Fort Austin

En un regard

Le château en bref

On a spur overlooking the Forder valley, north-east of Plymouth, Fort Austin belongs to the ring of land forts built in the 1860s to protect Devonport Dockyard from an attack from inland. These works, born of the recommendations of the 1859 Royal Commission in response to French naval rearmament, are nicknamed "Palmerston forts", after the Prime Minister who championed the programme. The fort forms a trapezoidal quadrilateral surrounded by deep rock-cut ditches. It was designed for fifteen guns and five mortars, with earth traverses sheltering powder magazines. Its close defence relied on caponiers and counterscarp casemates linked by a loopholed gallery, which swept the ditches with enfilading fire. A guardhouse, once preceded by a drawbridge, formed its only entrance. A military road lined with a defensive bank linked it to the neighbouring works; its route survives in Fort Austin Avenue and Crownhill Road. Disarmed in the early 20th century, the fort served as a depot, then as headquarters for the Auxiliary Units, Britain's secret resistance, during the Second World War. Transferred to the city of Plymouth around 1958, it houses municipal depots; its guardhouse was converted in 1984 into a civil defence emergency centre. The site is not open to the public.