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Scraesdon Fort, near the village of 
Scraesdon Fort was designed in 1859 by Captain (later Maj General) William Crossman, and was built by F Roach and Company, Plymouth.
It was completed at a cost of £137,000. It is constructed in the Land Front,
Victorian Forts data sheet
* Grade II listed buildings in Cornwall Forts in Cornwall Palmerston Forts Military history of Cornwall {{Cornwall-struct-stub
Antony Antony may refer to:
* Antony (name), a masculine given name and a surname
* Antony, Belarus, a village in the Hrodna Voblast of Belarus
* Antony, Cornwall, a village in Cornwall, United Kingdom
** Antony House, Cornwall, United Kingdom
* Antony, ...
, is one of several forts in South East Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlan ...
which formed part of the ring of forts surrounding Plymouth to protect Plymouth Sound
Plymouth Sound, or locally just The Sound, is a deep inlet or sound in the English Channel near Plymouth in England.
Description
Its southwest and southeast corners are Penlee Point in Cornwall and Wembury Point in Devon, a distance of abo ...
and, in particular, the naval dockyard of Devonport from enemy naval attack. They were built as a result of a decision
Decision may refer to:
Law and politics
* Judgment (law), as the outcome of a legal case
*Landmark decision, the outcome of a case that sets a legal precedent
* ''Per curiam'' decision, by a court with multiple judges
Books
* ''Decision'' (nove ...
in Lord Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...
's premiership to deter the French from attacking naval bases in the south of England.
Scraesdon Fort was designed in 1859 by Captain (later Maj General) William Crossman, and was built by F Roach and Company, Plymouth.
It was completed at a cost of £137,000. It is constructed in the Land Front, polygonal
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed '' polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two t ...
, near octagon
In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon.
A ''regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, wh ...
al format. It has a dry ditch, and was designed to have twenty-seven 7-inch breech-loading guns on the ramparts. By 1893 it mounted one 64 Pounder Rifled Muzzle Loading Guns, eight 7-inch Rifled Breech Loading (RBL) gun, two 32 Pounder Smooth Bore Breech Loading (SBBL) guns and two 5-inch Breech Loading guns.
The upper level is 254 ft above mean sea level (AMSL
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''.
The c ...
) and the lower level is 173 feet AMSL.
The fort was used by the MOD as a training barracks, but it is currently empty, derelict and overgrown. It was used to train Royal Navy Artificer Apprentices from HMS Fisgard
Three ships and a shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been named HMS ''Fisgard'' or HMS ''Fishguard'' after the coastal town of Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the scene of the defeat of the last invasion attempt on Britain, by a Frenc ...
and HMS Raleigh; it is occasionally used now by Royal Marine Commandos recruits as part of their final exercise, as well as being used by local Army Reserve units. The most renowned history of the fort, is that of the Scraesdonians. These are two brothers who know the fort better than any map, or man. Legend has it, they have never been seen, nor caught whilst in the fort grounds. Their names will be etched in the history of the walls of Scraesdon for eternity. The fort is also used for airsoft events on an ad hoc basis. It was Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...
in 1968.
A military railway. used from 1893 to 1903, connected the fort with the River Lynher at Wacker Quay, near St. Germans. It also provided a link to the main fort on the Rame peninsula at Fort Tregantle
Tregantle Fort in south east Cornwall is one of several forts surrounding Plymouth that were built as a result of a decision in Lord Palmerston's premiership to deter the French from attacking naval bases on the Channel coast.
History
The fort ...
. The railway ran underneath the metal bridge and down a gradient, then went underneath the current A374 road, and alongside Wacker Quay. The locomotive shed was extant on the quayside until the late 2000s,when it was removed by Cornwall CC, who had been using it as a highways depot. and other remnants of the railway can also be seen . There was also an extensive marshalling area next to the east wall of the fort.
References
Bibliography
* *External links
Victorian Forts data sheet
* Grade II listed buildings in Cornwall Forts in Cornwall Palmerston Forts Military history of Cornwall {{Cornwall-struct-stub