Fort Bovisand

Fort Bovisand is a battery built between 1861 and 1869, constructed in granite ashlar with asphalt roofs, hard-core infill and brick interior. It was one of two batteries built to protect the entrance to Plymouth Sound, following recommendations made by the 1860 Royal Commission on the nation's defences. The companion fort was Picklecombe Fort in Cornwall. Both superseded earlier batteries, in Bovisand's case Staddon Point Battery.

The fort contains 23 casemates arranged in a curving frontage that slopes downhill from east to northwest, positioned above magazine level and looking over Plymouth Sound. Each casemate features a segmental-arched rounded surround framing an iron shield on its seaward side. These shields are up to 3 feet thick, consisting of wrought iron plates fastened to an iron concrete or teak core.

The fort's armament changed considerably over its lifetime. In 1885, three pairs of Hotchkiss quick-firing guns were mounted on the roof to defend the minefield between Bovisand and the Breakwater. These were replaced by Staddon Point Battery B in 1899. The east pair of guns remains complete, with three others visible under structures built in 1942. Two twin 6-pounder quick-firing guns were added in 1942 to protect the eastern part of the Sound against motor torpedo boats. These 1942 structures comprise flat-roofed shelters of brick and shuttered concrete reinforced with iron girders, plus a three-storey observation tower of similar construction. The survival of these emplacements with towers and shelters is unique in the Plymouth area.

The interior of each casemate features a vaulted brick roof with a traversing gun positioned to the front of barrack accommodation. The front wall contains a cartridge lift between each embrasure and rope mantlets to protect crews; mantlet bars survive in casemates 12 to 14, with gun specifications noted on labels above. Dividing walls to the rear have fireplaces alternating with shell lifts, some pulley loops and davits for the latter having survived. An arched verandah runs behind the casemates, originally divided from them by glazed timber screens.

Two stone spiral stairs provide access to the magazines, which alternate between shell and cartridge stores, each serving two guns above. Magazines are accessed via a passage under the verandah and served by trolley ways and lighting passages. Original fittings that survive include metal voice pipes, labels to shell lifts and stores, and wooden lining to one shell lift and several cartridge lifts.

The original design of November 1861 proposed a two-tier battery, but by 1864 this was changed to a single-tier battery for 23 guns with magazines accommodated in the basement below. The original armament of rifled muzzle loaders was removed between 1895 and 1903, and the fort was subsequently adapted for new armament throughout the twentieth century until the end of the Second World War.

Fort Bovisand formed part of the largest body of permanent fortification ever built in Britain, a response to renewed fears of French aggression. By 1867, 76 forts and batteries were under construction or already completed, the majority being coast batteries. Fort Bovisand is one of the best-preserved examples. Its design, like most batteries following the 1860 Commission's report, centres on a sweeping arc of casemates—chambers accessible from the rear through which guns fired on a fixed line. With Breakwater Fort and the battery at Drake's Island, it represents the best-preserved of the coastal batteries that covered the entrance to the naval port.