Canada Guide
Ontario
Murney Tower
Address: At the foot of Barrie Street
Opening time: Late May to Aug daily 10am–5pm
Price: $3
The most impressive of four such towers built in Kingston to defend the dockyards against an anticipated US attack during the Oregon Crisis of 1846–47, the Murney Tower holds incidental military memorabilia including old weapons, uniforms and re-created nineteenth-century living quarters. The design of the tower, built as a combined barracks, battery and storehouse, was copied from a Corsican tower (at Martello Point) that had proved particularly troublesome to the British navy. A self-contained, semi-self-sufficient defensive structure with thick walls and a protected entrance, the Martello design proved so successful that towers like this were built throughout the empire, only becoming obsolete in the 1870s with advances in artillery technology. Incidentally, on Christmas Day 1885, members of the Royal Canadian Rifles regiment set out to skid around the frozen lake equipped with their field hockey sticks and a lacrosse ball, thereby inventing the sport that has become a national passion/obsession.