No 1 Battery, Stokes Bay Lines

Summary

A mid-C19 gun battery, part of the Royal Commission fortifications built to protect Portsmouth Harbour known as the Stokes Bay Lines.

Reasons for Designation

No 1 Battery, Stokes Bay Lines is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity: the cement revetments are a unique feature for an 1860s open battery;
* Survival: the battery is a substantial earthwork and survives reasonably well retaining the tunnel which connects it to No 2 Battery;
* Group Value: No 1 Battery is an integral part of the Stokes Bay Lines which are of national importance;
* Documentation: the original extent and armaments of the battery are well documented;
* Fragility/vulnerability: the cement facing and earthworks of the battery are vulnerable to damage and modification due to their situation abutting the gardens of the mobile home park.

History

No 1 Battery was part of the defences of the Stokes Bay Lines, a defensive complex which was established to protect the western approaches to Portsmouth Harbour. It was part of the Royal Commission fortifications of this country.

The Royal Commission fortifications are a group of related sites established in response to the 1859 Royal Commission report on the defence of the United Kingdom. This had been set up following an invasion scare caused by the strengthening of the French Navy. These fortifications represented the largest maritime defence programme since the initiative of Henry VIII in 1539-40. The programme built upon the defensive works already begun at Plymouth and elsewhere and recommended the improvement of existing fortifications as well as the construction of new ones.

There were eventually some 70 forts and batteries in England which were due wholly or in part to the Royal Commission. These constitute a well-defined group with common design characteristics, armament and defensive provisions. Whether reused or not during the C20, they are the most visible core of Britain's coastal defence systems and are known colloquially as 'Palmerston's follies' after Lord Palmerston (1784-1865) who was Prime Minister at the time.

The earliest defence of Stokes Bay can be attributed to King Henry VIII who built Haselworth Castle, probably on the site of what is now Fort Monckton. The need for a more robust defensive system in this area was recognised as long ago as 1587 when the threat from Spain encouraged the Earl of Sussex to request defences centred on the area of Haselworth Castle including damming the River Alver.

It was not until 1779, however, when the American War of Independence provided a spur, that the defences of Stokes Bay were addressed. Fearing that the American war would provoke an attack on England by France or Spain, the first Fort Gilkicker was constructed. Redoubts were built along the coast of Stokes Bay in 1782-3 and Fort Gilkicker was rebuilt in 1789-90 on a new site and renamed Fort Monckton, just before the French Revolutionary War of 1793.

In the 1840s and 1850s the first Browndown Batteries were built; two at Browndown Point and one at Gilkicker Point, and again prompted by the possible warlike intentions of France. In 1858 the French had constructed the Gloire, an ironclad, a new type of armour plated fighting ship, which threatened England’s naval supremacy. Although England in response produced the Warrior, the largest ironclad of its time, it was recognised that the guns of shore defences would have to be upgraded to deal with the new advances in ship building and gun construction. The Royal Commission of 1860 under Lord Palmerston was set up to consider the Defences of the United Kingdom with particular reference to the new rifled guns. It recognised that Stokes Bay was an ideal beach for possible invasion landings. In 1857 Major Jervois had proposed a system of ramparts, moats and batteries to close the gap between a new fort inland at Gomer and Fort Monckton, which were to become the Stokes Bay Lines. The work was started in 1859 and the Lines ran from the rear of the Browndown Batteries in the west to the glacis of Fort Monckton in the east. It consisted of a rampart with a road to its rear, a wet ditch or moat to the front 60ft in width and 9ft deep at high water of Spring tides. Fort Gilkicker and the batteries at Browndown were to help in the defence and there were five batteries along the length of the Line of which No 1 Battery, at the west end of the line near Browndown Battery and to the rear of No 2 Battery, was one.

No 1 Battery straddled the Browndown Road; the only road to Browndown Camp along the coast. It also covered the rear of a dam constructed to flood the Gomer marshes in time of attack by closing off the River Alver. The battery was first armed with 8–inch Smooth Bore guns firing through embrasures. By 1891 these were replaced by two 7-inch 82 cwt Rifled Breech-loading guns. There were two expense magazines (for ready-to-use ammunition stored by the guns), one for shells and one for cartridges. A short tunnel connected No 1 Battery to the parade of No 2 Battery via a bridge across a moat.

No 1 Battery was damaged in the 1930s when the east end was removed during widening of the Browndown Road. The northern part of the battery was also removed (nonetheless a significant proportion of the original site survives.) This seems to have been the end of the battery as a working artillery emplacement as it does not appear to have been reused during WWII.

Details

Most of the southern part of No 1 Battery survives on the northern edge of a mobile home park under grass with some tree and shrub. It includes a 'Z' shaped earth rampart varying between 1m to 1.5m high on its vertical north (internal) face and up to 3m high on its sloping south (external) face. The width varies from 2m to 6m. The north face of the rampart is faced with mass concrete 0.2-0.3m thick, in which can be seen the cast of the shuttering used in its construction. The southern face is composed of an earth bank sloping to the south.

A section of the internal face of the south rampart is in brick with a segmental arch and a brick buttress either side where the entrance and exit of the tunnel to No 2 Battery passes through the rampart. There is a similar portal in the external face of the rampart. Adjacent to it is the position of one of the expense magazines of 1860 which became a cartridge store in 1892. This has a four course segmental brick arch with concrete steps leading down to it and an Ordnance Survey datum point to one side.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The scheduling aims to protect the earth bank and concrete revetments of the battery, the tunnel through the bank and adjacent expense magazine. A number of features are excluded from the scheduling; these include the wooden door and wooden facing at the tunnel entrance, later garden features which have been added to the earthwork including the concrete supports for the bench on the earthwork and steps with stone treads cut into the rampart from some of the gardens. The ground beneath all these features is, however, included. The monument therefore has a maximum length of 60m and a maximum width of 7m including a margin of protection for the support and maintenance of the monument.

Sources

Other
David Moore Solent Papers No.8 The Stokes Bay Defences September 2010 ISBN 0 9548453 1 5 ,
Archaeology & Planning Solutions – The Defences of Stokes Bay Gosport Hampshire Archaeological Desk Based Assessment November 2006,

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