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Unreinforced concrete has its advantages... this tower still stands after 140 years, and so barring an earthquake it can't withstand it is likely to continue to stand for hundreds more years. Steel-reinforced concrete is considered to have a lifespan of 50-150 years... after that the reinforcement rods will have rusted, and in the process the concrete is likely to have cracked (this is called "concrete cancer"). And since these structures were usually designed in ways that depend on the properties of steel-reinforced concrete, that means they become structurally unsound even if they don't outright fall down.
Nowadays for projects meant to last people use stainless steel reinforcement or even carbon fiber reinforcement, but these are expensive.
They did add steel support on every floor in 1987 after a hurricane caused some damage but I guess because it's external to the concrete, that means they can easily be replaced once rusted.
If external, it can probably be maintained too.
Excited to see my local area on HN! The tower is currently for sale, only £2.25 million
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/120680285#/?channel=R...
The floor plan is neat, the first 4 floors of the tower proper are basically small appartments, at 27sqm and with a full bathroom that's not too shabby.
Though that's only 5 floors being listed on the floor plan, the article claims the tower has 14 (not including the topmost observatory), do you know what their statuses are? Are they not converted / finished?
5 floors is about the limit people want to climb stairs to get to their apartments. Presumably an internal elevator would take too much floor space; I guess an external one could be constructed, but without that the higher floors are going to be hard to sell.
I'm also curious about the picture of Bedroom 2 on that listing. It seems to have its own set of stairs. That seems to be between the third and the fourth floor since it has the open section in the smaller area.
I found sites specializing in islands and castles in the U.K.
They have low price tags, but they likely are liabilities rather than assets.
This is 100% true. I was recently seriously considering buying a ruined castle to renovate - I could afford to purchase it, but running the numbers to refurb it AND maintain it made it totally impractical. :(
To live in sure, but could you do it as a vacation rental?
Probably, but then it is no longer truly your own space. I think part of the attraction of these sites is the perceived ability to get away from the masses, yet you would be forced to accommodate them to make it a going concern.
Exactly.
More pictures can be found online: https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/homes-and-gardens/propert... https://www.quirkyaccom.com/the-tower-sway
Not really great though
> Sway Tower was the first building in Britain to be made of non-reinforced concrete
Unless I am completely confused, this cannot be true. Concrete has been used since the ancient Romans while iron and steel reinforcements were only really developed in the mid 19th century.
(Caveat: I'm not truly an expert on Roman concrete, although I love it -- the Pantheon being my favourite building in the whole if human history.)
My understanding is that the use of Roman concrete was very highly centralised in and around Rome, and tailed off dramatically towards the outer reaches of the Empire. Indeed I've seen this cited as the key factor in the technology going extinct -- basically, it was very locally endemic.
In any case, I'm unaware of any Roman concrete structures having been found in Britain, so this statement may indeed be true.
It doesn’t have to be Roman concrete. English concretes made with, e.g., Portland cement, predates Sway tower by a hundred years.
Obviously, the only version of this claim that could be true is that Sway Tower was the first building in England built exclusively of unreinforced concrete. (There were uncountable buildings built by using unreinforced concrete and stone, e.g., the third Eddystone Lighthouse completed in 1759.) But I’d still find it very surprising that people built structures in England from reinforced concrete for decades without anyone trying to do it without the reinforcement. (“The first home built using reinforced concrete was a servant’s cottage constructed in England by William B. Wilkinson in 1854.”)
Wasn't this also because they needed certain volcanic ashes for their concrete, which would be hard to find elsewhere?
Yes, seawater and ash
https://unews.utah.edu/roman-concrete/
Its not that surprising. Even though Romans had concrete, they didn't build many building wholly of concrete. The British Romans did use concrete in their buildings. Especially in floors, walls, and as mortar to bind building elements. But there is no evidence of any Roman building in Britain made with concrete as the primary building material.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-roman-stu...
In a pre-industrial world concrete doesn't usually pencil out except in the most extreme use cases. You're usually better off mortaring real stone together. In the modern world it makes sense because bulk liquids are fast/efficient/cheap to handle.
Wikipedia seems to agree with you:
"Andrew Peterson was a good man, and he employed only the unemployed"
That's good? Isn't employing the unemployed ... the usual way to employ?
No, often people already have jobs and move to a new one. This was seen as a philanthropic act to employ only those who were without work.
Not necessarily.
Most businesses don’t go out of their way to look for unemployed people (e.g. the random beggar at the corner of the street who seems at least physically fit for light manual labour) to employ.
If you are physically, mentally, and intellectually fit for any kind of work, yet are neither employed nor actively seeking employment, you’ll usually be shunned by most employers in a capitalist society.
Sway tower is 218 feet tall.
This wooden pagoda is 220 feet.
I thought the Sydney Opera House was pretty big... Wikipedia says 213 ft / 65 m; so, only 3 ft short of this one. Odds are SOH will last longer, being less subject to, er, sway.
Sway Tower has unique merits, not least being cheaper to buy.
Is it called Sway Tower because of instability in wind? Or is it just a name?
Edit: I did read the article, but couldn’t tell if the village or the tower was named first.
From the article: “On the outskirts of Sway, a village near Lymington, on Britain’s south coast, stands a peculiar Victorian tower.”
According to Wikipedia, it's named in the Doomsday book, so it's been around a lot longer than the tower.
Nominative determinism at its best.