Summary
A length of the continuous bastioned defensive lines of Gosport built in around 1757 and expanded in around 1780. These originally served as artillery fortifications known as the Gosport Lines and now survive as upstanding remains, earthworks and buried archaeological remains.
Reasons for Designation
This length of the Gosport Lines west of Weevil Lane, Gosport, built in about 1757 and expanded in around 1780, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: a well-preserved example of a later C18 bastioned defensive line comprising two bastions and a demi-bastion, a substantial rampart and terreplein with brick-lined gun emplacements, in-built magazines and shell recesses, and a substantial external moat;
* Rarity: this section of the Gosport Lines is a relatively rare example in England of a surviving section of a later C18 bastioned defensive line, the Lines were originally built by nationally significant engineer Sir Bernard de Gomme in the later C17 and this length was added from about 1757 when the defensive line was extended and then subsequently expanded;
* Documentation: the site is well documented in historical terms, including written accounts, historic plans, maps and photographs;
* Potential: for archaeological deposits associated with the construction and use of the bastioned defensive line;
* Group value: with the other scheduled sections of the Gosport Lines and the designated artillery fortifications associated with Portsmouth Harbour, such as Fort Monckton, Fort Gilkicker, Fort Grange, Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth town defences and Eastney Fort, among many others; together serving as an impressive ensemble that well illustrates the defence of this strategic harbour over a long period of time.
History
The first purpose-built artillery fortifications were constructed at the end of the C15, although the date range of continuous bastioned defensive lines in England extends from the mid-C16 to the mid-C19 (see Saunders 1998). A bastioned enceinte, the basic enclosure or ‘body of the place’, was designed on strictly mathematical lines with systematic and scientifically placed lines of fire. One of the characteristic elements was the angle bastion itself consisting of two flanks, springing from the curtain and usually sited at a change in angle in the defensive line. The distribution of bastioned defensive lines in England was predominantly determined by the existence of naval dockyards, and the towns and facilities built in association with them. Most supported and complemented the Royal Navy in protecting England from invasion. They thus arose from national defensive policies and not from local initiative and can be distinguished as a monument class from the temporary fieldworks of the Civil War period, for example. Under these terms of reference there were only 11 locations where this form of defence existed, of which nine survive in much-varying states of preservation, including: Berwick-upon-Tweed; Brompton Lines, Chatham; Devonport; Garrison Walls, St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly; Gosport Lines; Hilsea Lines (Portsmouth); Portsmouth; Queensborough Lines (Sheerness); Sheerness (Ibid). The fortifications underwent long periods of neglect but were revived at times of invasion threat. The bastioned system became increasingly complex during the C18, as well as more costly to build and demanding of troops and guns to defend it. Methods of siegework also became increasingly systematic and predictable so engineers began to look for alternatives and continuous bastioned lines were ultimately supplanted in the mid-C19 by rings of detached forts with or without connecting earthworks.
Gosport remained a small town, primarily a fishing village, until after the Civil War when the Gosport Lines began to be constructed (Oxford Archaeology 2014, 57). During the Civil War, Gosport was held by parliamentary forces, whilst Portsmouth was a royalist stronghold. In August 1642, two gun batteries were erected; a two gun platform screened by bundles of sticks during construction and a ten gun platform screened by a barn. The former proved very effective; damaging St Thomas’s Church (now the Cathedral) which the royalists had been using as a watch tower (Ibid 25). Therefore, upon the unmasking of the latter, larger gun platform (and capture of Southsea Castle), the Governor of Portsmouth surrendered, intimidated by the prospect of further bombardment. The strategic importance of Gosport to Portsmouth and its harbour was thus proven. After the Restoration in 1660, King Charles II’s Chief Engineer, the Dutchman, Sir Bernard de Gomme was tasked with drawing up plans for fortifications around Gosport, including the Gosport Lines. A similar undertaking was carried out around Portsmouth on the other side of the harbour. The final form of the Gosport defences showed some significant differences from the original design and the Gosport Lines were incomplete when de Gomme died in 1685 (Ibid 25). The fortifications comprised four main elements: Blockhouse Point, Charles Fort, James Fort, and the Gosport Lines which provided the western defences of the town. On the 5th and 6th September 1663, the King inspected the fortifications and declared himself ‘mightily pleased with all that is done’ but expressed ‘pity it should not be finished’ (Williams 1979, 17). De Gomme’s plans for an outer rampart for the Gosport Lines were not completed, and in the following decades the fortifications appear to have deteriorated.
