The tower pouring lead shot drops in Chester

The Chester Shot Tower, also known as Boughton Shot Tower, is a grade-II*-listed shot tower located in the Boughton district of Chester, England. Built by Walkers, Parker & Co. in 1799, the tower is the oldest of three remaining shot towers in the UK, and probably the oldest such structure still standing in the world. The circular red-brick tower is 168 feet (51 m) tall and 30 feet (9.1 m) in diameter at the base tapering to 20 feet (6.1 m) at the top, with small arched windows.

In 2020, a lift shaft dating from 1971 was removed; the interior retains a spiral staircase and melting pots. The tower was one of the earliest built to manufacture lead shot using the method pioneered by the Bristol inventor William Watts in the 1780s. Molten lead was poured through a pierced copper plate or sieve at the top of the tower, with the droplets forming perfect spheres by surface tension during the fall; the spherical drops were then cooled in a vat of water at the base.

An early use of the tower was to make lead shot for muskets in the Napoleonic Wars. Although other methods were developed to manufacture shot during the 20th century, the Chester tower was still in use as late as 2001.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons