The Cannonade of 17th October 1854

Seeing now under what conditions the besieged would have to act after giving twenty day’s respite, one may ask how it came to be imagined, by both the French and the English, that the blow they were going to strike would be likely to achieve their end.

The Allies trusted much to the power of their ordnance as well as to the quality of their triops; and, apart from the baneful delays which their plan of attack.had involved, it was not an Ill-advised measure. The Allies, we saw, hoped to be able to get down the fire of the place to an extent which would enable their assaulting columns to gain the Redan, and Flagstaff Bastion, without ,up to that time, undergoing an overwhelming loss from artillery; and they trusted that, once they had pierced the enemy’s line, their troops would be so overmaster any soldiery that could be gathered to meet them in rear of the assaulted ramparts, as to be able to cut into two the whole structure of the Russian defences.

This hope was even, perhaps better founded than the Allies at the time understood it to be; for we now know that , notwithstanding the large reinforcements then lately brought into Sebastopol, the extent and confirmation of the ground which the garrison had to defend put it almost our of their power to be prepared at each point against the apprehended assaults with what they judged competent forces.The

It was with batteries of 126 pieces, including 18 heavy mortars, that the Allies hoped to.get down the fire of the enemy’s defences; and of these , 53 were French, and 73 English. Of the English guns,29 were manned by ourseamen, the rest by our Royal.Artillery.The battery which the French had constructed by the sea shoes ( near the site of an old Geonoese fort), and also regarded as standing, in some measure, apart from the general plan of atack; and the rest of the siege ordnance with which the Allies thus proposed to conquer the enemy’s fire were distributed into three systems. One of these was the system or string of batteries erected by the French on the crest of Mount Rodolph, an armed with 49 pieces.Another was the bending line of English batteries on Green Hill, an armament of 41 pieces, which our people called the ‘Left,’ or ‘Chapman’s Attack.’ The third, called the ‘Right,’ or ‘Gordon’s Attack,’ was on the Woronzoff Height , and its two-faced array of batteries mounted 26 pieces.

Without counting the batteries of the Jagoudil -a ship lying moored across the head of the man–of–war Harbour.-Or any other of the guns still on deck which could be more or less brought into use , the Russians , we saw had in battery for the land defences of Sebastopol on its South side 341 pieces of artillery; but of these, there stood opposed to the batteries established by the Allies only 118 pieces, including five heavy mortars. Amongst the rest of the 118 pieces there were some guns of great calibre;but,upon the whole , a salvo from the 126 battering pieces now prepared for the siege was a good deal more weighty than one from the 118 pieces with which the Russians meant to engage them.

It therefore appears that, as regards the weight of ordnance brought into actual service for the artillery conflict of the 17th of October, the garrison was inferior to its assailants; but it must be understood that, irrespective of the 118 pieces thus awaiting an encounter with the battering guns of the besiegers, the Allies, if proceeding to assault, might have to incur whilst advancing not only the shell and shot of ship’s guns trained and pointed beforehand from the waters below, but also the fire of as many as 160 guns established in land batteries which swept the approaches of the place;and that , even after traversing the approaches thus guarded, and coming at last to close quarters, the still surviving assailants might be encountered in front or in flank by the blasts of yet 63 more pieces of cannon delivering grape–shot and canister.

It must also be borne in mind that potentially, the ordnance arm of the Russians had a much greater ascendant than is indicated by giving the number and calibre of their guns already in battery. To an extent which, for a long time to come, must enable them to outdo their assailants in artillery conflict, the garrison could not only command endless supplies of guns and ammunition, but (because of their strength in workmen as well as in material) could ceaselessly repair and re-arm , or shift or improve their batteries, and augment them.in numbers and power.

In distributing his batteries along the lines of defence, Colonel Dr Toldleben had not apportioned them rateably to the strength of the respective systems of ‘Attack’ which they were destined to.encounter. Whilst he ventured to meet the 73 guns and mortars of the English with so few as 54 pieces of ordnance, and those too, upon the whole, of a lighter calibre, homemade ready to answer the 53 guns and mortars which the French had in battery with a fire of 64 pieces.

At intervals throughout the night,the Russians, as It was their custom to do, fired some shots with the purpose of disturbing the working parties of the besiegers, but elicited no reply.

So early as an hour before day-break, our volunteer sharpshooters, having stolen forward under the cover of darkness , were fastening upon ground very near to the Russian batteries.

Notwithstanding that the intervention of the Allied navy had been suddenly postponed to a later hour, the moment appointed for the opening of the land cannonade remained unalteted . At half–past six in the morning of the 17th of October, three shells were discharged from one of the French batteries, and forthwith the Allies were to open fire along the whole line of their works.

The signal had not yet been given, when the breaking grey of the morning enabled the Russians to see the Allies, in the night-time, had cut their embrasures, and that seams of earth hitherto blank had all at once put on the look- significant of man and his purpose – that is given by guns seen in battery. Here and there, as this change was described, a Russian battery opened fire. More followed. Some French guns began to.make answer. There were more and more light. A body of French tirailleurs with a support pushed forward towards the enemy’s lines. Sebastopol beat to arms. The three appointed signal shells sprang out from the lines of Mount Rodolph. In a minute, some English guns opened; and presently, along all the enemy’s works, from the Central to the Flagstaff Bastion, and thence across to the Redan, and thence on again to the Malakoff, there pealed a sustained cannonade. Then and quickly again, and from.time to time, this sustained cannonade was out-thundered by salvoes of a kind strange to the land-service people.No ships were in action; but at the first roar of the mightier outburst, the seamen who heard it grew radiant. They knew by what manner of men such a salvo as that was delivered.

Whether serving the guns of the English, or forming part of the garrison, the sailors engaged in this conflict had brought with them many of their familiar usages; and the Russian sailors especially, who were fighting at the land defences to the number of several thousands, clung fast, it seems, to their customs.Their naval system had been in a great measure copied – copied even, perhaps, with servility – from that of the English; and thus it resulted that, in each of the main fastnesses which constituted the line of defence, there was much of the warlike practice, and even, indeed, if the lesser routine, which obtains on board vessels. The ‘bastion’ stood for the ship. The parapets were bulwarks, the embrasures were port -holes. Every piece the men had to serve they tended and fondled and cursed in their natural seamanlike way; and that too with more affection when they knew it for one of their own familiar ship’s guns. As in our naval service, so also with the Russian seamen, the drum used to beat to quarters; but to other of their duties the men, though on shore, were still called by the boatswain’s whistle.They were piped to their meals; they were piped to their ‘grog’.Night, for them, was a period divided into ‘watches;’ and- with the same-glass instead of the clock – they measured and marked lapse of time just as though they were still on board a ship; so that when, for example, it was noon, they reported it always ‘eight bells,’ and as they had due sanction, were ready to ‘make it eight.’ But, so well had these Russians been taught, that they could not be got to stop short in their old English lesson at the point their Commanders desired. To the exceeding vexation of Todleben, they could not at all be persuaded to train and point every gun with a separate attention to the object for which he designed it. Knowing what nation it was that manned the works at Mount Rodolph, the men at Flagstaff and the Central Bastions were too strongly vent on the end, aim, and purpose of what they had learnt from the English, to be able to forgo all the rapture of ‘giving the Frenchman a broadside.’ And, that being done to begin with, their rooted faith was that, with no greater pauses of time than were of absolute need for sponging and loading, and firinf, one broadside should follow another.

To be serving the guns; to be swiftly repairing the havoc from time to time wrought in the parapets (and especially in the revetments of the embrasures) by the enemy’s round-shot and shell; to be quenching the fires which were constantly seizing upon gabions, fascines, and timber; to be replacing guns; to be tending and removing in litters the men newly wounded, and to be toiling thus, hour by hour, in the midst of a dim pile of smoke, with a mind always equal to an instant encounter with death ,-this was alike the duty of the French, of the English, and of the Russians , who worked the power of artillery in the conflicting batteries; and, until there occurred that disaster to the French of which we shall presently speak, the duty was performed with unflinching persistency by besieged and besiegers alike.

The works which covered the Russian batteries had been constructed in haste, with dry, gritty earth laboriously brought to the spot; and , no rain having come in the interval to bind the loose heaps into solid structures, they formed of course sorry ramparts.The embrasure s , too, were weak. Some of them, for want of facines and hurdles, have been reverted with bags of earth , with planks , or with clay.There were other embrasures which had not been reverted at all. Of the revetments formed with clay , some were brought down in fragments by the mere blast of the guns firing out from between them; and those that had been made of earth-sacks and planks very often took fire and fell. There was need of heroic stubbornness to be able to cling to the determination of sacrificing numbers of lives with the object of restoring defences so easily brought to ruin; but the garrison had been taught that it was of great moment to them to have their embrasures in the best state that might be possible, and at whatever cost of life to those who were charged with the toil, they repaired them again and again.

