The tower stands on gently sloping ground with unenclosed rough pasture stretching in all directions, offering unobstructed views except to the south where rising ground blocks the vista. Built in the early nineteenth century as part of Britain’s coastal defence network, it was strategically positioned to maintain visual communication with signal towers at Bloody Foreland, 22 kilometres to the west-southwest, and Melmore Head, 12.8 kilometres to the east-northeast; though both neighbouring towers have since collapsed or been demolished.

The two-storey square tower, constructed from roughly coursed rubble sandstone, now stands partially collapsed with only fragments of the ground floor and first floor remaining. Its walls, measuring approximately 4.35 metres square internally, still reveal interesting architectural details including unusually large windows with shallow segmental heads, quite different from the square-headed openings typical of most signal towers. The first floor doorway was located on the north wall, whilst ground floor windows can be seen on both the west and east walls. Inside, joist holes indicate where the first floor once sat, along with evidence of a split-mezzanine level between floors. The tower sits within a sub-rectangular walled enclosure measuring roughly 30 by 27 metres, with foundations of three small rectangular buildings visible; one in the northwest corner, another against the south wall, and a third just outside the southern boundary, likely serving as accommodation, a guardhouse, or gate structures during the tower’s operational period.

This signal tower formed part of an extensive network of over 80 signal stations constructed by the British Board of Ordnance in the first decade of the 19th century. The system created a continuous chain of visual communication points running clockwise from Dublin Bay around the entire Irish coast to Malin Head in Donegal, designed to provide early warning of any approaching French invasion fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. Communication between stations was achieved using naval signal posts, but by the mid-1810s, as the threat of French invasion receded, the entire system was abandoned, leaving these stone sentinels to slowly crumble back into the landscape they once guarded.