In 1748, work began to re-cut and/or rebuild the Gosport Lines under the engineer John Peter Desmaretz and would continue for many years. Two gateways were permanently established through the ramparts and a section of the rampart and moat enlarged and improved by 1751. Further works began in 1757 when a covered way and glacis were added to the existing lines, and a major extension began northwards, running parallel with Weevil Lane (this length of the lines) and, beyond Forton Lake, around Priddy’s Hard (Schedule entry 1010741). In the following two decades little further work appears to have been done, and a French spy described the Priddy’s Hard line in very bad condition in 1768.
A crisis occurred in 1779 when, with much of the British army and navy engaged in the War of American Independence on the other side of the Atlantic, France and Spain planned a joint invasion. A pair of French spies carried out an extensive reconnaissance of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight (Ibid, 44). They visited Gosport twice and reported that it was ‘virtually without defence, protected on the landward side only by an ill-maintained entrenchment…which would fall at the first assault, and by a feeble enceinte much too extensive for its garrison’ of one militia battalion (Ibid). The invasion plan was for a Franco-Spanish fleet to obtain command of the English Channel, seize the Isle of Wight, and then simultaneously attack Portsea Island and Gosport. In the event, the Armada was much delayed in reaching the Channel and the smaller British fleet sighted but did not engage them. Short of water and provisions, effected by bad weather, delayed communication and rampant sickness, the Armada withdrew in September 1779 and the danger passed. Nonetheless, hasty improvements were made to Britain's coastal defences. The gates, platforms and palisades of the Gosport Lines were repaired, the rampart and moat near Weevil Lane improved, a covered way and glacis added to this section and the bastion enlarged. Bastion No 1 (also now known variously as Trinity Bastion, Vicar’s Bank and Tragedy Bank) was part of the last section of the Gosport Lines at the south to be constructed between 1797 and 1802 (see Schedule entry 1001849).
In the early 1800s, the ramparts of the Gosport Lines filled a social as well as a military role, providing a fashionable promenade with fine views. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, most of the guns on the ramparts were removed, although some remained in the 1890s. However, from 1844 at least some of the gun positions were renewed with granite setts embedded in concrete and embrasures re-cut and sodded, whilst moats and ditches were widened and deepened. In the later C19, the Gosport Lines were superseded by other defences. The Gosport Advanced Line, formed of the Gomer-Elson line of forts, was constructed from about 1852 further to the west, whilst a network of Palmerston forts was also built at Portsdown Hill between 1861 and 1874 to protect Portsmouth Harbour from an invasion force attacking from land to the north or east. Sections of the Gosport Lines were gradually demolished. Walpole Road was driven through the lines to link the High Street to Alverstoke, whilst the main gateways were also demolished by 1890. The process continued although several lengths of the lines have survived through to the present day, including the three scheduled sections.