But the Russians – and that every minute- had to hold themselves in readiness for a yet harder trial.Expecting an assault, they ever kept steadfastly in sight that last appeal to ‘Mitrail’ which their great Engineer had designed; and often, very often they imagined that the appointed moment had come. From the irrepressible tendency of the seamen to deliver their fire in broadsides, it resulted – for no breath of wind was stirring – by the men, by these rapid discharges, piled up above and around the huge, steadfast, opaque banks of smoke, which so narrowed the field of every man’s sight that he hardly could see the outline of a comrades’s figure at a distance of two or three paces.

Now a dim bank of smoke, admitting distorted and descended rays, yet confining within straightened limits the scope of a man’s real vision-this , we know, is a lens which gives infinite favour to the creatures of an imagination already excited by battle. The grey, floating wreaths ,through their movement can scarce be descried, are all the while slowly changing in place, as well as in form; and from that cause, or that cause in part, it seems to result that , when once the thick cloud which obscures a man’s vision has been peopled and armed by his fancy , the shapes which appear before him do not long continue at rest.They grow larger; they move; and the unreal creature of the brain which at first seemed like infantry halted is presently a column advancing. With the Russians – a firm, robust people -the imagination, through straying beyond the bounds of reality was still guided in part by knowledge; for the images men saw in the smoke were the images of what well be.As in a quarter of the field at the Alma (which the onset of the English horse might fairly enough have been looked for), there had seemed to come on from behind the smoke a host of cavalry charging, so when, as people believed, the Allies would storm the defences, men easily fancied they saw indeed many times over – the enemy’s columns of infantry coming on to deliver the assault. The quality of the Russian soldier being what I have said, these pictures of his imagination did not drive him at all into panic, but still they much governed his actions. Again, and again, those who manned guns so planted as to be no service except against assailing infrantry, worked as hard at their loading and firing as though the assault had begun, and many a blast of mitral was sent tearing through phantom battalions.

So long as the conflict should be one between covered batteries on one side and covered batteries on the other, there could not well be any approach to equality in point of losses between the besiegers and the besieged ; for the Russians were not only forced to keep manned the 223 guns which they had prepared against the expected assualts , but also to have close at hand near the gorges of their bastions the bodies of infantry with which they designed to meet the same contingencies ; and, both gunners and foot soldiery being imperfectly sheltered against batteries of the Allies, it could not but result that the troops this kept in expectation would be , many of them, killed or wounded ; whilst the besiegers , in the other hand, could keep our of fire the troops with which they meant to assault till the moment for their onset should come.

Though Prince Mentschikoff had come from the country of the Upper Belbec of Severnaya,or North Side, and although he indeed crossed the roadstead on the morning of this cannonade, and visited a part of the lines of the Karabel faubourg, he did not stay, as we shall see, amid the scenes of the artillery conflict which raged on the south of Sebastopol; and the virtual control of the whole force of soldiers and sailors engaged in defending the place still remained in the hands of the seaman whom the popular voice had raised up to be chief and commander of all.

If Korniloff had been in command of a military garrison so organised, and so highly instructed in all their duties, as to warrant him in relying upon their exact performance of orders , he would probably have thought it his duty to remain, for the most part, at the central and commanding spot which he had chosen as his dwelling; for there, better than at the ramparts, he would have been able to understand the general state of the conflict; there, with th greatest dispatch , he might have pushed forward his reserves to the endangered post; there, most quickly, he would have been able to learn where his presence was needed. But the forces defending Sebastopol were not of such a kind as to warrant Korniloff in taking this strictly military view of the position in which events had placed him.On the contrary – and that he knew – it was the collapse of the military structure which had my upon him this great charge; and a true instinct told him that, as the hope of defending Sebastopol against a determined attack had had little to test on at first save that spirit of enthusiastic devotion with which he had inspired his people , both seamen and soldiers , so, although the defence of the place was no longer a task of such utterly overwhelming difficulty as to need being faced in a spirit of romantic desperation , it still must depend for success upon his power of exalting and sustaining men’s minds. Therefore , overruling the numberless advisers who strove to move him from his decision, he judged it his duty to be visiting the lines of defence, to be sharing in the risks of the day with the gunners who stood at the ramparts, and, in short, to cause himself to be seen at all the chief posts of danger.

Men belonging to Korniloff’s Staff have commemorated the acts and words of their hero, in this the last day of his life, with almost pious exactness; and although it be plain that, amongst our people at home, the uneventful rise of a Russian Admiral from bastion to bastion will never evoke that kind of interest which it wrought in the minds of his fellow-country-men , I yet imagine that some portion of the material derived from those loving records may help to give true impressions of the nature of the business which engaged the chiefs in Sebastopol on the day of the first cannonade , and may even, in an incidental and passing way, afford better insight into the conditions of things within the fortress than could well be imparted by formal words of siege narrative saying when, where, and how the men were struck down and replaced, when and where a gun was dismounted , or an embrasure spoilt and restored.

The instant he heard the opening of the cannonade , Korniloff hastened to spring into his saddle ; and then- at so eager a pace that his Staff could hardly keep up with him- he galloped off to Flagstaff Bastion. By the time that he had gained the esplanade by the left face of the bastion , the firing had grown to its full height and power. Already the smoke of the salvoes in which the sailors delighted had enwrapped the whole field of sight in a thick steadfast cloud. Seen through it, the sun in the east was a full red and lustreless orb. Yet, by the darts of fire which , from moment to moment, were piercing the cloud, Korniloff and the officers with him could make out where the enemy’s guns were in battery, or where their own were replying.In their rear, too, they saw through the smoke a third belt of fire; for behind the gorge of the bastion, the skilled contriver of the defences had planted two batteries, which threw their shells over the heads of the men engaged at the ramparts in front.

It was hot at this time in the Flaggstaff Bastion; for the batteries of the French on Mount Rudolph– unstricken , as yet, with the havoc which awaited them – were exerting their full might; but also- and this was more formidable, by reason of the greater calibre of the guns- the left face of the bastion was battered, and, at the same time , its right face enfiladed, by the fire from Chapman’s Attack.

Korniloff conversed with the gunners, and to some of them he gave directions in regard to the pointing off the guns; but it does not appear that he brought himself to put a check upon his seaman by preventing them from firing in broadsides.He passed from gun to gun along the whole bastion , and then went along the winding boulevard line to that new work adjoining the Peressip, which because of its sudden growth, men called the ‘Mushroom‘ Battery. Whether it was that the minds of men were so kindled as to be capable of giving new colour and form to what their sight conveyed to them, or that Korniloff ‘s look and bearing were really in some degree altered by the opening of, the long-promised conflict, it is certain that the language of those who rode with him along the line of the boulevard, gives a kind of support to that old superstition of the Scots which assured the believing word that approaching death was foreshown by a sign, and that when his end drew near the doomed man was clothed with a preter-natural brightness.’Calm and stern, was the expression of his face , yet a slight smile played on his lips . His eyes, those wonderful , intelligent, and piercing eyes – shone brighter than was their wont.His cheeks were flushed. He carried his head loftily. His thin and slightly bent form had become erect. He seemed to grow in size.’

Korniloff returned the same way back to the right wing of the Flagstaff Bastion ; and, after speaking with Vice-Admiral Novolisky , he remounted his horse and descended into the ravine , going on through that part of the defences which connected to the Flagstaff and the Central Bastions. The road lay along a steep slope, and the blaze from the French batteries was constant, and their fire so heavy, that for a moment the afrighted chargers of Korniloff and his Staff refused to confront the storm; but Korniloff soon conquered the will of his horse; and when he had done so he said with a smile, ‘I cannot bear to be disobeyed.’ In the valley he passed near the Taroutine battalion, and the soldiers were overheard saying, ‘This is indeed a brave fellow.’

Gaining at length the Central Bastion, Korniloff there found Admiral Nachimoff toiling hard at his duty, and seeming to be as much at home in the batteries as though he were on his own ship.Nachimoff’s appearance at this time might be regarded, perhaps , as somewhat characteristic of that tendency to self-immolation, which we have attributed to him; for, as though he would be decked out for sacrafices, he distinguished himself from others by choosing to wear his full uniform,with all the heavy splendour of a admiral’s epaulet; and already from a slight wound then lately received , the blood was coursing down his face.

While conversing with Nachimoff, Korniloff mounted the banquette at the projecting angle of the bastion, and there are for some time the two Admirals stood; for they were trying to ascertain the effect of the Russian fire upon the enemy’s batteries . Driving in from moment to moment, the round shots so struck the parapet and its defenders as to cover the Admirals and the officers at their side with the pelting of loose , gritty earth,and even sometimes to sprinkle them with the blood of men wounded. Shells also were bursting on all sides , and slaughtering the people at the batteries

Seeing the danger to which Korniloff exposed himself, Captain Ilynsky approached the Admiral , and entreated him to leave the bastion. By that time Korniloff had descended from Banquette, and was looking to see how the men at th batteries were pointing their guns. Ilynsky tried to carry his purpose by saying to Korniloff that his presence at the bastion denoted a want of trust in his subordinates; and added that he would do take care to fulfil his duty as to render unnecessary the presence of the Admiral. Korniloff answered, ‘And if you are to do your duty, why do you wish to prevent me from doing mine? My duty is to see all. Korniloff visited the battery at the george of the Central Bastion , and then went on to the work which we call the Land Quarantine. Seeing that the men were suffering from thirst, he gave orders for hauling up casks of waters to the batteries. Then, needing food, he rode home to his quarters. Before he yet broke his fast, Korniloff found time to finish a letter which he had been writing to his wife. This, along with a watch he regarded as a kind of heirloom, Korniloff entrusted to the courier who was about to be despatched to Nicolayeff. ‘Pray,’ said he, ‘give this watch to my wife-it must belong to my eldest son;’ and then, in words half playful, but susceptible of an interpretation which would give them a mournful significance, he went on to say , ‘ I am afraid that here it will get broken.’

