Plymouth Blockhouse, Mount Batten (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Plymouth.
In the historic county of Devonshire.
Modern Authority of Plymouth; City of.
1974 county of Devon.
Medieval County of Devon.

OS Map Grid Reference: SX48645325
Latitude 50.35965° Longitude -4.12927°

Plymouth Blockhouse, Mount Batten has been described as a probable Artillery Fort.

There are no visible remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

C17 artillery tower, and a Civil War breastwork as well as sundry World War II remains. Grenville's map of the fortifications on Mount Batten in 1586-8 showed a new bulwark and 3 artillery pieces, the latter facing west and south-west, but no surface remains are identifiable. In the C17 an artillery tower of three storeys was built on the headland of Mount Battern perhaps between 1645-60 as part of the defences of Plymouth Sound. It is a circular stone tower 9.1 metres high, 14 metres in diameter, and with walls approximately 1 metre thick; it has a castellated parapet with embrasures for ten guns. A Civil War earthwork was noted close to the tower in 1882; this earthwork is thought to date from the siege of Plymouth from 1643-45 and may be part of a Parliamentarian retreat-work shown on a contemporary Royalist map. It survives as a slight bank and ditch on the south western side of the seaward slope of the headland. During World War II the need for effective air and coastal defence saw the area of Mount Battern given over to both air and sea defence structures. These structures include the remains of two Light Anti-Aircraft gun emplacements and a signal identification panel on the area of the plateau south west of the artillery tower, and two L-shaped anti-submarine searchlight batteries of brick and shuttered concrete construction which survive intact minus their searchlights; they lie just above the high water mark of medium tides on the south west rock bench of the headland. (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1017599, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 29630
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1386253
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 437581.
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Charles Taylor's ecastles
  CastlesFortsBattle.co.uk and CastlesFortsBattle.co.uk
Books
- Duffy, Michael, 1999, 'Coastal Defences and Garrisons 1480-1914' in Kain, R. and Ravenhill, W., Historical Atlas of South-West England (University of Exeter Press) p. 158-60
  Salter, Mike, 1999, The Castles of Devon and Cornwall (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 76
  Pye, Andrew and Woodward, Freddy, 1996, The historic defences of Plymouth (Exeter: Exeter Archaeology Fortress Study Group South West) p. 136
  Pevsner, Nikolaus and Cherry, Bridget, 1989, Buildings of England: Devon (Harmondsworth) p. 649
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1
  RCHME, 1963, Monuments threatened or destroyed: a select list: 1956-1962 (HMSO) p. 32
Periodical Articles
- 1883, Journal of the British Archaeological Association Vol. 39 p. 329 (slight) online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Plymouth Map of c. 1540 online copy online copy
  B.M. Harleian MS. 1326 (Survey of 1623) British Library collection information
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Historic England, 2016, Heritage at Risk South West Register 2016 (London: Historic England) p. 179, 183 online copy
  Historic England, 2015, Heritage at Risk South West Register 2015 (London: Historic England) p. 180, 184 online copy (new entry - relates to C17 fort)

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It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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