Beccles bell tower

Beccles bell tower is a free-standing Grade I listed edifice associated with the adjacent St. Michael's Church in the market town of Beccles, Suffolk, England.It stands near the edge of a cliff overlooking the River Waveney, the bell tower rises an additional 97ft and is thirty feet square (9m) at its base. It dominates the town as well as the surrounding countryside, much of which is comprised by The Broads National Park. Views of the Waveney, the North Sea on the eastern horizon, and the flat terrain of the broads extending south into Suffolk and, across the river, into nearby Norfolk, can be obtained by scaling the hundred steps to the top of the tower.Construction started around 1500, under the direction of the monks of Bury St Edmunds Abbey, the important pilgrimage destination in the nearby town of Bury St. Edmunds. Like the main body of St. Michael's church, the tower is Perpendicular Gothic in style. The tower is supported by deep foundations, very thick walls faced with Roche Abbey stone (so called because of its use in the now-ruined abbey near Maltby, South Yorkshire), and huge buttresses; there is a neweled staircase at each corner of the tower.