It was soon after this that Baron Krudener came in with messages from Admiral Istomin, the officer in command at the Malakoff. Istomin’s words purported to convey an assurance that all was going well at the Tower; but the words were accompanied by an entreaty. The entreaty was, that Korniloff would not needlessly imperil a life so precious as his by coming up to the Malakoff Hill. He persisted in his determination to go thither; but a delay was obtained by inducing him to ascend to the terrace on the house-top in order to form a more general and extended idea of the scope and power of the cannonade than he had yet been able to gather. It would seem that he was painfully impressed by what he saw; for, after first giving some practical directions for insuring an unfailing supply of ammunition to the batteries, he once more disclosed in private that want of hopefulness which we have already remarked upon as forming an anomalous characteristic in one who could kindle, and sustain the heroism of other men. ‘I fear,’ he said, ‘that no means will suffice against such a cannonade.’

It may be said that, at the time, there was some ground, not, indeed, for so great despondency as which weighed upon Korniloff , but, at all events, for grave forebodings. The artillery conflict then raging between the French and the Russians had hitherto seemed so equal as to disappoint the reckoning of the great Russian Engineer; for Todleben’s idea of overwhelming the batteries on Mount Rodolph by a mightier and more embracing array of ordnance-power had been baffled, as yet, by the prowess of the French artillerymen; and also, it would seem, by the obstinancy with which the Russian seamen still clung to their favourite notion of constantly firing in ‘broadsides.’ The fronting walls of the cazern at the gorge of the Land Quarantine Bastions, were in some places destroyed, in others, grievously injured ; and, the parapet of that last cazern being also destroyed, the five guns ranged behind it were also reduced to silence. Also, the lower part of the town wall was a good deal damaged, and in some places broken through , by the French shot. Moreover, there were some of the Russian batteries opposed to the French, in which a large proportion of the gunners originally serving the guns had already been killed or wounded , and replaced by fresh combatants.

But if the strife of great guns between the French and the Russians was thus for a while almost equal , it was otherwise with the conflict of artillery-power going on in the Karabel faubourg;for there, the beisiegets were obtaining the ascendant. With all his skill and all the resources at his command, Todleben, as we saw,had failed to provide sufficing means to counteract the two English attacks. Before the first hour of the

315

Maker Redoubt 1

Redoubt 1

If you visited the site in an evening in the 1980’s you could have stumbled across some unusual activity. Men and women would arrive, and head into the centre of the redoubt, there one would unlock a hatch in the ground and the group would disappear down a ladder underground. One at a time some would return to the surface and armed with a spanner remove and fit various items to the short pipes that emerged from the ground, and then return underground.  This strange activity was one that all involved hoped they would never have to undertake for real. For this was the Royal Observer Corp volunteers exercising the drills that would be needed if the Cold War threat of nuclear Armageddon became reality.   

Underneath the ground of the redoubt was a small cold war bunker, and the instruments on the surface allowed those in the bunker to plot the position of nuclear bomb burst. These positions would be passed to a regional centre from where predictions of radioactive fallout could be made, and warnings sent out.

The bunker was located here for the very same reasons that the French and Spanish invasion force of 1779 would have attempted to take the heights, its elevated position. This position also accounted for the other enigmatic structure within redoubt 1, the four-legged concrete structure, now sometimes called the ’Giants table” .

The redoubt is the northern most of the line of 4 redoubts.

History of Redoubt 1

Prior to the 20^th Century redoubt had a similar history to redoubts 2 and 3. Starting as a temporary fortification in 1779, which was strengthened in 1782. By 1784 it was armed with eight cannons of 18-pdr and 32-pdr and by 1788 it was named as No 1 Royal Cornwall Redoubt, and was therefore probably constructed by the Cornwall Militia.

And like 2 and 3 it would not undergo the major modifications that transformed 4 and 5, and so the remains we see today are of a simple redoubt.    

The redoubt was probably disarmed at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and by   1865 it was shown on a map as ‘in ruin’.

In the 20^th Century, Redoubt 1 was resurrected as a military structure to defend Plymouth from an air threat.  The view from the redoubt made it a perfect location for an observation post from which aircraft, it formed part of a chain that fed its information into a control room, where the location and movement of targets would be plotted, and the defence directed.

The Millbrook aircraft reporting post was opened in July 1940 as part of No 20 Group Truro, to which it was linked by telephone. It was a wooden structure with a viewing platform fitted with post aircraft plotting instrument. The post probably had an adjacent crew shelter, and a nearby wooden sleeping/feeding hut. It was staffed by between 16 and 20 Royal Observer Corps personnel, a mixture of full-time men and women, and part time volunteers.

In January 1947 the post was brought back into use to counter Soviet Bombers. It was manned by volunteers, who trained once a week, and held exercises 4 to 6 times a year.   

In 1952 a concrete structure replaced the wooden post. This was an ‘Orlit Post Type B’, produced by Messrs. Orlit Ltd, and consisted of pre-cast concrete sections. This structure was installed on stilts for a better view,

This was one of many such observation posts s as part of the ‘ROTOR Plan’ which was a large project to update the UK’s air defences to defend against modern Soviet bombers. The whole system was rapidly made obsolete due to the new threat of Atomic weapons.

In 1955 the aircraft reporting role was phased out, to be replaced by nuclear burst and radio-active monitoring. The manning was reduced to 10 volunteers.  This new role enabled the position and height of nuclear bomb bursts to be determined, and the fall out pattern predicted to enable warnings to be passed to areas at risk of deadly radioactive fallout. 

In 1960 the above ground post was replaced by a Royal Observer Corp underground bunker. It was common that the new underground posts were built next to the old Orlit posts as it used land already in use by the ROC and it they could utilise existing communications links.

The underground post remained in operation until the end of the Cold War and closed in September 1991. This date marks the end of an era at Maker heights, for this was the date at which the military use of Maker heights finished. The end of the story of over two centuries of the fortification of maker heights.   

The redoubt Described

Redoubt Number 1 is a simple four-sided rectangular earthwork with ramparts on three sides and a ditch closing the fourth north-eastern side.

This rear side of the redoubt has been partly infilled and levelled probably as part of the construction of the underground Observation Posts. The redoubt was entered by a causeway over the ditch. Originally there was a building close-by to the south east, and another on the inside opposite of the entrance. This latter building was probably a guardhouse. Neither of these buildings remain.

Ten gun embrasures existed around the sides of the earthwork: five to the front, two to the south-east and three to the north west.

The WWII, Orlit post, and underground posts were all built in the centre of the redoubt.

The Orlit Post

Nothing remains of the wooden structure of the WWII observation post, but the platform of the Orlit B stands  in the NW corner of the redoubt centre.

This is an unusual and distinctive structure. Four concrete pillars support a structure that resembles to the unknowing of its military purpose a “giants table”.

The enigmatic nature of this structure arises from the fact that much of its original structure is missing. For the legs were built to support a concrete shelter, 10ft long by 6ft 8in wide in which instruments were set up. The post was a accessed by external steps and had a cuddy for its crew to shelter from the elements. The structures were split into two sections, the entrance door led into the smaller roofed section which was used as a shelter and store. A sliding door led into an open section which housed the post instrument and chart on top of a wooden mounting. The open section was fitted with a three piece removable corrugated steel cover.

The designed was introduced early in 1952 Messrs Orlit Ltd of Buckinghamshire. The produced two standard designs. Orlit ‘A’ a ground level structure and Orlit ‘B’ a raised one on stilts. Over 400 of these prefabricated observation posts were erected sites all over the UK.  

Although Orlit produced a large number of these posts, they are better known their pre-fabricated houses.  During the 1940s and 50s built around 17,000 properties in the UK.

In order to get the required visibility, the Millbrook post was of type ‘B’. which was probably built early 1953.

The remains of at least one of the post’s wall panels is present on the ground beneath the platform.

The Orlit posts were part of a  programme to update UK air defences alongside the ‘ROTOR’ Plan. The posts were rearranged into new clusters and massive network of telephone circuits layed to serve the posts.

The Bunker

The underground bunker was built in the centre of redoubt, surrounded by a wire chain link fence.  The post would have been constructed by the excavation of a deep hole which had a cast of a reinforced concrete box built within it

The only items to be seen at the surface were the access shaft with Ground Zero Indicator (GZI) mount, Fixed Survey Meter (FSM) pipe, Bomb Power Indicator (BPI) pipe and the Vent shaft.

