Agaton Fort

En un regard

Le château en bref

Set on a knoll watching over the Tamar valley, north-west of Plymouth, near the former hamlet of Agaton in the St Budeaux area, Agaton Fort is one of the links in the line of land forts built in the 1860s to protect Devonport Dockyard. Its fields of fire interlocked with those of the neighbouring Knowle Battery and Ernesettle Fort. Its irregular pentagonal plan is enclosed by a dry ditch on every side except the gorge, which was itself defended by rifle loopholes and a caponier. The other faces were swept by single and double caponiers and by a bombproof counterscarp gallery. Behind the entrance lay officers' quarters, a kitchen and casemated barracks, while the main magazine was hidden beneath the south-east angle of the rampart. Disarmed in the 1890s, the fort nevertheless remained in military hands until 1958. Reused since then as a heavy-vehicle testing centre, it has undergone alterations — a widened gateway, demolished buildings — but retains its two mortar batteries and most of its layout. Access is possible only by prior arrangement.