 3581956
The Martello Tower at Ferry Reach, near Coney Island National Park in Bermuda, is topped with a menacing cannon
Waymark Code: WMNE14
Location: Bermuda
Date Posted: 02/24/2015
Views: 8
Blasterz were thrilled to see a Martello Tower on vacation, but bummed that since we were in Bermuda during the winter, the tower was not open to explore. The tower is open during the months of March-October from 10am-2pm daily. It is open by appointment only from October to March.
This Martello Tower is part of the St George UNESCO World Heritage Site. See here for the documentation on it: (
visit link)
A more-accessbile discussion of this Martello tower is found on Wikipedia: (
visit link)
"Martello towers around the world
. . . .
Bermuda
There is a Martello tower located at Ferry Reach in St George's Parish. The tower is the third fortification on the site. Major Thomas Blanshard built it of Bermuda limestone between 1822-1823. The tower shows the effect of thirty years of evolution on the design of coastal fortifications, between the 1790s and 1822. The earlier Ferry Island Fort nearby had multiple guns arrayed to cover the water westward, while the Martello tower used a single gun with 360° traverse to cover all of the surrounding area.
Like its predecessors in the UK, it has an ovoid footprint with the thickness of its walls ranging from nine to 11 feet. It is surrounded by a dry moat. The tower's purpose was to defend the Ferry Reach Channel and so impede any attack on St. George's Island from the main island of Bermuda, and attacking vessels from slipping through Castle Harbour and the channel between Ferry Reach and Coney Island.
The main channel by which vessels reach most parts of Bermuda west of St. George's, including the Royal Naval Dockyard, on Ireland, the Great Sound, Hamilton Harbour, The Flatts, Murray's Anchorage, and other important sites, carries them around the east ends of St. David's and St. George's Islands, where the coastal artillery was always most heavily concentrated. Two more Martello towers to protect the Dockyard were planned, but never built.
The tower was restored in 2008 and an 18-pounder cannon brought from Fort St. Catherine was mounted on top. The site is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday to Friday in the summer and in the winter by appointment only, by calling the Parks Department. It is part of the Bermuda Railway Trail."