The bunker was 6.00m long, 2.75m wide and 2.75m high and set 1m feet below ground. Underground it consisted of a monitoring room and a small toilet room.  There was an access shaft 4m deep at one end and a vent shaft at the other end.  The whole was covered in 1m of earth. The monitoring room held the post battery, desk, chairs, beds, water, food, all communications equipment and had remote meters for reading bomb pressures and radiation.  A post air raid warning siren was also held and possibly some maroons to raise the alarm of fallout.

The post was designed to hold three observers operationally but on visits as many as 15 to 20 have crammed down it. 

The nuclear post was designed as a basic survival unit for three duty people, for three weeks, and give virtually total protection against radioactive fallout. All nuclear exercises were held in the underground post to practice the nuclear role.  Exercises used simulated material to ‘play’ a nuclear war both for bombs and fallout.  Most exercises were 8 to 10 hours long and there was one 24hr exercise every year. 

GZI

Was a cylindrical pinhole camera containing four quadrants inside, known as cassettes, onto which was  fitted low-light sensitive photographic paper held behind a grided plastic screen. A bomb burst would burn a spot on this paper, from this spot the bearing and elevation of a burst would be recorded. By triangulating the readings from several posts, the location of the burst could be plotted,

FSM

Fixed Survey Meter measured radiation levels.  It had rubberised plastic probe attached to a pipe which ran down to a radiation meter in the bunker.

BPI

This measured the peak overpressure from a burst. If distance from the burst is known then the pressure allows the power of the weapon to be determined. The BPI had a pipe on the surface whicj linked to a guage in the bunker that worked like a baraometer,

Other equipment in the post would have been a telephone link and Carrier receiver unit. The carrier receiver unit would sound an alarm if an imminent attack was due,

The Militia Act of 1757 was intended to create a professional national military reserve in England and Wales. Men were selected by ballot to serve on a part-time voluntary basis in infantry regiments, organized by county. Those selected were provided with uniforms, weapons, and training. The militia was seen as a training ground for the regular army, and bounties were offered to men who opted to transition from the militia to the army.

.

Maker Hawkins

Hawkins Battery

This battery was set below the crest of the ridge to the east of Maker Farm in a position designed not to be visible from the sea.  This position enabled it to provide plunging fire on the decks of enemy ships manoeuvring to fire on the dockyard. Such a position meant it could not see its intended targets, so it was fed firing information from two position finding stations at Middle Barton and Knatterbury.

Knatterbury position station was overlooked Whitsand Bay and Middle Barton near Penlee Point.

History of the Battery

The battery was proposed in 1885, a period of the arms race between Britain and Germany. It was completed by 1893 with four high angle 9” Rifle Muzzle loading guns. These were based on a 1860’s design of guns used on ironclads. In the 1880s some of these guns were adapted to fire at high angles.

In 1913-14 the battery was rebuilt to serve two Mk VI 9.2 breach loading guns in the central positions. This rebuild enabled the battery to be available for the WWI. These guns were based on naval guns that were adapted to fit on high angle carriages. These carriages could elevate up to 45 degrees to give the desired plunging fire.

The rebuild also included adding a guardroom, accommodation blocks. At the same time the battery’s land defence was enforced with the addition of a concrete loopholed wall to defend the battery on its rear and sides, along with dry moat on the front and flanks. Caponiers were also added on the front corners and in the centre of the rear wall.

 The guns were dismounted by WWII and the ground released by the MOD in 1946.

in conjunction with the batteries at Tregantle (6355) and Rame Church (6009) (b

e battery faces south-west on the land slope of the hill r

 The parapet is formed by the side of the hill with the inside lined with concrete. A traverse formed in the centre contained the shell store, magazine etc., with a passage below connecting the right-hand gun with the lift. The battery was surrounded by a concrete-loop wall, with a ditch flanked by three caponiers (b2). It ceased to be approved in 1906 but was re-approved in 1909 (b3) and rebuilt in 1914 with concrete walls, north caponier and two pillboxes on the south-east and south-west corners (b5). The armament recorded in 1893 consisted of four 9-inch rifled muzzle-loading Mk ivs, with two officers and 61 men. T

Maker AA Battery

AA Battery

On the 16^th May 1942 Plymouth Sound was busy with merchant ships anchored waiting to join a convoy. Low cloyd hung over the sea, five merchant ships were getting ready to sail, the destoter HMS Wolverine and Frigates HMS Cleveland and HMS Brockelsby crossing the sound. 6 Meshermit 109s came in from sea in three pairs, low and fast. Two returned before entering soundm 4 crossed breakwater . Barrage ballon on breakwater fort went down in flames.  Headed towards ancoured vessels in Jennycliff. Straffed, drop bombs, 2 missed SS Torkel on E bout, boom defence vessek BV17 damage near miss, Wolverine damaged from shock, one killed, near miss, Last pait. One hit gunfire HMS Clevland ypossibly ditched in channel

Brocklsby hit by gunfire 109 hit crashed into Cawsand Bay, Pilot Schulz buried full hiners at Ford Park,

History of the Battery

The battery was constructed just before or in the the early stages of WWII to as part of the defence of Plymouth against high-level bombing. It is located in a position to defend against aircraft using Plymouth Sound as their approach to the city.  

in 1940 it appears to have been armed with four 3.7in HAA (heavy anti-aircraft) guns with two extra guns of an unknown calibre added later in the war. It was therefore in position to play its part in the Plymouth Blitz than ran from July 1940 to 1944.

The barracks were used to provide accommodation for the battery, and many Nissan huts were built, including within redoubt 2 and 3.  

The battery was part of a ring of HAA positions around Plymouth. Other batteries in the area are Penlee, St. Johns Down St. Winnolls A and B and Torpoint. The Peninsula also had anti-aircraft rocket launchers, barrage balloons, observation posts, and radar stations.

Conventional anti-aircraft positions such as that at Maker became obsolete in the 1950’s and most of the HAA positions were built over or demolished but that at Maker survived relatively intact

The Battery layout

The HAA battery is located on a raised a plateau to the north of the barracks complex.

There is a ring of six gun positions running in a horse shoe shape from NE around to NW with a command post in the centre. 

The four early positions are 13 sided concrete blockwork walls with a protective earth

Bank on its outer face. There are blast walls across the entrances. On the inner sides are ammunition lockers and crew shelters. Mounting bolts are visible for the guns.

The two newer positions, which are on the NE and NW locations are rectangular. They also have ammunition lockers but no crew shelters.

The command post is in the centre of the arc of gun emplacements and is sunk slightly into the slope. It consists of a large plotting room to the rear with wing rooms to either side has a blast wall around it. Instrument platforms exist on the side facing the sea.

Maker Redoubt 5

The Grand Fort that never was

Events that would have changed the landscape we see today occurred many miles away in London on 27th February 1786. For on that day William Pitt the Younger’s Dockyards Fortification Bill that covered both Portsmouth & Plymouth was debated in the house of Commons.

The Bill proposal by the Duke of Richmond included building two large forts to defend Plymouth, one on Maker Heights and the other on the high ground on the other side of St. John’s Lake near Antony House at Maryfield. The plans for Maker heights were expensive and expensive, and it was this expense that caused great debate in the Commons, and when the MPs went to vote the results, they were split evenly with the speaker left with the casting vote. He voted against the Bill and it was defeated. 

Despite this defeat Pitt and Richmond were not willing to give up the project, and tried again with a cheaper plan without the Maryfield Fort. This revised Bill was still considered too expensive and it was thrown out on May 16th without a vote.

The Star Fort  

On that day in February, if Richmond had managed to convince just one more MP to support his bill the landscape we see today would have be completely different. A large bastioned star fort would dominate the heigh ground, its outer walls extending down to the Cremyll Road. The original temporary redoubts would be transformed into outlying fortifications to the impressive fort.

The fort was to be in the shape of a complex star, with each point of the stare being massive bastions with complex shapes designed to ensure that attackers would always be subject to fire from their flanks. This would be a fort that incorporated all the mathematical complexity that had developed from the French military engineers of Vauban and Montalembert. It was a design that brought with it a rich complex technical language to describe all its features, terms such as bastions, caponiers and orillons.

 The front of the Fort would house impressive fire power of 55 guns. The building did not stop at the walls of this fort, for ahead of it overlooking the Valley from Cawsand would be four detached bastions. Such an impressive fort would require an impressive manpower to man, a grand total of 1500 infantry and 150 artillerymen would be needed.

A short wall opposite appears to have been built as a screen to conceal troops coming

directly from other Redoubts, to help stop invaders at this point. More roadblocks may

have existed elsewhere, as well as deep in the woods.

The screening wall opposite No 5 has evidence of stone coping stones matching those on

No 5. Two short straight lengths of walling and the east lane hedge create a triangular

field area large enough to conceal a good number of soldiers. Its south corner meets a footpath from Redoubt 4, and map evidence shows there was once one from Redoubt 2.

