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Blockhouses
A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive strong point against any enemy that does not possess siege equipment or, in modern times, artillery, air force or cruise missiles. A fortification intended to resist these weapons is more likely to qualify as a fortress or a redoubt, or in modern times, be an underground bunker. However, a blockhouse may also refer to a room within a larger fortification, usually a battery or redoubt. Etymology The term ''blockhouse'' is of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Middle Dutch ''blokhus'' and 18th-century French '' blocus'' (blockade). In ancient Greece Blockhouses existed in ancient Greece, for example the one near Mycenae. Early blockhouses in England Early blockhouses were designed solely to protect a particular area by the use of arti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Device Forts
The Device Forts, also known as Henrician castles and blockhouses, were a series of artillery fortifications built to defend the coast of England and Wales by Henry VIII of England, Henry VIII. Traditionally, the Crown had left coastal defences in the hands of local lords and communities but the threat of French and Spanish invasion led the King to issue an order, called a "device", for a major programme of work between 1539 and 1547. The fortifications ranged from large stone castles positioned to protect The Downs (ship anchorage), the Downs anchorage in Kent, to small blockhouses overlooking the entrance to Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, and earthwork Bastion, bulwarks along the Essex coast. Some forts operated independently, others were designed to be mutually reinforcing. The Device programme was hugely expensive, costing a total of £376,000 (estimated as between £2 and £82 billion in today's money); much of this was raised from the proceeds of the Dissolution of the Mon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Edgcumbe Blockhouse
Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, Cornwall, England People * Mount (surname) * William L. Mounts (1862–1929), American lawyer and politician Computing and software * Mount (computing), the process of making a file system accessible * Mount (Unix), the utility in Unix-like operating systems which mounts file systems Books * ''Mount!'', a 2016 novel by Jilly Cooper Displays and equipment * Mount, a fixed point for attaching equipment, such as a hardpoint on an airframe * Mounting board, in picture framing * Mount, a hanging scroll for mounting paintings * Mount, to display an item on a heavy backing such as foamcore, e.g.: ** To pin a biological specimen, on a heavy backing in a stretched stable position for ease of dissection or display ** To prepare dead animal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artillery Batteries
In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems. The term is also used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships. Land usage Historically the term "battery" referred to a cluster of cannons in action as a group, either in a temporary field position during a battle or at the siege of a fortress or a city. Such batteries could be a mixture of cannon, howitzer, or mortar types. A siege could involve many batteries at different sites around the besieged place. The term also came to be used for a group of cannons in a fixed fortification, for coastal or frontier defence. During the 18th century "battery" began to be used as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knights Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there until 1291, thereafter being based in Kolossi Castle in Cyprus (1302–1310), the island of Rhodes (1310–1522), Malta (1530–1798), and Saint Petersburg (1799–1801). The Hospitallers arose in the early 12th century at the height of the Cluniac movement, a reformist movement within the Benedictine monastic order that sought to strengthen religious devotion and charity for the poor. Earlier in the 11th century, merchants from Amalfi founded a hospital in Jerusalem dedicated to John the Baptist where Benedictine monks cared for sick, poor, or injured Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Blessed Gerard, a lay brother of the Benedictine order, became its head when it was established. After the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malta
Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two official languages are Maltese language, Maltese and English language, English. The country's capital is Valletta, which is the smallest capital city in the EU by both area and population. It was also the first World Heritage Site, World Heritage City in Europe to become a European Capital of Culture in 2018. With a population of about 542,000 over an area of , Malta is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, tenth-smallest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population density, ninth-most densely populated. Various sources consider the country to consist of a single urban region, for which it is often described as a city-state. Malta has been inhabited since at least 6500 BC, during the Mesolith ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scilly
The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the British mainland at Lizard Point, and has the southernmost inhabited settlement in England, Troy Town. The total population of the islands at the 2021 United Kingdom census was 2,100 (rounded to the nearest 100). A majority live on one island, St Mary's, and close to half live in Hugh Town; the remainder live on four inhabited "off-islands". Scilly forms part of the ceremonial county of Cornwall, and some services are combined with those of Cornwall. However, since 1890, the islands have had a separate local authority. Since the passing of the Isles of Scilly Order 1930, this authority has held the status of county council, and today it is known as the Council of the Isles of Scilly. The adjective "Scillonian" is sometimes used for people or things related to the archipelago. The Duchy of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cromwell's Castle
Cromwell's Castle is an artillery fort overlooking New Grimsby harbour on the island of Tresco, Isles of Scilly, Tresco in the Isles of Scilly. It comprises a tall, circular gun tower and an adjacent gun platform, and was designed to prevent enemy naval vessels from entering the harbour. The castle was built in two phases; Sir Robert Blake (admiral), Robert Blake constructed the tower between 1651 and 1652 in the aftermath of the Roundheads, Parliamentary invasion of the islands at the end of the English Civil War, and Master Gunner Abraham Tovey added the gun platform during the War of Jenkins' Ear around 1739. The tower fell into disuse soon afterwards, and in the 21st century is managed by English Heritage and open to visitors. History 17th century Cromwell's Castle is an artillery tower, built by Sir Robert Blake (admiral), Robert Blake following the Parliament of the United Kingdom, Parliamentary invasion of the Isles of Scilly in 1651. During the English Civil War between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bastion
A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the flanks being able to protect the curtain wall and the adjacent bastions. Compared with the medieval fortified towers they replaced, bastion fortifications offered a greater degree of passive resistance and more scope for ranged defence in the age of gunpowder artillery. As military architecture, the bastion is one element in the style of fortification dominant from the mid 16th to mid 19th centuries. Evolution By the middle of the 15th century, artillery pieces had become powerful enough to make the traditional medieval round tower and curtain wall obsolete. This was exemplified by the campaigns of Charles VII of France who reduced the towns and castles held by the English during the latter stages of the Hundred Years War, and by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plymouth
Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and southwest of London. It is the most populous city in Devon. Plymouth's history extends back to the Bronze Age, evolving from a trading post at Mount Batten into the thriving market town of Sutton, which was formally re-named as Plymouth in 1439 when it was made a borough status in the United Kingdom, borough. The settlement has played a significant role in English history, notably in 1588 when an English fleet based here defeated the Spanish Armada, and in 1620 as the departure point for the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World. During the English Civil War, the town was held by the Roundhead, Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646. In 1690 a dockyard was established on the River Tamar for the Royal Navy and Plymouth grew as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
