Grouville No 4 tower

Grouville No 4, Fauvic Tower

The interior of the tower after conversion to a family home

This is one of two towers on the east coast which have been converted to private homes with the addition of wings on either side

Grouville No 4 Tower, known as Fauvic Tower, was one of two coastal towers bought from the Crown in 1905 by Walter Falla, a doctor. ^[1] His second purchase was Tower No 3, further south on the coastline of Grouville Bay.

The sale contract included both towers and shows that No 4 was bought for £160, whereas No 3, presumably with a shorter strip of coastal land, only cost Mr Falla £60.

Quite what his intentions were in relation to the two towers is not known, but it appears that he developed No 4 as a family home, with granite faced extensions on both sides, and lived there with his wife Clara Evelyn, nee Cave (1875-1953), daughter of Lieut-Col Walter Cave, and their daughters Maud Evelyn and Miriam Margaret, born respectively in 1899 and 1901, and son Colin Cave Falla, born in 1904.

Walter Falla died in 1927, two years after he sold No 3 Tower. We have not so far been able to establish what happened to No 4 after his death.

HER entry

Built circa 1780s, the tower is significant as an integral part of a group of surviving Conway towers in Jersey that not only illustrates the changing political and strategic military history of the Island in the late 18th and 19th century, but represents a turning point in the history of defence strategy across Europe, and global trends in the history of war.

The interest of the tower is diminished by the addition of early-mid 20th century buildings and associated alterations.

Conway-pattern tower, circa 1782. The Richmond map shows Grouville Bay with five Conway Towers constructed in the southern half of the bay - designated 1-5 from south to north. Put up for disposal to the States of Jersey by the War Department in 1896.

Private dwelling constructed around tower early 20th century. Standard Conway Tower pattern. Round and tapered, built of regular squared and well-tooled blocks of granite. The upper floors are punctuated with musketry loopholes with dressed granite doorway raised at first floor level. There are four machicolations at parapet level. Roof platform with masonry parapet now capped. Various alterations to original tower layout - including new window opening on seaward face and likely doorways formed in outer wall of tower to access wings of house.