Foredown Tower is a former water tower

Water tower

A water tower or elevated water tower is a large elevated drinking water storage container constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system....

 in Portslade

Portslade

Portslade is the name of an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, England. Portslade Village, the original settlement a mile inland to the north, was built up in the 16th century...

, in the city of Brighton and Hove, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, that now contains one of only two operational camera obscura

Camera obscura

The camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side...

s in southeast England.

Built in 1909 as a water tower for Foredown Hospital, an isolation sanatorium

Sanatorium

A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...

 for patients with infectious diseases, the structure was left standing when the hospital was demolished in 1988–89. After the installation of the camera obscura, which is located in a cupola

Cupola

In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....

 at the top of the tower and projects images of the surrounding area onto a dish below, it was opened to the public in 1991.

The structure was operated as the Foredown Tower Countryside Centre by Brighton & Hove City Council's Museums & Libraries department until 2008, when the Conservative council decided it was "not economically viable as a visitor attraction". The council announced that the tower would be leased to the local Hove and Adur Sea Cadets

Sea Cadet Corps (United Kingdom)

The Sea Cadet Corps is a UK national youth organisation sponsored by the Royal Navy and open to young people between the ages of 10-18 years old. The SCC is the UK's largest Naval Cadet Force with over 30,000 cadets and adult volunteers...

 for use as a base, with the intention that access to the camera obscura would be preserved.

Despite these changes, the tower served as the meeting place of the Foredown Tower Astronomers, an astronomical society that conducted classes and demonstrations at the site, using the camera obscura to observe the sky both by day and night, until January 2010.

Although the tower was now closed to the public, the local council continued to investigate potential links with community organisations. In September 2011, it was announced that the tower would be used as an adult learning and visitor centre under the administration of Portslade Learning Community CIC

Community interest company

A community interest company is a new type of company introduced by the United Kingdom government in 2005 under the Companies Act 2004, designed for social enterprises that want to use their profits and assets for the public good...

.