HOME
*





Stamford Fort
Stamford Fort is a 19th-century fort, built as a result of the Royal Commission on National Defence of 1859. Part of an extensive scheme known as Palmerston Forts, after the prime minister who championed the scheme, it was built to defend the landward approaches to the east of Plymouth, as an element of the plan for the defence of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Devonport. It is 165 feet above sea level, between Jennycliffe Bay and Hooe Lake. Designed by Captain (later Maj General) Edmund Frederick Du Cane, it was built by George Roach and Company, who also built Staddon Fort. It was built as a five sided polygonal fort, surrounded by a dry ditch. Three sides face landward, one seaward, whilst the rear faces the Cattewater. The ditch was defended with three caponiers and a counter-scarp gallery. The fort was connected by a military road to the nearby Staddon Fort. To house the fort's garrison a barrack block for 200 men was built within the rear section of the fort, arranged in 13 c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fort
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ("to make"). From very early history to modern times, defensive walls have often been necessary for cities to survive in an ever-changing world of invasion and conquest. Some settlements in the Indus Valley civilization were the first small cities to be fortified. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae (famous for the huge stone blocks of its 'cyclopean' walls). A Greek ''Towns of ancient Greece#Military settlements, phrourion'' was a fortified collection of buildings used as a military garrison, and is the equivalent of the ancient Roman, Roman castellum or English language, English fortress. These constructions mainly served the purpose of a watch tower, to guard certa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Palmerston Forts
The Palmerston Forts are a group of forts and associated structures around the coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland. The forts were built during the Victorian period on the recommendations of the 1860 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, prompted by concerns about the strength of the French Navy, and strenuous debate in Parliament about whether the cost could be justified. The name comes from their association with Lord Palmerston, who was Prime Minister at the time and promoted the idea. The works were also known as Palmerston's Follies, partly because the first ones which were around Portsmouth, had their main armament facing inland to protect Portsmouth from a land-based attack, and thus (as it appeared to some) facing the wrong way to defend from a French attack. The name also derived from the use of the term "folly" to indicate " a costly ornamental building with no practical value". They were criticized because at the time of their completion, the th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth's early history extends to the Bronze Age when a first settlement emerged at Mount Batten. This settlement continued as a trading post for the Roman Empire, until it was surpassed by the more prosperous village of Sutton founded in the ninth century, now called Plymouth. In 1588, an English fleet based in Plymouth intercepted and defeated the Spanish Armada. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers departed Plymouth for the New World and established Plymouth Colony, the second English settlement in what is now the United States of America. During the English Civil War, the town was held by the Roundhead, Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, Plymouth grew as a commercial shipping port, handling ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

HMNB Devonport
His Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport (HMNB Devonport) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Portsmouth) and is the sole nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Royal Navy. The largest naval base in Western Europe, HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth, England. The base began as Royal Navy Dockyard in the late 17th century, but shipbuilding ceased at Devonport in the early 1970s, although ship maintenance work has continued. The now privatised maintenance facilities are operated by Babcock International Group, who took over the previous owner Devonport Management Limited (DML) in 2007. DML had been running the Dockyard since privatisation in 1987. From 1934 until the early 21st century the naval barracks on the site was named HMS ''Drake'' (it had previously been known as HMS ''Vivid'' after the base ship of the same name). The name HMS ''Drake'' and its c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Fort Stamford (geograph 5626173)
The Fort Stamford Site, site of Fort Stamford, is a public park at 900 Westover Road in the Westover neighborhood of Stamford, Connecticut. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. It is the site of the archaeological remnants of a military earthworks erected during the American Revolutionary War. The fort's location gave a clear view of the Mianus River and Long Island Sound. History American Revolution During the Revolutionary War, Fort Stamford was created to aid in the defense of Connecticut from loyalist raids. The fort in its current form was designed by the engineer who constructed West Point, Rufus Putnam. General David Waterbury oversaw the construction in 1781. At its peak, the fort was home to 800 soldiers. Some form of military camp or fortification existed at the site prior to the construction of the current fort. During the February 26, 1779 raid on Greenwich by William Tryon, General Israel Putnam rode to Fort Stamford to rally reinforce ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Edmund Frederick Du Cane
Sir Edmund Frederick Du Cane (23 March 1830 – 7 June 1903) was an English major-general of the Royal Engineers and prison administrator. Early life Born at Colchester, Essex on 23 March 1830, he was youngest child in a family of four sons and two daughters of Major Richard Du Cane (1788–1832), 20th Light Dragoons; his mother was Eliza, daughter of Thomas Ware of Woodfort, Mallow, County Cork. After Dedham grammar school to 1843, and a private coaching establishment at Wimbledon (1843–46), he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in November 1846. He passed out at the head of his batch at the end of 1848, having taken first place in mathematics and fortification. Du Cane received a commission as second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 19 December 1848. He joined at Chatham, and in December 1850 was posted to a company of royal sappers and miners commanded by Captain Henry Charles Cunliffe-Owen at Woolwich. He was assistant superintendent of the foreign s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Staddon Fort
Staddon Fort is a 19th-century fort, built as a result of the Royal Commission on National Defence of 1859. Part of an extensive scheme known as Palmerston Forts, after the prime minister who championed the scheme, it was built to defend the landward approaches to the east of Plymouth, as an element of the plan for the defence of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Devonport. Designed by Captain (later Maj General) Edmund Frederick Du Cane, it was built by George Roach and Company. The fort was connected by a military road to the nearby Stamford Fort, Watch House Battery and Brownhill Battery. It was designed to be armed with 34 guns and 6 mortars. To house the fort's garrison a barrack block for 250 men was built within the rear section of the fort. By the early 1900s the fort had become obsolete as a defensive position and was disarmed. It remains in use by the Royal Navy as a communications centre. Along with a number of other parts of the Staddon Heights defences, it became a sch ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cattewater
The city of Plymouth, Devon, England is bounded by Dartmoor to the north, the Hamoaze to the west, the open expanse of water called Plymouth Sound to the south and the river Plym to the east. The Cattewater is that stretch of water where the mouth of the river Plym merges with Plymouth Sound, just to the east of Sutton Pool. It is around this Pool that the manor of Sutton started, which grew to form the present day city. On the northern shore of this confluence of waters there was a rock outcrop, which it was claimed, had the appearance of a cat.compare the similarly named Kattegat which ultimately derives from Old Dutch, the common North European language of Mediaeval mariners This gave its name to this stretch of water and eventually the name of Cattedown to the adjoining wharves and commercial area. Apart from an occasional small oil tanker the area is now used mostly by fishing trawlers, yachts, and smaller pleasure craft. There is a water taxi across it from the Mayflower Ste ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

