Polhawn Fort

SX 44 NW MAKER-WITH-RAME

8/75 Polhawn Fort 19.11.86

GV II*

Fort, used as hotel in early C20, now house. 1865, with very few later alterations. Limestone rockfaced coursed rubble with granite dressings and quoins, brick dressings. Plan: splayed front with 3 bays to right and 4 to left, single storey ravelin to rear centre, stair tower to each end. Single storey with basement for stores and magazine. Front has 7 embrasures for guns, all with segmental heads, stepped and splayed reveals, bull-nose moulding over as string course with parapet and chamfered overhanging blocking course. Basement level to right has 3 narrower splayed embrasures, with triplet casements of 4 panes each, with one similar embrasure to left. Right end has bull-nose moulding returned from front. Left end also has moulding returned, with wide segmental-headed opening at ground level (to basement) with splayed side walls. Rear has central single storey ravelin with small embrasure to left and right, and blocking course. To left and right of ravelin, 3 segmental brick arches of 5 courses of brickwork, each arch is over a pair of casements of 12 panes each light with granite surrounds. The bull-nose moulding is continued around rear, with parapet and coping, parapet ramped up to left, with brick stacks rising from parapet. Greenhouses on roof behind front parapet, and half-glazed door in porch on roof to rear right,, giving access to stair. The rear right of the roof is approached by a drawbridge over the rear ditch with pulley chains remaining. Interior: The stair towers to left and right rear each have cantilevered granite newel stair. The ground floor has vaulted bays with partition walls, some of the embrasures still have the semicircular metal track in the floor for pivoting the gun carriages. Segmental-arched doorways between the vaulted chambers. At basement level, to rear there is a shell-chute, and the door to the magazine is 4-panelled with strap hinges and has printed lettering: MAGAZINE. The magazine is to the left, front right has store rooms/barrack accommodation, each lit by one of the triplet windows. The interior is very little altered. In 1859, a Commission was formed "to consider the Defences of the United Kingdom", after the pressure of public opinion following the news that the French navy were building iron-clad warships. This was set up by Palmerston. The design of the forts was in the hands of the royal Engineers, in the person of Colonel, later Lt. General, Sir W.F. Drummond Jarvis RE. Polhawn Fort was intended to command the approach to the eastward side of Whitsand Bay and cost £8850. (Sources: Rawlings, K.J.: Defence Works Plymouth Area 130o-19B3, 1984)

Listing NGR: SX4205449224