Summary
The monument includes the standing and buried remains of a Second World War Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) battery located on Maker Heights. The gun site was built in the early years of, or just before, the Second World War as part of a ring defending Plymouth’s important docks. It was enlarged later in the war.
Reasons for Designation
The HAA Battery at Maker Heights is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Period: as one of the few obvious and tangible facets of Britain’s wartime air defence system, one which stands testament to the development of C20 airborne warfare and to national defence policy;
* Rarity: identified as one of a small number of complete or near complete Second World War gun batteries, which were built in great numbers but with greatly diminished rates of survival in the national context;
* Group value: for the exceptionally strong group value of the extensive military installations at Maker Heights, highlighting the continued use and strategic importance of the site in the C20; also with the wider network of defensive installations built to protect Plymouth’s important dockyard;
* Survival: as a well-preserved HAA battery that retains its core structures, including a command post, four tridecagonal gun emplacements and two later square emplacements;
* Potential: of an unusual plan form, it will enhance our understanding of the construction and operation of HAA sites in Britain and provide an insight into the development of anti-aircraft measures during the course of the conflict.
History
Maker Heights is a multi-period former military site with its origins in the late C18. The site was part of a network of structures built to defend the Royal Naval Dockyard at Devonport, and was of particular strategic importance due to its topographical advantage. The first structures were a line of earthwork redoubts, built over the course of three summers from 1779. Some were fortified with stone revetments in the decade that followed, and a large barracks was added at around the turn of the century, with associated ancillary accommodation enclosed within a perimeter wall. The development of military technology in the C19 saw the rearmament of Redoubt 4, Grenville Battery, and further defensive and ancillary structures were built in the surrounding area.
The new threat of aerial bombardment prompted changes at Maker Heights in the C20. During the late 1930s, with German rearmament progressing rapidly, close attention was given to Britain’s anti-aircraft defences. By the time war was declared in September 1939 Heavy Anti-aircraft (HAA) batteries had already been constructed at some of the country’s key locations. In all, almost 1000 were constructed nationally before the end of the Second World War. The standard weapons deployed at these sites were 3.7- and 4.5-inch calibre HAA guns with the function of engaging with high-flying strategic bombers, hence their location close to large cities, industrial and military targets, and around the south and east coasts. They were substantially built and, as well as the gun emplacements, which were usually in groups of either two, four or eight, they generally included operational buildings such as a command post, on-site magazines for storing reserve ammunition, gun stores and sometimes radar structures. Domestic sites were also a feature of HAA gun sites and comprised a variety of typical military buildings and hutting, such as barracks placed on concrete building platforms. The layout of HAA batteries was distinctive, but changed over time, for example to accommodate the introduction of radar from December 1940 and female soldiers from the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) from summer 1941.
The HAA battery at Maker Heights was one of a group of a ring defending Plymouth, manned by an HAA Regiment. The battery, initially laid out with a command post with four gun emplacements, was armed with 3.7-inch guns; it was subsequently enlarged with the addition of two further emplacements. The barracks is likely to have been used to provide accommodation for the battery.
Associated with the battery was a gun laying radar platform, to the immediate north-east. This consisted of an octagonal wire mat of 110m diameter, either laid directly on the ground or raised on a series of 645 posts; a radar platform in the centre, formed of four piers onto which the receiver was raised; and a walkway leading from the outside of the mat to the central platform. These features do not survive, though the location is confirmed by a mid-C20 aerial photograph. This would have been linked to the command post at the battery, probably by ducted cabling.
No magazine to serve the battery has been identified, though a site to the north of the command post, obscured by brambles, has been suggested.
After the end of the Second World War, and with the advent of nuclear warfare, conventional anti-aircraft defences became obsolete. The group at Maker Heights has survived, though aerial photographs show that earthen banks around the emplacements, and a blast wall around the command post had been levelled by the late C20. Military development continued at Maker during the Cold War.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The monument includes the standing and buried remains of a Second World War Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) battery located on Maker Heights, a defensive military site originating in the late C18, overlooking Plymouth Sound and the English Channel. The gun site was built in the early years of, or just before, the Second World War as part of a ring defending Plymouth’s important docks. It was enlarged later in the war.
DESCRIPTION
The battery is located on a raised plateau to the north of the C18 barracks complex. It comprises a central command post with six gun emplacements laid out in a south-east facing horseshoe shape around it. There are two distinct forms of gun emplacement: the four original positions are close to being circular (13 sided), while the later two are rectangular on plan.
The four main gun emplacements are set out in a semi-circle to the south-east of the command post. They are constructed from concrete block, with reinforced concrete lintels to the openings. Each has a central enclosure within which is a concrete platform for mounting the guns; all retain the remains of central bolt fixings, and there is a narrow duct between the platform and the entrance, used to carry cabling to automatically fire the gun. Around the perimeter of each enclosure is a series of ammunition lockers and shelters, some with the remains of whitewashing and traces of holes for curtains over the ammunition stores. Blast walls survive at the entrances to the southernmost structures. Earthen banks have been levelled.
The pair of rectangular emplacements flank the semi-circle of earlier structures on the north and west. Also constructed from concrete block, and planned as a rectangular enclosure with lockers along the sides. Central concrete platforms retain a circular pattern of bolts; these were probably for 4.5 in guns.
The central command post, which is partly sunken and terraced into the slope faces the original emplacements to the south-east. It is constructed from brick with concrete lintels and roof, and is rectangular on plan, with an open-air enclosure at the front. Within the enclosure is a triangular instrument platform which is likely to have held an identification telescope, height finder and predictor; three pieces of optical equipment for spotting and tracking enemy aircraft. Internally, the building is symmetrically laid out with a large central room and various ancillary rooms to either side. The central room would have functioned as the plotting room, in which data from the optical equipment would have been converted into elevation, bearing and fuze timings for the guns. Cable channels connect the platform with the plotting room, and then exit the command post through holes in the front wall which are splayed out towards each of the emplacements. The interior rooms have been stripped of their fittings. The building contains replacement modern windows.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The monument includes the operational core of the site, namely the six gun emplacements and command post, along with a 3m margin for their support and protection.