Redoubt 5 (2^nd Devon Militia)

Redoubt 5’s guns covered the broadest and flattest open land between

Fourlanesend and Cremyll. it would have been able to fire on  enemy troops heading for Cremyll from the Cawsand valley and Fourlanesend. Redoubt 5 was positioned to protect the northern flank of Redoubts 1-4 . It protected the northern flank of the line of redoubts.

If we visited in the Spring of 1788 scene of construction, and amongst those working we may have seen the unusual sight of a female directing the workmen. The contractor for the work was Mrs. Susanna Croad of Plymouth. After the bill for the star fort was defeated, some expenditure was approved for improving two of the redoubts, the ones at the end of the line, number 4 and 5. Construction had commenced in 1787, with a maximum budget of £3,631. Progress over the winter had been slow with the work delayed by the start of Autumn. A quarry had been opened at redoubt 3, and materials extracted and stockpiled over the winter.

When the work started in earnest the form we see today of the redoubt started to emerge. Stone revetments were built to strengthen the redoubts faces, gun platforms added, and barracks built with gun slits. These changes transformed the simple redoubt into a small fort.

Sussana Croad

Sussana Croad was known as the “Determined widow”, she lived in Keyham, and was married to John Croad, a carpenter and contractor who worked for the Board of Ordnance. She married in 1798 she married John, who was a prosperous builder. The marriage was a short one for he died in 1799 and she took on his business. It was her determination to keep his business going after his death that accounts for Sussana being known as the Determined widow.

This name was included in a portrait’s title painted by John Downman in 1806, the painting being called “The determined widow Mrs. Croad and her only Daughter”

She was involved in the construction of some of the fortifications around Plymouth, such as the Keyham Point Magazine complex, She also helped to complete the five redoubts on Maker Heights, which were small forts built to protect the dockyard from landward attacks

Sussana Croad died in 1807 and was buried at Stoke Damerel Church.

History of the redoubt

Like the other redoubts number 5 was initially built in 1779 as a temporary earthwork by the 2^nd Devon Militia, which was developed into a more permeant form between 1781 and 1783. By 1795  the redoubt was reported as being well-armed and in good condition. On the deferat of the scheme to build the large fort the redoubt was strengthened between 1787 and 1791.

The redoubt was identified as needing improvement in 1844 because of the establishment of an Arsenal, the improvements were mainly concerned with rearrangements of the barrack block.  The improvements were delayed, but plans show that the barrack block had been extended sometime before 1865. The modifications included latrines in the courtyard.  It was probably in ruins by 1866.

in WWII the barracks were occupied by families from Plymouth, displaced during the blitz.

The Redoubt described

The redoubt stands in its form in 1790 form after the large upgrade was completed. Unlike number 4 at the other end of the line, this redoubt saw no further changes after that date. It has a steeply battered scarp and ditch counterscarp which where revetted with coursley dressed stone and the scarp is topped with a limestone and granite cordon with a earthwork rampart protecting the gun platform. The gun loops in the barracks are angled to protect  protect the entrance. A rock cut bridge exists to the south and east, Glacis slope lies to west and SW.

It has a simple rectangular plan surrounded by a ditch and a steep stone revetted scarp with earth rampart on top protecting gun platforms behind. In 1808 and 1811 the redoubt was shown has having nine gun embrasures, with two on the north sides, three on the south and four on the west.

The east side of the redoubt is formed by a barrack block with gun loops (slits) protecting the entrance door in the centre. A reconstructed wooden drawbridge leads to this doorway support by the original stone supporting pillars.

The surrounding land to the west and south-west, facing towards Maker Lane and  covering the north side has been landscaped to form a glacis slope

Maker Redoubt 4

Over 120 years, visitors to this battery would have seen the evolution of gun technology reflected in the weapons mounted on its ramparts. Each new gun mounted was a representation of the technology of its time.

The Guns

32 Pounder guns

Range 1.4 miles

32-pounder guns were the heavy cannon mounted on warships in the last part of the age of sail.  They were usually the most powerful armament on ships of the line such as those on HMS Victory.  The maximum range for round shot was about 1.4 miles with a standard rate of fire one round every 3 minutes, although faster could be achieved.

RML 12.5-inch guns

Range 3 Miles

These were large rifled muzzle-loading guns designed for British battleships and were also employed for coast defence. They combined the technologies of the old cannon, in that they loaded from the muzzle end of the gun, but they had the more modern technology of a riffled barrel that put spin on the shells to improve their accuracy.  They were in service between 1875–1905. Their maximum firing range was about 3 miles with the average time between rounds of 1 minute 45 seconds

4.7 inch quick-firing breech loaded guns

Range 6 miles

These guns combined all the technology of a modern gun. They were loaded from the breach end with a breach block mechanism that allowed quick firing and used a combined shell and propellant cartridge.

The QF 4.7-inch Guns were naval and coast defense weapons that were widely used by many countries during the late 1880s and 1890s. These guns were designed and produced by the Elswick Ordnance Company, which was a part of Armstrong Whitworth. The guns had a range of approximately 6 miles and a rate of fire of 5-6 rounds per minute.

At the beginning of the twentieth century this would have been a site of military activity. We would have heard the sound of gunnery orders and replies, and the loud report of gun firing. Every ten seconds or so the gun would fire, with its the shell splashes in the sea up to six miles away.

Historical Summary

Creation

Just like redoubts 2 and 3 this redoubt started its life as a temporary earthwork in 1779, and like its neighbours would be then be remodelled into a more permanent form, with much of the work being undertaken between July and November 1782. However, unlike its neighbours, the history of the redoubt did not stop there. Its position at the end of the redoubt line, overlooking the sea, ensured it evolved with changing threats and developing military technology.

The era of cannon

Between 1787 and 1791 Redoubt No 4 was reinforced by the construction of stone revetments as well as a barrack block with defensive loopholes, bomb proof magazines and gun platforms.Two musketry galleries were built to protect the southern flank and gorge. A map from 1788 labels it as No. 4 (North Gloucester) Redoubt, which suggests it might have been built by the North Gloucester Militia.

Maps of 1808 and 1811 show it with eight gun embrasures and in 1790 it is known to have been armed with eight guns, which was probably large 32 pdrs cannons.

Just like the other Maker redoubts it was disarmed by 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. But it returned to life when it was re-armed in the middle years of the century. By 1849 three 10-inch guns had been approved together with three 68 pdrs and four 32 pdr guns.

The Era of the RML

In the 1880’s it was no longer the French that was the threat, but Germany. There was a large arms race between Britain and Germany, a race that played out in both numbers of ships and technology. This resulted in a major remodelling of the redoubt in 1887 with two huge 38-ton 12.5-inch Rifled Muzzle Loading guns on its southern side, overlooking the sea. In 1899 it was renamed as Grenville Battery.

A moveable armament of four 40 pdr guns was also proposed and there is known to have been a shed for moveable armament at the adjacent Maker Battery in 1901.

Another major change occurred in 1890-92 when the two guns from Grenville were relocated to the new Maker Battery immediately to the west.

The Era of the QF

In 1901 there was a third step in weapon technology when three 4.7 inch quick-firing  breech loaded guns were mounted, flanked by two look-out posts. These guns were used as a practice battery in 1908, and remained in place until at least 1927.

The battery did not see action in WWII, but the barrack block was used as housing by Plymouth families displaced by the wartime bombing.

The site was abandoned by the MOD in 1948.

Site Description:

The redoubt comprises stone revetted ditches on the land-facing flanks (north and west).  There are two musketry galleries towards the south-east. One of these is a two level  structure within the gorge with loopholes facing towards the drawbridge only. The front of the redoubt comprises a long, two storey brick-vaulted barrack building with gun loops  along the length of the ground floor and a single loop to the first. The interior is a large open area. To the north is the barracks range, the interior retains some of its plaster on the vaulted ceilings and timber chamfered doorframes survive in several internal door openings. The westernmost room has an open hatch which leads to a subterranean magazine, the extent of which is unknown. At the centre of the barracks block lies the entrance gate, and to the east long room leading to the galleries. To the east of the redoubt there are three c1900 gun emplacements constructed from reinforced concrete and set on the remains of a former late 19th century structure. Beneath this, accessed by a set of wide steps is an underground magazine with shaft and winch above. To the south-west a flight of steps leads up to a concrete position finding station built on top of the walls. To the west of this is a raised platform accessed by a wide ramp with a brick vaulted magazine or shelter beneath. On the west side of the redoubt are the remains of a cookhouse and latrines. In recent years latrines have been dug into the raised platform above the cookhouse.

Maker Battery

Built in 1886-87 as part of modernisation of coastal defences

This includes 2 RML at Grenville, Hawkins, Raleigh, Penlee,  Rame Church, Whistasnd Bay, Tregantle Down. Sited 300 feet above sea level to provide plunging fire. Seaward side masked by earthworks. Originally 1 12.5” RML.  In 1890 the two Grenville guns moved to Maker western positions, 

In 1900 the two northern two RML replaced by 6” MK VII BL guns. Mounted by 1903. Removed by WWI . No use of battery in world wars. Released in 1956.

