En un regard
Le château en bref
Woodland Fort, also spelled Woodlands Fort, is a Victorian artillery fort built on Plymouth's landward ring of defences, in the Crownhill district. It occupies a ridge at about 70 m above sea level, halfway between St Budeaux and Knacker's Knowle, overlooking a side valley of the Tamar. It is one of some seventy works begun in England after the 1859 report of the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom. The programme answered fears of an invasion prompted by the growth of the French navy, and these forts are nicknamed "Palmerston's follies". Woodland Fort held the left flank of the North Eastern Defences, which were meant to cover Devonport Dockyard from the landward side. Work began in 1863. The contractor failed in 1866 and the Royal Engineers completed the fort around 1869-1870, at a cost of about £28,000. It is polygonal in plan and surrounded by a dry ditch, flanked by a caponier and a counterscarp gallery linked to the main work by tunnels. The fort also has Haxo casemates, a two-storey vaulted barrack block for about a hundred men, a defensible guardhouse and powder magazines. Disarmed at the end of the 19th century, it served as accommodation during the First World War. It was sold in 1920, reoccupied by the army in 1939-1945, then converted to civilian use. Today it is protected as a Scheduled Monument and remains almost complete, but its ramparts and ditch are overgrown and several outbuildings are in ruins.
