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Summary

The Elizabethan bastioned trace was designed and set out by Paul Ivy, an experienced military engineer from the Low Countries. Ivy had to modify his original plans for the section of the work because the bedrock was so close to the surface. The trace was completed in early 1600.

Protected Status: None recorded

Other Statuses/Codes: none recorded

Monument Type(s):

• RAMPART (16th Century to Unknown - 1598 AD)

Full description

The Elizabethan bastioned trace was designed and set out by Paul Ivy, an experienced military engineer from the Low Countries. Ivy had to modify his original plans for the section of the work because the bedrock was so close to the surface. The trace was completed in early 1600.

An unusual oblique view drawn by John Norden and probably a copy of a proposal drawing rather than a record, implies a rock-cut ditch with a rampart surmounted by a curved sodwork parapet, pierced on the bastions with externally splayed embrasures. On the land front two cavaliers are shown in the angle bastions. Norden shows the counterscarp as a slight feature which develops into a covered way around the land front which one might expect here for added protection. A further view by Norden in 1611 is significant for providing the first detailed plan of Pendennis and the headland. Curiously he depicts the angle at Bell Bastion not as a semi-bastion as Lilly saw it almost 100 years later but as a re-entrant angle. He does the same on a crude book plate of 1603. Therefore it is a possibiluty that in the early C17 there was no angle bastion in the SE corner of the enceinte.

Four traverses are also shown. One of these which has been called the Elizabethan Traverse can still be seen today and appears on most C18 and C19 plans. A traverse on the west side of the fort continues the line of the Elizabethan traverse to the sea. A dark line on the south side of the feature probably indicates the position of the parapet ie to withstand an assault from the north. A further traverse linking the salient of the south bastion with the sea appears to have a parapet on the north side to prevent an approach from the south. To the south of the ravelin a traverse with indeterminate parapet cuts the headland from sea to sea.

During the peace of the early C17 it was reported to Parliament that part of the southern ramparts had collapsed and in 1627 the military engineer Bernard Johnson was taken on to carry out the repairs and to extend the ramparts to landward. Johnson's work resulted in the hornwork to the north of the Elizabethan castle. He may also have increased the height of the front rampart to that of the two cavaliers. The best record of the profile of the C17 rampart is provided bya survey of 1715 by Lilly. In it he demonstrates that the curved Henrician parapet had by then been replaced by the more advanced angular parapet with flat 'superior slope'.

Lilly's plan of 1715 shows that the salient of Horsepool Bastion had collapsed into the ditch and given the longstanding siting of the 'boghouse' in the salient from the Civil War onwards, it seems likely that the outfall from the same could have undermined the escarp revetments. Lilly proposed to build up the parapets in sodwork. By the mid 1730s Lilly's alterations to the rampart were complete. The key to Lilly's work is the nine gun battery on curtain No. 3. This battery is much as Lilly left it demonstrating that all the surviving stone lined and revetted embrasures are of this period. It can be stated with some certainty that it was Lilly who built the present revetted parapet.

An C18 plan of Carrick Mount Bastion made to record the collapse of half of the east face revetment shows a section through the ditch which is drawn flat bottomed without palisade or drop ditch. In detail the drawings show that part of the escarp of Carrick Mount Bastion had collapsed and this was to be repaired with four counterforts surrounding three sections of masonry facing. The parapet was to be reconstructed in its entiretly in sodwork. Other areas of collapsed escarp were shown along the face of Horsepool Bastion, flanking the entrance bridge and the salient of same as already mentioned.

On the salient of Ravelin Battery and along the south east face, a 15ft run of escarp was to be rebuilt in slate on edge. At Smithwick's Bastion most of the escarp revetments were renewed. Some sources mention that the north west front of the fort received the most damage from the Parliamentarian batteries during the Civil War.

The reconstruction of the parapet in sodwork allowed for the incorporation of a fraise of sharpened wooden stakes. In addition a palisade was placed at the centre of the ditch and cut a drop ditch or cunette against the counterscarp throwing the deblai onto the glacis to give the counterscarp a slightly higher profile with a 45 degree slope made necessary by the steeply sloping glacis.

Durnford's plan of 1793 shows the dotted line of the palisade in the ditch which by plans of 1811 is shown ballooning out to enclose a bastion shaped tambour at the main gate and a redan shaped tambour at the back gate.

During the Revolutionary war, the height of the land front escarp was increased by the addition of four cavaliers.

In 1827 the Board of Ordnance ordered the removal of the palisade - the fraise would seem to have dropped out by itself. A watered-down version of a plan went ahead in 1829 to repair the land front by deepening the ditch or altering the angle of the escarp.

A plan accompanying correspondance from Colonel Hoste drawn by engineer Nelson in 1843 records the collapse of the facing of the escarps on the north face and east flank of Smithwick's Bastion and a 60ft length of curtain No 1 just north of East Bastion. Nelson provides plans and sections of the breaches and typical details of quaywork.

In the 1850s, 360 degree defence of the fort was provided by mounting 32 and 56 pounders on common traversing platforms in the salients augmented by infantry.

The Ordnance Survey of 1866 appears to depict the revetment repairs of the previous 150 years in pink. In addition to the repairs described above there are substantial patches of new work on Smithwick's Bastion, Carrick Mount Bastion, the south end of curtain No. 2, the south flank of East Bastion, the salient of Ravelin Battery the seaward face of South Bastion and part of the south west flank of Ravelin Battery, the whole of the northwest face of Horsepool Bastion and an area of escarp below the main gate. Presumably these were in response to further collapses between 1793 and 1866.

The contours added to the survey in 1891 suggest that the drop ditch was still a strong feature at this time and imply the possible site of a fougasse flanking the back gate bridge - a feature which is still clearly visible today.

An accommodation plan of 1930 plots the route of a 4 in rising main and gas supply past Smithwick's Bastion and through curtain No. 1 for the buildings erected in the castle at the turn of the century. Foul drains serving soldiers privies are shown exiting the castle where they had always done so through the flank of Horsepool Bastion to a manhole in the salient of the counterscarp opposite and thence to the sea. At the manhole they are joined by foul water pipes issuing from the new barracks which emerge from the rampart below the entrance bridge.

A sketch plan of 1941 shows the locations of over 20 infantry defence positions, all slit trenches, dug into the parapet. Today the trenches are often still evident as depressions. Many of the buildings in the ditch have now been removed. A small part of the early C19 pistol range survives.

Her Majesty's Office of Works once again repaired the south west face of Horsepool Bastion in the 1960s and have successfully stabilised the bank in a number of places where they were weak (1).

<1> Linzey, R, 2000, Fortress Falmouth. An conservation plan for the historic defences of Falmouth Haven Vol II (2000), site B1 (Cornwall Event Report). SCO1563.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• ECO455 - Fortress Falmouth

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