Two 6” and western RML remain. Four DRF positions, Unclimbable fence remains.

The BL 6-inch gun Mark VII was a British naval gun dating from 1899 and became one of the main heavy field guns in the First World War. They also served as one of the main coast defence guns throughout the British Empire until the 1950s. It had a ranged of  about 7 and a half miles and a rate of fire of 8 rounds per minute.

Coastal Guns WIP

Ordnance

A word used to describe an artillery weapon rather than one c character carried by the infantry. Itdivuded b divided into field, heavy or siege.

Victorian types:

Smooth bore 1845′-1860

Rifle Breach Loader RBL 1860-1870

Rifiled Muzzle Loader RML 1870-1880

Steel Breach Loader BL 1880-1890

Steel Quick Fired QF 1880-1890

Wire b Breech Loader BL 1890-

Wire Quick Fire r QF 1890-

Smooth bore muzzle loading guns

24-pdr Smooth Bore

This was used extensively in coastal fortifications during the Napoleonic wars and remained in use until about 1865. The gun had an effective range of about 1,200 yards.It was superseded by the 32-pdr.  Sometimes

32-pdr Smooth Bore
This was installed extensively in fortifications between 1830 and about 1880, although it was  largely redundant by 1865 .    The effective range of this gun was about 2,600 yards.

68-pdr Smooth Bore
The 68-pdr  Muzzle Loading Smooth Bore was used extensively in fortifications between 1846 and the 1870s. The effective range of this gun was about 2,600 yards.
64-pdr RML gun (converted)
64-pdr RML or RML 32-pdr of 58 cwt, Palliser system.  Also a 71 cwt version converted from 8-inch SB shell gun. Operational in coastal batteries from 1873 until about 1900.  The effective range of this gun was about 2,700 yards.

64-pdr RML gun
64-pdr RML of 64 cwt.  Marks I – III.  Operational from 1865 until about 1900. The effective range of this gun was about 5,000 yards. Converted from.A smooth bore by the Palliser system.

68-pdr RML gun
68-pdr RML of 88 cwt, 95 cwt or 112 cwt Dundas Gun. Operational from 1872 until about 1900. The effective range of this gun was about 2,700 yards.7-inch RBL gun
7-inch RBL of 110-lbs.  The first British  breech loading gun that was widely deployed.  In use by 1859 but largely withdrawn by 1864.  Still on armament returns for coastal defence fortifications twenty years later.

6.3 inch RML Howitzer 18cwt

Adopted in 1878. It used studless projectiles with a gas check at its base.

8 inch 46cwt mk 1 

Introduced in 1872 as the first rifi led howitzer.

7-inch RML gun
7-inch of 7 ton with Marks I-IV and 6.5 ton with Marks I-III.  Also used on Moncrieff mountings. Operational from 1864 until about 1905.  Maximum effective range of 5,500 yards.

9-inch of 12 ton with Marks I-IV.  Operational from 1865 until about 1922.  Maximum effective range of 4,500 yards.

10-inch RML gun
10-inch of 18 tons with Marks I-II.  Operational from 1864 until about 1904.  Maximum effective range of 4,380 yards. Often used in casemated batteries behind iron shields.

11-inch RML gun
11-inch RML of 25 tons, with Marks I-II. Operational from 1867 until about 1903.  Maximum effective range of 4,420 yards. Often used in casemated batteries behind iron shields.

12-inch RML gun
12-inch RML of 25 tons, with Marks I-II. Used both on turreted ships and for coast defence.  Operational from 1864 until about 1870s.  The 12-inch RML of 35 tons had only one Mark and came into service in 1871.  Only used on naval vessels. Only limited numbers of 12-inch RML were manufactured. Maximum effective range of 4,530 yards.

12.5-inch RML gun
12.5-inch RML of 38  tons, with Marks I & II. Used both on turreted ships and for coast defence.  Operational from 1873 until 1905.  Often deployed behind iron shields supported by 10-inch RML guns. Maximum effective range of 4,520 yards.

The 17.72-inch RML weighed over 100 tons and is now referred to as the 100 Ton Gun. Initially mounted on Italian Warships, two batteries were later established in both Malta and Gibraltar.   Operational from 1875 until 1906.  Maximum effective range of 6,000 yards.

10-inch BL gun
The 10-inch gun was produced in Marks I-IV to replaced the old heavy RML guns. The Mark 1 had a 32ton barrel and breech, while the Mark II to IV was 39 tons.  Operational from 11885 until at least 1906, 10-inch BL guns were used in many overseas locations such as Hong Kong and Aden.  Maximum effective range of 6,000 yards.  The 9.2-inch BL gun superseded the 10-inch BL in about 1889.

6-inch BL gun (Early)
The 6-inch gun of 5 tons came in Mark II-IV.  Operational from 1880 until 1905.  Maximum effective range of 10,000 yards.

6-inch QF BL gun
The 6-inch Quick Fire (QF) gun.  This 6-inch gun had both the shell and charge in one complete unit for quicker loading. Operational from 1892 until 1945.  Maximum effective range of 10,000 yards.

6-inch  BL gun (Later)
The 6-inch Quick Fire (QF) gun.  This gun came in Marks V-VII and became one of the most widely deplyed guns of this calibre. Operational from 1899 until 1957.  Maximum effective range of 11,600 yards.

7-inch RBL

Armstrong breach loading g un with a movable vent piece , or breach block, held in place with a screw. The gun had issues with the vent piece and ammunition.The 100 pdr version was introduced in 1861, later red designated as 110 pdr i n 1863.

9.2-inch  BL gun (Early)
The early 9.2-inch of 22 tons came with Marks I– VII. Operational from 1881 until 1918.  Maximum effective range of 10,000 yards.

9.2-inch  BL gun (Later)
The later 9.2-inch of 22 tons came with Marks IX and X. Operational from 1899 until 1957.  Maximum effective range of 29,200 yards.

4.7-inch  QF gun
The 4.7-inch Quick Fire (QF)  with Marks I-IV.  Operational from 1887 until 1920.  Maximum effective range of 10.000 yards.

3-pdr QF gun
The 3-pdr Q.F. Vickers. Marks I – II.  Also a similar Hotchkiss QF gun used prior to this. Vickers operational from 1905 until 1950. Hotchkiss 1886 to 1950.  Maximum effective range of about 5,000 yards.

6-pdr QF gun
The 6-pdr Hotchkiss Q.F. of 8cwt with Marks I-II. Operational from 1885 until 1950. Hotchkiss 1886 to 1990.  Maximum effective range of about 5,000 yards.

12-pdr QF gun
The 12-pdr 12-cwt Quick Fire gun was introduced in 1894 and manufactured by Armstrong Whitworth, Elswick.  Over 8,000 of the guns were built and remained in service until well after 1945.  With a maximum effective range of 11,750 yards, they were used extensively in coastal batteries to combat fast moving vessels such as Motor Torpedo Boats.

13-inch Mortar

A battery could hit the decks of ships 1,800 yards awa y. Not accurate enough for moving shs, but could hit ones at anchor. The sea battery at Puckpool was installed in 1863 to 1865. They were also mounted on the angle of ramparts in protected positions with a fixed elevation of 45 degrees.Maxi.um.range 2900 yards with.full charge

18 pdr SB Maker Redoubt No 2 28 1784

32 pdr SB Maker Redoubt No 2 28 1784

18 pdr SB Maker Redoubt No 2 29 1788

3.7′ HAA Maker WW2 AA battery 31 WW2

32 pdr SB Maker Redoubt No 4 33 1790

10″ Maker Redoubt No 4 33 1849

68 pdr Maker Redoubt No 4 33 1849

32 pdr SB Maker Redoubt No 4 33 1849

12.5″ RML Grenville Battery 34 1887

12.5″ RML Maker Battery 35 1890

6″ BL mk VII Maker Battery 35 1890

18 pdr SB Sandway Battery 41 1780

10″ BL Raleigh Battery 42 1894

9″ RML HA Hawkins Battery 43 1892

9.2″ BL HA mk VI Hawkins Battery 43 1913

Coastal Fortifications – type

​J tv’sStructures

<band a="" double="" wall="" which="" is="" p!ace="" infront="" of="" the="" entrance="" to="" t.
Advanced Works

Works constructed beyond the glacis, but  close enough to be within musket range of the main fortification.

Ammunition

Shells and cartridges used by artillery.

Ammunition Lift

A lift used to raise shells and cartridges from the ammunition stores to the gun platforms.

Ammunition Store

A building used to store shells and cartridges.

Angle of Defence

The angle formed by a line of defence, and the portion of another work from.which it is flanked.

Angle of the Flank

The angle between a bastion’s  flank and the curtain wall.

Approaches

Trenches dug by attackers towards a fortification that gave cover to their approache. 

Apron

A lead sheet placed over the vent when the gun is not being used.

Arc of Fire

The left to right angle of fire of a gun or battery, usually measured in degrees.

Armament of a Fortress

Permanent or fixed weapons of a fortress.

