Penlee Point Battery
Penlee Point Battery was a coastal fortification on the Rame Peninsula in Cornwall in Great Britain . The facility was 1.5 km southeast of Cawsand and was built towards the end of the 19th century to protect the port of Plymouth and the Devonport naval base .
Based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Defense of the United Kingdom , the port of Plymouth was fortified with a fort belt in the 1870s and 1880s . To further expand the coastal fortifications, it was proposed in 1885 to build a gun emplacement at Penlee Point at the entrance to Plymouth Sound . Construction of the facility began in 1889. In 1894, two coastal guns with the caliber BL-13.5-inch (343 mm) were installed, plus four guns with the caliber BL 6-inch guns Mk II-VI (152 mm). The two 67-ton, 13.5-inch guns were the heaviest guns ever installed for coastal defense in Great Britain. A concrete pier, the Penlee Point Steps , was specially built to land the guns . The one week long transport of the guns from the landing stage to the gun emplacement was carried out with the help of 80 horses and over 200 men. During the test firing, however, the concrete bed of one of the guns burst, so that only one of the two guns was ready for use. The gun emplacement was completed by accommodations for the gun operators and underground ammunition storage. The coastal fortification was secured against attacks from land by a ditch and a fence. As the guns soon became obsolete, they were replaced by three 9.2-inch (234 mm) guns from 1903 to 1910 .
After the First World War, one of the three guns was dismantled, but replaced again in 1929. In 1936 the mounts were rebuilt so that the range of the guns could be increased to 32 km. The gun emplacement was not involved in combat operations either in the First or Second World War. In 1956 the guns were dismantled, and in the 1970s the gun beds and other structures were filled with earth. Because of these backfills, only a few remains of the battery can be seen today. The site is now part of Mount Edgcumbe Country Park and is a nature reserve of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust . The rare bee ragwort also grows in the protected area, which consists of forests and meadows . In 1995, a granite sculpture by Greg Powlesland was installed in the former gun emplacement .
Web links
- Victorian Forts: Penlee Point Battery (PDF; 4.4 MB),
- Cornwall Wildlife Trust: Penlee Battery Nature Reserve
- Plymouth Castles and Defenses: Southern Defenses
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mount Edgcumbe County Park. Retrieved March 18, 2013 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 19 ′ 5 ″ N , 4 ° 11 ′ 20 ″ W.