Turo Technology LLP

Greyfriars - our iconic tower with national fame

When we started the firm, it was originally called Towers Technology, but we changed it to another language after discovering another firm with a similar name. Normally, you check that before incorporation, and we did but somehow we missed one.

Turo means "tower," so we kept our original images, including the skyscrapers used on our business cards and the digital camera picture of Lynn's Greyfriars Tower used on our web site and paper stationery. Greyfriars Tower is about 1km or so from our address, on the current main road through the town and just behind the town's impressive Carnegie library building. The picture on the right was taken by MJ Ray in November 2002 on a surprisingly bright day with a blue winter's sky contrasting with the red brick. That blue sky is the basis for our web site colour scheme.

We didn't know much about the tower at the time, as you can't even get near enough to read the plaques on it. After some masonry fell from the tower, barriers were put up along the edge of the path that runs around the tower.

Greyfriars tower was one of the entrants on the BBC show Restoration and won the Eastern regional heat in 2003. It didn't win the final and get the money it needs for repairs, but has since secured Heritage Lottery Fund money. The barriers are still up today (July 2006), but work seems to be nearing completion.

In May 2005, a Community Arts Project about the tower was announced by the local council. The film produced was shown at the town's Arts Centre on Friday 30 September and should be put online soon. The creative writing contest was won by The Listening Tower by Mollie Bayfield.

Other King's Lynn Projects

Since autumn 2004, we have been developing the web site for the Walks, which is a large green space across the road from the tower, under threat from an over-zealous "restoration" project which was going to destroy some of its distinctive features. We've also helped gather and distribute news and used our statistical knowledge to summarise public opinions.

Thanks for looking at this and I hope you consider helping preserve our first home town's distinctive features. You can find out more about the tower from the borough's web site and get details of forthcoming talks about it, read more about the Walks or return to our site's front page (especially if you'd like a good web site or web application, help with internet servers or GNU/Linux, or a good telephone service</hint>).