Firestone Bay Artillery Tower |
| Hob Uid: 437590 | |
Location :
City of Plymouth
Non Civil Parish
|
| Grid Ref : SX4637053520 |
| Summary : Blockhouse built in the late 15th or early 16th centuries. Later artillery tower, used as part of Henry VIII's coastal defences. Decommissioned by 1857, later public conveniences and now a restaurant. |
More information : (SX 46375352) Tower (NAT). (1)
Firestone Bay Artillery Tower is part of a system of coastal defence dating from the time Henry VIII 1537-9 and is the best preserved of the towers. It is a 7-sided embattled tower of stone rubble with embrasures, loopholes and an old doorway. (2)
Listed Grade II. Blockhouse tower for coastal defence. 1537-39, remodelled in the C19. Stone rubble with some granite dressings; flat roof behind embattled parapet. Polygonal plan, extended to the north-west in the C19. 2 storeys; irregularly-disposed openings, some windows enlarged from former gun loops. Original openings include chamfered 2-centred arched doorway to landward side and some original gun loops including some to the centres of some of the merlons.
INTERIOR: not inspected.
Listed as Winter Villa. (4)
The artillery tower was probably built in the late 15th or early 16th century as a blockhouse as part of the Edgecumbe family's defences of the harbour. In 1540 it is depicted as a two-storeyed polygonal tower with gun embrasures on two floors. By 1857 it had become a coastguard watch-house. In 1891-6 it was converted to public conveniences, and was converted into a restaurant in the late 20th century. (50
|