| Summary : Fort Number 12 of London's Civil War defences. The common council resolution called for `a quadrant forte with fower halfe bulwarkes cross Tyburn highway at the second turning towards Westminster'. This description appears to place the fort opposite Wardour Street, on the north side of Oxford Street, at the eastern end of Eastcastle Street. Vertue and Rocque show works there, but Lithgow described this fort as the Banqueting House Fortress composed of `two forts upon Taybourne Way and Maribone Fields'. However, that would place the fort 1000 yards to the west at the junction of Marylebone Lane and Oxford Street. A map by Desmaretz of 1717 shows a section of rampart karked to the south of Mayfair. If this is extapolated north-east to meet the westward extension of the rampart beyond Fort 11, it meets at the junction of Great Portland Street with Oxford Street, near the Banqueting House. Either location would have been good to guard the western approach to London. (The alternative location would be at TQ291812). |