The Storm Tower at Compass Point, Bude, Cornwall · Travel Poster

Not just a view, the heritage behind it. Ella writes about the place, its hidden history, and the details that never make it into the guidebooks, all printed on the poster.

Bude calls it the Pepper Pot, which is a little unkind to a building modelled on the Tower of the Winds in Athens. It went up in 1835 for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, to a design by George Wightwick, eight-sided and stout, with a point of the compass carved into each face. It is said to have sheltered the coastguard, though it was plainly built to be admired as well.

The trouble with cliffs is that they will not keep still. By 1881 frost had cracked the walls and the tower was shuffled back to safer ground, after which its compass no longer pointed quite where it should. The sea kept coming, and in May 2023 the whole thing was taken down stone by numbered stone and rebuilt 100 metres inland, the town having raised £60,000 in seven weeks to pay for it. After a public consultation the crooked compass was kept, and when the tower was unveiled in March 2024 Bude turned out in wellies and under umbrellas to sing it home.

An original illustration, available in colour or black and white, created for the Ella's Adventures travel poster series.

No frame included.

Please note that, to protect the original artwork from copyright infringement, the images shown on this website are low resolution. The poster you receive is printed in high resolution, with all the detail and clarity of the original.