Storr Wars

I wrote recently about the treacle brick built Bettisons Folly in Hornsea, East Yorkshire. It is a slim tower in the middle of the town by which the servants of Mr Bettison could gauge the progress of his journey home from his business interests in the City of Hull and have his evening meal on the table for when he came through his front door.

http://onelastsoul.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/treacle-bricks.html

That was in the early to mid 1800's.

Perhaps Bettison's motivation for his structure was not the guarantee of a hot dinner after a busy working day but a determined bid to upstage another tower just a few miles to the south.

There is however no real competition as Bettison, a brewery owner could not have hoped to emulate the towering edifice of Joseph Storr on Hilston Mount.

Predating Bettisons Folly by nearly 100 years it actually stood for some 60 years with no name before being called The Mount in 1810 and then being renamed to commemorate Storr's son, the renowned Admiral Storr (1709-1783).


His noted naval career earned him the ultimate accolade of a marble tablet and bust in Westminster Abbey amongst the great and the good of British History.

The Abbey memorial has the wording "To the memory of John Storr Esqr. of Hilston in the county of York, Rear Admiral of the Red Squadron of His Majesty's fleet. In his profession a brave & gallant officer, in private life a tender husband, an honest man & a sincere friend".

Achieving the rank of captain on 1 November 1748 he was given command of HMS Gloucester ,a position he held until 1753. He was later posted on HMS St George, a 90-gun ship which he retained until the following year.

In 1757 he took command of HMS Revenge and  in the Battle of Cartagena, Spain on 28th February 1758 off the Spanish port of that name in the Mediterranean a British fleet under the command of Admiral Osborn  blocked the French fleet inside the port, attacked and defeated. The interception of the French fleet was intended to limit the reinforcements sent to the aid of Louisbourg in North America, which was then besieged by the British.

Storr participated in the Battle of Quiberon Bay, Brittany on 20th November 1759, still on HMS Revenge. He was then part of the Red Squadron, the central body of the fleet, under the command of the renowned Admiral Edward Hawke,  From 1760 to 1762 he commanded HMS Monmouth.

These successive commissions coincided with a tumultuous period of British and indeed world history, specifically the Seven Years' War from 1754 to 1763. It involved every European great power of the time except the Ottoman Empire and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. The conflict split Europe into two coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain (inc. Prussia, Portugal, Hanover, and other small German states) on one side and the Kingdom of France (inc. Austria-led Holy Roman Empire, Russia, Spain, and Sweden) on the other.

The man, if anything, deserved a tower.

Admiral Storr's Tower  is a fine and imposing building probably intended as a look out on what is only a 15 metre contour height but nevertheless representing some of the highest ground in the otherwise flattish Holderness rural and North Sea coastal area of East Yorkshire.

The Historic England Grade 2 Listing mentions "Orange brick in Flemish bond with header bond to stair turret; stone dressings. 3 storeys. Octagonal tower with projecting semicircular stair turret to north side. Door under flat gauged brick arch beneath datestone with coat of arms, bearing 3 birds. All other openings now blocked with flat gauged brick arches. Coped parapet ramped up to top of stair turret".

Although a distinctive shape and colour in a soft agricultural landscape Admiral Storr's Tower can easily be missed by users of the main road from Withernsea and Roos to Aldbrough and Hornsea and very few actually venture into Hilston if intrigued enough to want a closer look as it consists of only a handful of houses and farmsteads.

Although not very far from the unclassified road there is no actual path nowadays and as a consequence of abandonment and obsolescence people are best advised to keep clear.  A few amateur photographers have framed the tower in different seasonal settings such as the flowing stems of a ripening arable crop or the dark brown and symmetrical lines of newly ploughed acres.

The scene would warrant a photographic calendar all of its own or make for a very interesting time lapse sequence of light and shade under the expansive Holderness sky.

Glanced in the usual manner from a moving car the octagonal brick building cannot be appreciated for its architectural features. At 50 feet high the shape is only interrupted by the semi-circular staircase turret on its northern side. Although it may have been intended as a watch tower it was reputedly a well known reference point for sailors on the North Sea. It served as a hospital for troops camped on the coast in 1794–5 at a time of fears of invasion by an aggressive Post-Revolutionary French regime and later as a cottage, but was disused in 1990.

Ironically Admiral Storr's Tower may have been the reason for the rather freakish bombing of the nearby Histon Church in August 1941 because of its landmark status for the Luftwaffe, thereby inflicting a gross injustice on the reputation of the great naval man and in his own back yard.