Ambuscade 

A hidden position from which troops can launch a surprise attack.

Armstrong  Gun

A rifiled breach loading gun firing an elongated projectile from a barrel constructed from wrought iron hoops. The projectile was coated with a lead alloy sheath. The gun was designed by William Armstrong and made at his  Elswick Ordance Company from 1854. 

Armstrong’s Protected Barbette

A system to load a muzzle loading gun from an undercover position. To load the traversed to the side and depressed to 13 degrees. The charge and rammer sits in a pivoting trough located within a loading passage. A winch and wire rope is used to ram the charge into the barrel.

Artillery

Ordnance and the men used in its operation.

Artillery Store

 A building for the storage of artillery equipment. The four main types are:

General Artillery Store

Used for reserve and unservicable stores. Fitted with books racks and bays.Does not se eve any particular guns so can be anywhere within a fortification.

Artillery Store for small stores  

For sights, breach pieces, removable items. Will be sited near the guns. Should not serve more than eight guns.

Side Arm and tackle store

Stores items used to load and fire a gun such as rammed and sponge. Will have rack and bays for each gun.should  not serve more than eight guns.

Smiths shop

Contains a forge and items used make repairs to weapons and mounts.

 Axis of a Gun

The imaginary line running through the centre of a gun’s bore.

Banquette 

An infantry firing step located behind a parapet which enabled troops to fire over it. It can be formed of earth, stone, bricks or strips of wood.

Barbette

 An artillery firing position with a parapet low enough for the guns to fire over without needing embrasures. Barbettes were used when a wide arc of fire was required, such as when firing on moving ships.

Barbican

<span a="" double="" wall="" which="" is="" p!ace="" infront="" town,="" castle="" or="" bridge <="" span
Barrack

The living quarters of a fortification’s garrison.

Barrack Master

The officer who supervises the barracks and is responsible for their condition.

Barrier

The line in a magazine beyond which magazine regulations apply. Normally this was in the shifting lobby, where the room was split into a clean and dirty side. Often a wooden lifting bar was fitted that made anyone passing beyond the barrier having to step over it.

No items of equipment or tools used outside could be used inside the barrier. All packaging and cases had to be cleaned before passing the barrier, and all men change from their uniforms into magazine clothing and shoes.

Bastion

A part of a fortress which projects in front of the main ramparts. It allowed the ramparts to be defended with flanking fire.

Bastionette

A small bastion which is somtimea located on the outer side of a moat, extending from the tip of a bastion.

Batardeaux or Baterceau

A dam to retain water in a ditch.To prevent an attacker using to cross the ditch it may have a knife edge.

Battening

Timber cladding of the floors and walls of a magazine.It is used to reduce damage to powder barrels and other stores. It was used in magazines were contained powder not !made up into cartridges but from 1888 onwards it was not used where cartridges only were stored. 

Lighter battering was 6″ battens 3 /4″ thick. Where heavy weights had to moved across it they would be 3″ wide 1 7/8 ” thick. Brass screws were used to fix the battens. Both battens s would be clear of walls by 1″ Nd preserved by tar.

 wall patterns prevented grit being knocked off and will have air gap behind.

Batter

The inward slope of the face of a revetment or wall.

Battery

A group of guns and their associated equipment, or the place that they are mounted.

Battery Command Post

The position from which the guns in a battery were commanded.

Battery Observation Position

The position from which targets for a battery are observed. The bearing and ranges of targets are observed and calculated and sent to the guns.

Bed of a Howitzer or Mortar

The framework on which a howitzer or morar was mounted when used in a fortification.The

Berm

A  ridge,space or path between the rampart and escarp of the ditch used to prevent earth from falling into the ditch.

Black Powder

A specific gunpowder mix.

Blank Charge

A powder only  charge for a gun.

 

Blocks

?

Two types, ropped strapped called Admiralty Blocks, and iron iron strapped called Bothways block.

Block Trail Carriage

A gun carriage in which the rear trucks are replaced by a block of wood. Carronades were often used for Carronades.

Blocked up Slide

A carriage raised on a central pivot. This allowed the gun to fire over a parapet rather than through an embrasurI

Blockhouse 

A small detached fortification that acted aad an infantry strongpoint. Normally it was a rectangular building with loopholes which could act as a barracks or guard house. 

Board of Ordnance

The government department responsible for armanents and military stores. 

Body of a Work

The line of works that form the main enclosure of a fortress. 

Bolt Passage

A circular passage on sea forts running around the inside of the masonry structure. It has joked for bolts to bolt on iron armour.

Bombproof 

A casement or building with an earth covering to protect against plunging fire.

Bonnet

A small triangular work placed in front of the salient angle of a ravelin.

 Boom

A floating structure or net placed across a harbour entrance to prevent enemy vessels or submarines from entering.

Bounding Fire

See Ricochet fire.

Bore

The hollow part of a gun down which the shell or ball travels when fired. 

 Brestwork 

A rampart made of earth piled up brest high.

Breach

An opening in a fortress wall.made by besieging gunfire that would be used by assaulting infantry to gain access t o the fortress’ interior.

Breech

The rear part of a gun forming the end of the bore opposite to the muzzle.

Breech Block

The part of of breech which is opened to load a breech loading gun.  

Breeching Rope

A large diameter rope secured to a  guns carriage used to check the recoil or secure it when not in use. Loops to secure these ropes were fixed to either side of him ports.

Breech–Loading Gun (BL)

A gun which is loaded by opening part of the breech. 

Breech Screw 

A threaded breach block with fits into a thread cut into the breach. Armstrong guns used a breach screw. 

Brennan Torpedo

A wire guided torpedo launched from shore batteries. It was in use from 1887 to defend harbours.

Bridge

A raised roadway crossing a ditch. The inner end is normally movable to prevent attackers reaching the fortification entrance. This could be by lifting, lowering, rolling  or swinging.

Bridge–head

A work built to cover a bridge across a river. The fortification is open at the rear with its flanks lying on the river banks.

Brigade

An army unit commanded by a brigadier consisting of several regiments, squadrons, or battalions.

Buffer 

A device that takes up the shock of a gun’s recoil.

Buffer, Hydraulic

A system to to take up the recoil of a gun forcing fluid through a small aperture by a piston. The buffer is connected between the gun’s platform and slide. a

Bulwark

An old term for a blockhouse or bastion.

Cage

A metal frame in an ammunition lift for placing the projectile or cartridge cylinder.

Calibre

The diameter of a gun’s bore. It can also describe a gun’s length.?

Canister Shot

See case shot.

Cannon

A word sometimes used to describe any form of gun. Originally it only referred to a gun with a barrel length of at least twelve times that of the diameter of the balls it fires.It fired horizontally or at low angles.  

Cap Square

An iron plate that fits over a gun’s trunnion to hold the barrel in the carrage.

Capital

The imaginary line of a work bisecting the most prominent salient angle. In a symmetrical fortification it will divide the work into two equal parts.

Caponier or Kaponier

A structure projecting into a fortification’s ditch that provides flanking fire along the ditch. It can also be a passage across a ditch for communicating with outworks.

Carbine 

A short barrelled weapon used by the cavalry, engineers and artillery.

Carcass

An incendiary shell fired from mortars or howitzer. It was designed to stick to surfaces and spread fire. It achieved this with a full of a mixture of saltpetre, turpentine, sulphur, resin and tallow.

Care and Maintenance

The maintenance of coast defence guns by District Gunners , who were retired gunners or civilians. This enabled the guns to be immediately available if needed.

Carnot Wall

A detached was built at the base of a Rampart. The two are separated by Chemin des Rondes.

Carriage

The cradle in which a gun is mounted.

Carronade 

A large calibre short ranged gun used as an anti-personnel. It was first produced in the Carron Works, Scotalnd in 1762. The cannon had no trunnions but was instead secured to its carriage by a loop.beneath its barrel. Carronades were used in flank defences of fortifications, where case shot was used. 

Cartridge

Gunpowder made up.as a charge for a weapon. For muskets paper was used, and for larger weapons silk.

The used of paper led to the term ‘cartridge paper ‘

Cartridge Filling Room

A space used to fill cartridges with gunpowder. In some cases it was inside the magazinee. From 1880s onwards the filling rooms became unnecessary as the cartridges were delivered to the fort filled. The spaces then became cartridge stores. 

Cartridge Lift

A shaft and equipment used to.raise cartridges from their store to the gun platform.cartridges were transferred in cages lifted by a block.and tackle.

Cartridge Store

A space used to store powder that had been made up into cartridges.

Casacable

The part of a gun to the rear of the vent. It also refers to button on the end of a breech that maybe in the shape of a ring to take a rope.

Case

The method used to lay a gun. Named Case I, Case II, or case III.

Casement

A bombproof vault built of stone or brick and usually covered with earth. It was used as a gun emplacement soldiers quarters.

Casement Platform

A slide made for use in a casement.

Case Shot

Shot fired from a smooth bore gun that splits open on leaving the gun to re!ase a large number of lead balls.It was used against attackers in a ditch.

