Reasons for Designation
The upheavals following the French Revolution and the general political
situation in France at the end of the 18th century, coupled with the
Napoleonic Wars of 1800-1815, sparked a very real fear in England that an
invasion might be mounted by the French. By 1803-05, when the threat of
invasion was at its greatest, the decision had already been taken to revive
and heavily strengthen the defences of the south and east coasts in
anticipation of a French naval attack.
At Berry Head, work was underway as early as 1794 on the recommissioning of
batteries first constructed in 1780, as a response to threats arising from the
American War of Independence. A new fort and redoubt to protect those
batteries from land attack were under construction on Berry Head before the
turn of the century. Berry Head Fort and Hardy's Head Battery (together with
the Old Redoubt, SM29695), formed part of a very strong defensive network,
the remains of which represent a major and rare survival of a monument of the
Napoleonic era on the south coast of England. The Berry Head defences are
exceptionally well preserved and the fort is one of only a very small number
from this period which survive with anything approaching completeness. The
monument is well understood and will provide information relating to the
strategic military thinking at a time when the threat to English naval power
and the country as a whole was considered great. Despite some loss to
quarrying, Berry Head Fort, together with Hardy's Head Battery provides a
visible reminder of the seriousness with which this threat was taken. The fort
is particularly well documented with plans and accounts of its construction
and armament being held at the Public Record Office and a major study having
been published on its fortifications. This information complements the
standing remains and enhances the research value of the monument.
Berry Head figured again in the 20th century defence of Britain with the
erection of a Royal Observer Corps post within the monument during World War
II and the construction of an underground Cold War monitoring post in 1959-60.
Details
The monument, which falls into two separate areas of protection, includes
Berry Head Fort and battery and Hardy's Head Battery. Berry Head is at the
southern tip of Torbay and it commands extensive views of the western coastal
approaches to the English Channel and of the Torbay harbourage. Berry Head
Fort was a heavily defended garrisoned fort built around a half moon coastal
battery constructed on the main promontory of Berry Head at the turn of
the 19th century. This was in response to the repeated threats of an invasion
by the French under Napoleon Bonaparte. Such forts and fortifications built at
this time are generally referred to as Napoleonic. Much of the defences of
Berry Head Fort, its half moon coastal battery site, and some of its interior
buildings have survived later quarrying of the headland for limestone. The
ramparts, revetments, and walls of Berry Head Fort are Listed Grade II* whilst
some of the other fort buildings in the interior are Listed Grade II. Hardy's
Head Battery is a former coastal battery of 1780, lying to the north west of
Berry Head Fort. It was dismantled around 1783 but was later reactivated as
part of the response to the Napoleonic invasion threat; its gun platforms and
parapet wall survive.
Contemporary plans and documents of the late 18th century show that,
initially, three garrisoned forts (numbered 1-3), designed by Lt-Col Alexander
Mercer, were planned for construction on Berry Head. Ultimately only two were
constructed, these being the northern fort on the main headland (Fort 3, now
known as Berry Head Fort), which incorporated the promontory coastal battery,
and the southern fort (Fort 1, more properly a defensive redoubt) which lies
about 450m further to the south, and which is the subject of a separate
scheduling (SM 29695). The main purpose of the half moon coastal battery on
Berry Head was to defend the Torbay anchorage whilst Berry Head Fort and its
associated redoubt were intended to defend the battery in the event of a land
attack. Another fort (Fort 2) was intended to provide a further land defence
on the western side of the main fort, but it was never built. In order to
recompense for the omission of Fort 2, a further battery, Hardy's Head
Battery, a redundant coastal battery lying to the west of the main fort, was
recommissioned and pressed into service in its stead.
Berry Head Fort was built in the years following 1795 although it was not
completed until 1809. The major landward defence was formed by a stone-
revetted earthen rampart with a parapet fronted by a wide dry moat strung
across the neck of the headland. The dry moat, which is revetted on the
landward side by a battered stone wall, is nearly 7m in width and is
accompanied by an inner rampart wall over 5m high of roughly coursed squared
Devonian limestone topped by a parapet pierced by multiple splayed gun
embrasures. A single western entrance to the fort was approached by a
drawbridge but this has been replaced by a much later earthen causeway.
