For important guidance on the use of this record, please click here.

If you have any comments or new information about this record, please email us.

Summary

Plans thought to date to 1700, show a rudimaentary platform facing Black Rock at Crab Quay with a small building to the south. This work is believed to have been built to control the landing place to the south. Lilly's survey of 1715 calls it 'Crab Quay Platform' and once again shows the small building to the south. The Buck brothers' engraving of 1734 confirms the continuing presence of this adjacent building. Later documents call this a guard house, presumably guarding Crab Quay rather than the battery.

Protected Status: None recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey: 5562

Monument Type(s):

• GUARDHOUSE (17th Century to Unknown - 1700 AD)

Full description

Plans thought to date to 1700, show a rudimaentary platform facing Black Rock at Crab Quay with a small building to the south. This work is believed to have been built to control the landing place to the south. Lilly's survey of 1715 calls it 'Crab Quay Platform' and once again shows the small building to the south. The Buck brothers' engraving of 1734 confirms the continuing presence of this adjacent building. Later documents call this a guard house, presumably guarding Crab Quay rather than the battery.

A plan of 1866 shows the 'old guardhouse' linked to the battery revetments and it may by this time have served as an artillery store. A photograph taken in the mid-C19 shows that the rear of the work had been protected, albeit half heartedly, by a stout palisade fence and that the guns had been mounted.

As part of the improvements made to Crab Quay at the turn of the C20, the guardhouse was filled with shingle to act as a protective rampart and platform for a machine gun battery. Originally the machine guns were carriage mounted, each gun being served by two ammunition belt lockers within the parapet. These lockers survive minus their joinery. In 1911 there was still one machine gun at Crab Quay almost certainly remaining to defilade the landing stage.

Cornwall Archaeological Unit conducted archaeological evaluations on the machine gun battery and the glacis of the quick fire battery in 1997. It seems likely from these investigations that the concrete cylinders within the machine gun battery previously thought to be the remains of three spigot mortar bases are contemporaneous with the machine gun battery and were pedestals for Maxim machine guns, although they are certainly a secondary feature, the first machine guns rcorded at Crab Quay having been carriage mounted. (4).

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1880s, 1st Edition 1:2500 Map (Cartographic materials). SCO4048.

<2> Linzey, R, 2000, Fortress Falmouth, U2.1 (Unassigned). SCO27865.

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1900s, 2nd Edition 1:2500 Map (Cartographic materials). SCO4050.

<4> Linzey, R, 2000, Fortress Falmouth. An conservation plan for the historic defences of Falmouth Haven Vol II (2000), site U2.2 (Cornwall Event Report). SCO1563.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

Related records

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.