History

Beckford’s Tower was designed by Henry Edmund Goodridge in 1825 and completed in 1827 for William Beckford (1760-1844). The 120-foot neo-classical Tower, which enjoys uninterrupted views of the countryside, was constructed as a study retreat and to house Beckford’s precious collection of art, objects and rare books.

The surrounding Victorian Cemetery, containing William Beckford’s tomb, was in his lifetime part of a beautiful pleasure garden known as ‘Beckford’s Ride’, which ran from his house in Lansdown Crescent up to the Tower at the top of Lansdown Hill.

After Beckford’s death the building was emptied of its contents by Beckford’s daughter, the Duchess of Hamilton, who took most of her father’s collection to her home at Hamilton Palace in Scotland.  The Tower and its garden were sold to a Bath publican and the Duchess soon repurchased it not wanting it to become a beer garden, and gave it to the Parish of Walcot instead.  It became the parish cemetery and the Tower a mortuary chapel.

A fire in 1931 nearly destroyed much of the lower building and over the years the condition of the Tower itself began to worsen.  It was used as an observation post during the Second World War and started to be used increasingly less as a chapel.  In 1968 the Tower was reconsecrated and put up for sale by the Redundant Churches Commission.

The Tower  was sold in 1971 to the late Leslie and Elizabeth Hilliard.  They purchased an empty and dilapidated building and set about restoring it.  In 1971 the Hilliards opened the Tower to visitors at weekends for a small admission charge.  By 1973 they had also opened a small museum room and had begun to accumulate a collection of original Beckford objects and items relating to the Tower and the life and work of William Beckford.  In 1977 they established the Beckford Tower Trust by Deed of Trust and in the same year the Tower building was gifted by the Hilliards to the charity through a Deed of Gift.  The museum continued to increase in size as the Hilliards work increasingly promoted research into Beckford’s life and collection.

The Tower is now home to a museum collection displaying original furniture that has been found and brought back to the Tower, alongside paintings, prints and objects illustrating William Beckford’s life as a writer, collector, slave owner and social exile.

Visitors can follow in Beckford’s footsteps and climb the spiral staircase (pictured) to the beautifully restored Belvedere and experience the spectacular panoramic view of Bath.

The history of the Beckford family is a tale of social ambition, political manoeuvrings and inexhaustible collecting.  It was all made possible by a huge family fortune built from the profits of the transatlantic slave trade and the stolen labour of thousands of enslaved Africans.

‘Our’ William Beckford was the only legitimate son of Alderman (William) Beckford, who as head of the Beckford family owned 13 Jamaican plantations, over 22,000 acres of land and claimed over 1,000 enslaved people as property. He was ostentatious in his displays of wealth, successful in politics and married into one of the great aristocratic families.  Everything he did was to ensure his family profited from the West Indies and he ran his family business with tyrannical strength. He died in 1770, when his son was just 9 years old.  William inherited everything.

Find out more here: The legacy of the Beckford Family and Slavery

For more information about Bath’s links to the transatlantic slave trade visit the Bath and Colonialism Archive Project

For resources to encourage discussion and debate at home click here

Steeped in history and with an intensely emotive atmosphere, a walk through Lansdown Cemetery enhances any visit to Beckford’s Tower.

When the Tower became a mortuary Chapel for the parish of Walcot the land that once made up the Tower gardens, the final part of Beckford’s Ride up to the Tower from Lansdown Crescent, became a cemetery. Now the site of over 5,000 graves, the Lansdown Cemetery is the final resting place of some of Bath’s most significant residents, including the architect of the Tower, H.E. Goodridge. Beckford’s monumental marble tomb sits isolated on its own island, surrounded by elaborate and interesting memorials.

The Beckford Tower Trust, in partnership with Bath and North East Somerset Council and Walcot Parish, is dedicated to the continuing conservation of the memorials, the surrounding ecology and the landscape of Lansdown Cemetery.

Beckford’s Collection

Extremely intelligent and well educated, as a young man Beckford developed a passion for collecting and his strong ideas about literature, architecture, art and nature became highly influential to the development of British aesthetics. Beckford spent his life creating what was one of the greatest collections of objects, paintings and furniture in Europe.

He built extravagant and monumental buildings to display his collection, but was extremely particular about who he allowed to see inside them. After his death in 1844 the collection was broken up and items once owned by Beckford can now be found in some of the world’s greatest museums and galleries. This booklet lists where in the United Kingdom some of Beckford’s collection can now be found. Tracing this trail of treasures offers an insight into Beckford’s collection and the mind of a collector.

The Beckford’s Tower Collection

Today the Tower is the only museum in the world dedicated to the life of William Beckford and is home to a collection of paintings, furniture and objects from his collection. Highlights include the original construction model for Fonthill Abbey; a monumental marble table designed for the Tower and made in Bath, and Beckford’s Objects of Vertu paintings.  The collection also includes prints and engravings showing Fonthill Abbey and the Tower throughout the 19th and into the 20th Century.

The Tower collection also includes extensive archives relating to the history of the Tower, particularly the repairs and restorations of the 20th century.  The achieve and library collection are being catalogued, thanks to the support of an NLHF Development Grant, as part of the Our Tower project.  An on-line catalogue will soon be available.

The ongoing care of our collections is very important and one of the aims of the Our Tower project  will be to upgrade the museum and continue to look after our collections to the highest possible standards.  A recent Collections Care Audit, generously funded by an Aim Collections Audit Grant, supported by the Pilgrim Trust, is helping us develop this project.

For enquires about the collection please contact us at tower@bptrust.org.uk