Additionally, the slopes of the headland enclosed behind the wall and moat
were provided with musketry walls which enclosed a long area of the flattest
and highest ground, about 140m wide and about 450m long, from the entrance to
the tip of the headland where the coastal battery was located; this area
amounted to about 6.3ha. The northern musketry wall has mostly been lost to
quarrying but the western section of the southern wall survives and it has a
redan (a salient angle to provide enfilading fire) and a garde foux (a wall
running along the revetment to protect the soldiers behind it). The fort was
intended to be heavily garrisoned and at least eight barracks, in two parallel
rows of four, were planned for the interior although it is unclear whether all
were built. The area intended for the northern barracks has been quarried away
but the foundations of some of the southern barracks together with their
cisterns and drainage works are partly visible. Other buildings of the same
period within the interior of the fort survive in various states of
completeness. The best preserved are the officer's guardhouse located just to
the south of the entrance, which has undergone changes and extensions in the
19th and 20th centuries, and the buildings supporting the battery at the
eastern end of the fort, these being the artillery store which has been much
restored and re-roofed as a public shelter, and the main magazine for the
coastal battery. The guard house, store and magazine are Listed Grade II. The
magazine had already been established at the tip of Berry Head around 1780
during the American War of Independence; it was remodelled for the purposes of
serving the Napoleonic battery. Associated with the magazine, and again
considered to have been built in 1780, is a coursed limestone rubble sentry
box which is Listed Grade II. It is an octagonal building of ingenious design
which allowed the four sentries to remain in contact with one another through
apertures placed in the partition walls. The Napoleonic half moon battery at
Berry Head occupied the same site as its earlier predecessor of 1780. It was
built in 1795 and was armed with twelve 42-pounder cannon set within a wide
terrace with a low parapet bank along its seaward sides (this bank forming the
half moon shape from which this type of battery gets its name). The gun
platforms were originally of wood and later of moorstone but these were
removed in 1817; the terrace revetment wall remains to indicate the site of
the battery and traces of four of the gun platforms can still be seen.
About 280m north west of the entrance to Berry Head Fort is Hardy's Head
Battery. This battery was built in 1780 during the American War of
Independence. It comprised three 24-pounder cannon on wooden gun platforms
`en barbette' (ie the guns fired over their surrounding parapet rather than
through them). It was dismantled in 1783 at the end of the war but was
resurrected in 1794 as part of the Napoleonic defences. In this second phase
its armament was increased from three to four cannon, one of which could offer
fire to cover the northern side of the main fort. The wooden gun platforms
were replaced by moorstone blocks which still survive, as does the surrounding
low parapet of compacted earth and limestone rubble which encloses the battery
on its north, east and west sides, forming a trapezoidal shape facing the sea
approaches to the Torbay harbourage. A magazine, possibly associated with the
battery and shown on early 20th century maps, has been quarried away.
Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 Berry Head Fort was
maintained under military control until at least 1832 although the barracks
were dismantled; a walled garden abutting the southern musketry wall was
probably constructed shortly after 1815 during the period of continued
military occupation of the site. Some of the fort buildings have been
converted for other uses whilst post-Napoleonic War structures within the fort
include a lighthouse constructed on the northern tip of the headland in 1906,
a coastguard lookout station built into the former magazine building during
the same year, a Royal Observer Corps (ROC) post built onto the foundations of
a Napoleonic store building in the centre of the fort in 1943, and an
underground ROC Cold War monitoring post built, also in the centre of the
fort, in about 1960.
Excluded from the scheduling are the Guard House Cafe which is also a
residence (Listed Grade II), the old artillery store, now a public shelter
(Listed Grade II), the magazine (Listed Grade II) which has an incorporated
coastguard lookout, the Berry Head lighthouse, its ancillary buildings and
enclosure walls, the concrete triangulation point, the putting green fittings,
all fixed benches, lamp posts, bollards, information boards, fixed telescopes,
all purpose built observation points, all fencing, all modern hard standing
and paving, and the 20th century northern safety wall, although the ground
beneath all of these features is included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
