Tower takes a step back to escape the sea

A historic tower immortalised by the novelists PD James and Thomas Hardy reopened yesterday after it was rebuilt brick by brick to stop it falling in to the sea. Clavell Tower was perched perilously close to a cliff edge at Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset, and was at risk of a watery grave because of coastal erosion.

An 18-month project costing £898,000 saw the tower dismantled by specialists, with each of the 16,272 stones numbered and recorded. The four-storey ruin was then rebuilt 82ft inland using the original material.

The final stone was replaced in February and the Landmark Trust will reopen the monument at 10am tomorrow. Its spokesman, Peter Pearce, said: "The tower's future is secure and it can now resume its role as sentinel on this stretch of coastline."

Clavell Tower was built by the Rev John Richards in 1830 as an observatory and folly. It was used by coastguards for 100 years but fell into disuse after it was gutted by fire in the 1930s. It was the inspiration for PD James's novel The Black Tower. Thomas Hardy courted his first love Eliza Nicholl there and used an illustration of the building in his Wessex Poems.

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