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Summary

The Buck brothers' engraving of 1734 is the first to show a magazine at this location surrounded by a blast wall and an Ordnance Survey of 1752 records that it could hold 240 barrels of powder.

Protected Status: None recorded

Other Statuses/Codes: none recorded

Monument Type(s):

• MAGAZINE (18th Century to Unknown - 1733 AD)

Full description

The Buck brothers' engraving of 1734 is the first to show a magazine at this location surrounded by a blast wall and an Ordnance Survey of 1752 records that it could hold 240 barrels of powder. The buttressed 'powder magazine' is drawn in three quarter view in an unattributed view of 1762. This depiction indicates that the magazine had been dug into the terreplain from the Henrician ditch so that it could not be seen from outside the ramparts.

In drawings of 1821 it is called 'Magazine No 1,' to distinguish it from two other magazines which had been built during the war with France. By 1848 it was known as 'Old Magazine No 2' and on 2 February, the Commanding Engineer Colonel J Oldfield, wrote to the Inspector General of Fortifications to report its "capacity as 428 barrels. Revised capacity 272 barrels. Exterior walls of masonry brick and linings of brick with slated roof Good condition with 3ft 9 ins thick brick vault."

By 1866 the magazine had descended in the pecking order to 'No 3.' The detailed Ordnance Survey shows it entered through the blast wall at the north end, and protected by lightning conductors and water tanks, as an optimistic fire precaution, at the south end.

Around 1895 the magazine was radically altered to convert it to a war shelter for the gun detatchment of One Gun Battery. These alterations involved almost complete removal of the barrel vault and re-roofing with a Fox and Barrett type steel and concrete roof. In addition the blast wall was demolished and an apron of earth built to voer seaward faces. Inside the war shelter were hooks for 16 hammocks, a position for a small stove and rifle racks for 16 guns.

The building of a Fire Command Post on top of the war shelter necessitated the relocation of the boiler and flue within the shelter below to a new position requiring the relocation of one of the rifle racks. Between 1897 and the demise of One Gun Battery in 1906, the badge of the Royal Artillery was stencilled on the rear wall of the shelter. The war shelter survives having subsequently served as a scaffold store (1).

<1> Linzey, R, 2000, Fortress Falmouth. An conservation plan for the historic defences of Falmouth Haven Vol II (2000), site N2.1 (Cornwall Event Report). SCO1563.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• ECO455 - Fortress Falmouth

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