RML 64-pounder 58 Cwt
The RML 64-pounder 58 cwt guns (converted) were British rifled muzzle-loading guns converted from obsolete smoothbore 32-pounder 58 cwt guns."58 cwt" refers to the gun's weight rounded up to differentiate it from other "64-pounder" guns : 1 cwt = 112 pounds. Design When Britain adopted rifled ordnance in the 1860s it still had large stocks of serviceable but now obsolete smoothbore guns. Gun barrels were expensive to manufacture, so the best and most recent models were selected for conversion to rifled guns, for use as second-line ordnance, using a technique designed by William Palliser. The Palliser conversion was based on what was accepted as a sound principle that the strongest material in the barrel construction should be innermost, and hence a new tube of stronger wrought iron was inserted in the old cast iron barrel, rather than attempting to reinforce the old barrel from the outside.Treatise on Construction and Manufacture of Service Ordnance, 1879, pages 233-238, 292 Th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

RBL 7-inch Armstrong Gun
The Armstrong RBL 7-inch gun, also known as the 110-pounder, was an early attempt to use William Armstrong's new and innovative rifled breechloading mechanism for heavy rifled guns. Description The Armstrong "screw" breech mechanism used a heavy block inserted in a vertical slot in the barrel behind the chamber, with a large hollow screw behind it which was manually screwed tight against the block after loading. A metal cup on the front of the block, together with the pressure of the screw behind it, provided "obturation" and sealed the breech to prevent escape of gasses rearward on firing. The sliding-block was known as the "vent-piece", as the vent tube was inserted through it to fire the gun. In modern terms it was a vertical sliding-block. To load the gun, the vent-piece was raised, the shell was inserted through the hollow screw and rammed home into the bore, and the powder cartridge was likewise inserted through the screw into the chamber. The vent-piece was lowered, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

RML 10-inch 18-ton Gun
The RML 10-inch guns Mk I – Mk II were large rifled muzzle-loading guns designed for British battleships and monitors in the 1860s to 1880s. They were also fitted to the and flat-iron gunboats. They were also used for fixed coastal defences around the United Kingdom and around the British Empire until the early years of the 20th century. Design The 10-inch gun was a standard "Woolwich" design (characterised by having a steel A tube with relatively few broad, rounded and shallow rifling grooves) developed in 1868, based on the successful Mk III 9-inch gun, itself based on the "Fraser" system. The Fraser system was an economy measure applied to the successful Armstrong design for heavy muzzle-loaders, which were expensive to produce. It retained the Armstrong steel barrel surrounded by wrought-iron coils under tension, but replaced the multiple thin wrought-iron coils shrunk around it by a single larger coil (10 inch Mark I) or 2 coils (Mark II); the trunnion ring was n ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]