The length of the Gosport Lines parallel to Weevil Lane is shown on a plan of 1775. A major expansion of the outworks, including a wet moat fed from Forton Lake, ravelins and a glacis, are shown on a 1797 plan. The point at which the lines met Forton Lake included a squared stone sea wall and sluice. In about 1845, permission was given at royal request for the Gosport railway line to be extended through the ramparts via a brick vaulted tunnel near the south end of this stretch of the lines to the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard and waterfront where a private railway station, the Royal Victoria Station, was built. This enabled Queen Victoria to travel directly to the waterfront and board the royal yacht on journeys to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
The land in front of this length of the Gosport Lines was developed as a Royal Navy oil fuel depot, associated with the replacement of coal as a fuel for warships, from about 1905 to 1919. This included the construction of 40 oil tanks holding some 224,000 tons of oil. As part of this work, the sea wall was strengthened in places in concrete, an oil filter house built, and an oil pipeline constructed running from the depot via a bridge across the moat and through the rampart of the Gosport Lines to the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard. The 1933 OS map shows allotment gardens and a machine gun range on the berm in front of the ramparts to the north and south of Bastion No 4 respectively, and a new building truncating the extreme northern end of the lines. In the 1940s, a new bund arrangement, pump house and perimeter road were built at the depot. The moat and ramparts were breached in two places and a trackway made on top of the ramparts along much of this length of the lines (later surfaced in tarmac). Furthermore, in association with the early C20 and 1940s works, the glacis and two ravelins in front of this length of the Gosport Lines were truncated, levelled and/or buried, and a spoil heap placed on part of Demi-Bastion No 2. In 1999, a topographical survey and some trial trenching was carried out on the lines in association with a Berkeley Homes housing development immediately to the east. In 2018 to 2022, a major redevelopment scheme to upgrade the Gosport Oil Fuel Depot and install new oil tanks was undertaken.
Details
A length of the continuous bastioned defensive lines of Gosport built in around 1757 and expanded in around 1780. These originally served as artillery fortifications known as the Gosport Lines and now survive as upstanding remains, earthworks and buried archaeological remains.
PRINCIPAL FEATURES
This length of the Gosport Lines includes two bastions and a demi-bastion joined by ramparts with an external berm and wet moat. The lines were built with terrepleins approached by earthwork ramps and had brick-lined gun emplacements, brick expense magazines and brick shell recesses.
DESCRIPTION
This length of the Gosport Lines has a large earth rampart with a berm at its base that originally acted as a sentry path. Beyond the rampart is a large wet moat, varying in width but up to around 20m wide. There are two later causeways crossing the moat, which has been infilled at the south end of this length of the Gosport Lines where it will survive as a buried feature. There are two bastions and a demi-bastion; historically, these were labelled on maps and plans, from south to north, as: Bastion No 3, Bastion No 4, and Demi-Bastion No 2.
The bastions and demi-bastion originally had brick-lined gun emplacements built to fire out of embrasures in the rampart, or over it; these have been reduced in places and largely survive as buried remains, although the tops of several of the iron pintles are visible marking the gun positions. The guns are no longer in position, but it is recorded that sections of the Gosport Lines were originally armed with 18 and 24 pounder smooth-bore guns mounted on traversing platforms and standing carriages. The gun positions had stone traversing rings (now buried) and iron pintles or pivots and are situated on an earthen terreplein approached by earthen ramps. Built into the ramparts are expense magazines and shell recesses built of brick. There is a historic brick tunnel built through the rampart between Bastion No 3 and Bastion No 4 providing access from the rear of the lines onto this area of the berm, which served as a machine-gun range in the early C20. Set within the central bastion (Bastion No 4) are the foundations of a brick magazine enclosed by a dry ditch on three sides.
At the south end of this length of the Gosport Lines is a brick vaulted railway tunnel constructed through the rampart in around 1845. At the north end is a sluice separating the wet moat from Forton Lake, which retains high-quality ashlar masonry dressed with a broached centre and tooled margins. There is also an original stone wall of squared stone where this length of the lines meets Forton Lake.
EXCLUSIONS
The monument excludes: the C20 bridges, pipelines, concrete or brick walls, concrete piers, and sluices added or built in association with the Gosport Oil Fuel Depot; the surfaces of all C20 or early C21 roads, pathways and pavements; all C20 or early C21 fences and fence posts, lamps and lamp posts, signs and signposts, security cameras, drains, drain covers and pipes, lifebuoys, railings and handrails. However, the ground beneath all these features is included.
