Beckford's Tower and Museum

Beckford’s Tower stands on Lansdown Hill just north of Bath, a tall neo-classical folly built in 1827 for the writer and collector William Beckford. Its three-stage shaft rises to a gilded lantern reached by a cantilevered stone stair and fifty-three wooden steps. Below the tower an Italianate building once held the Scarlet Drawing Room and a library lined with Beckford’s own furniture and art. The grounds include the Grade II-listed Lansdown Cemetery planted along Beckford’s Ride, the landscaped avenue that once linked his town house to the hilltop retreat. Beckford used the tower as a private library and lookout, from which he could see shipping in the Bristol Channel with a spyglass. After his death in 1844 the building passed through several owners, suffered fire damage in 1931 and decades of neglect before the Bath Preservation Trust restored it. The trust now runs a museum displaying Beckford’s books, prints and relics alongside the tower’s original furnishings. A £3.9 million National Lottery grant completed repairs in 2024, reopening the site with new interpretation of its history. Visitors climb to the lantern for wide views over Bath and the countryside. The museum occupies the Italianate base, where the Scarlet Drawing Room’s crimson walls and hidden skylight still hint at Beckford’s devotional paintings. The adjoining cemetery contains his massive pink granite tomb marked with lines from his Gothic novel Vathek. A restored grotto tunnel and the landscaped Ride offer quieter walks among cedars and yews planted two centuries ago.