Cavalier

A secondary rampart built to defend hollows or other ground that could not be seen from the ramparts.It may sometimes be bui!t inside the main work but at a higher level that enabled guns to fire over its ramparts. Cavaliers were usually on top of a bastion.

Central Pivot Mounting (C.P.)

A pivot mounting for a gun built around a  shaft sunk into the ground. 

Chamber

The space at the breech end of a gun where the charge sits when loaded. 

Charge 

The powder of the correct amount used to fire a projectile. 

Chase

The section of a gun in front of the trunnions.

Chassepot 

A breach loading rifle used by calvery .

Cheek

The side of an embrasure or gun carriage.The

Chemin des Ronde.

 A patrol path or passage usually located  at the foot of a rampart but above the escarp.It had a parapet to provide cover. 

Chevel–de–fries or Chevaux-de-Freses

A temporary barrier.made of a large horizontal wooden  beam with pointed piles of iron or wood passed through it. Several could be joined together. Used to block the entrance to redoubts , close passages, or close breaches.

Chicane

A drawbridge located inside a passageway, or a zig-zag approach to a gate.

Chocks 

Traverse blocks of wood onto which the gun carriage sits .

Clinometer

An instrument used to measure a gun’s angle of elevation or depression from the horizontal.

Crochet

A passage around the head of a traverse that allowed t troops to pass along a covered way.

Chronoscrope

A device to measure the speed of a projectile. It consi red of rings inside the bore fitted with wires which were broken as the projectile pass ed through them. This caused sparks which the chronoscope recorded on a spinning blackened wheel.

Citadel

A strong point in a defence line or a self contained fortress intended to be used as a last place of resort. 

Clearance

The distance between the bore of a gun and body of a projectile. This was also called the windage.

Clinometer

An instrument used to measure the angle of elevation or depression of a gun.

Closed Work

A fortification where the gorge as well.as the front and flanks has a parapet. 

Coast Brigade

An organisation founded n 1771 responsible for the maintenance and and upkeep of the guns and equipment of coastal defences. The brigade was abolished in 1891.

Coastal Defence Artillery

Units to defend the coast against attack.  

Coehorn Mortar

A light mortar of 5.5″ or 4 .4″ calibre named after the the Dutchman who first produced them.

Coil

Got iron bar wound around a former to make a barrel of a gun. The coil is hammered and welded before being bored and turned to the correct dimension s . 

Coin

A wooden wedge placed under the breech of a gun to give the required elevation.Often coins were fitted with metal on top and bottom to reduce wear.

Collimator sight 

A telescopic instrument used to sight a gun. 

Collingwood Mounting

A gun mounting which is loaded pivoting the slide horizontally at is front end whilst the other end is supported by  a hydraulic ram. The ram lowers the gun and slide to its loading position which is at the guns maximum elevation.

Colonial Carriage

A carriage used in the British Colonies to mount a 64per RML. 

Command

The height of a crest of parapet above its plane of site or if not a level site above a datum .It is also used to described the height of a work above an other or the surrounding land.

Commissariat

The department that provided provisions  to the army.

Commission (Royal) 

The commission set up in 1859 to consider the defences of the United Kingdom. Its recomendation s led to the building of the forts now known as the ‘Palmerston Forts’. 

Common Shell

Shells used against ‘common targets’ as opposed to those for thick armour.

Company

A unit of 60 to 100 men under the command of a captain. It was a subdivision of a regiment.

Communication line of

Trenches dug to.link positions.

Compressor

A device on a gun carriage that checks the recoil or retains the gun in its run-in position. 

Congreve’s Rocket

A stick stabilised rocker fired from fired from a long tube. It was devel opp ed by Colonel William Congreve.

Converted Gun 

A smooth bore gun that had been converted to a rifiled barrel using the Palliser system.

Cordite

An explosive used to fill cartridges as a propllent.It was made from.nitroglycerine and nitro cellulose, and was formed into sticks or cords.

Cordon

A rounded projecting stone course at the top.of a scarp wall. The cordon defined the magistral line.

Also which projects above the revetment , just below the parapet to make it difficult to scale the escarp.

Corrections

Adjustments made when firing gums .

Counter Battery

A n artillery batter used d to fire against besiegers.

Counterfort

A buttress built to the rear of a scrap to strengthen it, often it was arched over.

Countermines 

Galleries dug to counter an attacking forces mining.

Counterscarp

The exterior slope of a ditch. It is the slope opposite the Scarp facing the fortification.

Counterscarp Gallery

Chambers built into the counterscarp with firing positions covering the ditch.

Counterweight Carriage

A disappearing gun carriage, also called ‘Moncrieff mounting’.  The force of recoil pushed the gun down to its loading position whilst raising a counterweight. The counterweight would be locked into position whilst being loaded. Once ready to fire the weight would be unlocked, raising the gun back to its firing position.

Coupure

An entrenchment made behind a breach of a fortification, or a passage made to allow sallies.

Counterguard

A small rampart built In front of the point of a bastion consisting of two long faces running parallel to the faces of the bastion.

Covered Way

A  sunken path protected by a n earthworks running around  the outer edge of the ditch. The glacis forms its parapet and is built to provide a musketry  defence position. Sometimes called Advanced ditch.

Crab 

A hoist used to lift ammunition or guns.A crab consisted of a cast iron bracket, oak frame and windless.

Cremaillere

A saw toothed trace to a fortification that gave greater flanking fire , usually applied to fieldworks.

Crenel 

A gap in a parapet between merlons to allow a gun to fire.

Crenellations 

A group of crenel, sometimes called battlements.

Crochet 

A passage around a traverse to give path along a covered way.

Cross Fire

Lines of fire from two or more guns in diffetent positions that cross each other in a particular spot.

Crossing Plate

A plate fitted over the rear racers of guns in casements when the guns are close together and the racers cross.

Crown Work

An outwork of two demi-bastions on either side of a bastion with curtains. 

Cunnette (or Cuvette)

A trench in the bottom of a ditch to carry off water, or to deepen it. It can be filled with water to form an obstacle.

Cupola

An armoured dome housing a gun, observation post or searchlight.

Curtain

A part of a work that joins two bastions on the main line of defence. The wall between two bastions that was the strongest part of the fortress.

Cylinder

A container made of zinc used to.store and transport cartridges for large guns.

Davit

An iron post fitted with a pulley used to hoist up many ammunition. A Rifile Muzzle loader gun would have a muzzle davi t to load the shell.

Dead Angle

A part of a work which cannot be defended by fire from its own fortification.

Defence Electric Light 

A searchlight on coastal fortification used for illuminating target ships at night. 

Demi–bastion

Half a bastion used as a hornwork.

Depression

The angle of a firing gun below horizontal, it is the opposite to elevation.

Direct Fire

Fire aimed directly at a target.

Disappearing Mounting

A mount where the gun is only raised for firing but is hidden otherwise. Developed by Col. Moncrief.

Ditch

Trench or excavation at the foot of a rampart. It provides a barrier to the enemy, provides earth for rampart, and increases the elevation of the rampart without increasing its exposed face to fire .

Drop Ditch

A deeper section of a ditch in front of casements or musket galleries that prevents easy access to them.

Elevation

The angle of a firing gun above horizontal.

Emplacement

A gun or searchlight position. 

Embrasure

An opening in a parapet or wall through which a gun can be fired.

En–Barbette 

A gun raised so that it fires over a parapet’s crest rather than through an embrasure.

Enceinte 

The main line of bastions and their curtains of a fortress, excluding the outworks.Sometimes known as the ‘body of the place’. 

Enfield

The rifle used by the British Army from the 1860s.

Enfilade

Fire from a flank  that sweeps  a work with fire.
Enfilade Fire

Fire that sweeps a  target from end to end .

Entanglemet

A defensive barrier which is quickly raised on a glacis, ber m or in the bottom of a ditch.It usually made of wire.

Entrenched Camp

A protected place for an army to assemble or re-group.

Entrenchment

An earthwork of trenches and parapets.

Epaulement

A parapet for cover and not defence, it therefore has no banquette.Also a fortification protecting a garrison from flanking fire.

Eprouvette
A cannon used to measure the quality of gunpowder . It consisted of a barrel suspended from a cradle whose movement when fired gave an indication of the powder quality.

Equilibrium Bridge 

A movable bridge across a ditch which moved in an horizontal line in an arrangement that kept it in equilibrium.

Escalade

Using ladders to climb walls.

Escarp

The outward slope of a rampart, and therefore the inner slope of the ditch. It may be revetted as a retaining wall for the rampart, or it may be an independent scarp wall detached from the rampart. Also called a Scarp.

Escarp en Descharge

A counter-arched or hollow revetment constructed in a way that allows earth piled into the arches can fall to consolidate the scarp or counterscarp.The revetment may have galleries in the rear of be filled from the rear.

Escarp Gallery

A line of chambers built with an escarp that provide communication around the escarp, or allow defence of the ditch through loopholes in its walls.

Examining Room

A space used to examine powder barrels on arrival. It is normally located next to a magazine.

Expense Magazine

 A small magazine close to a battery in which powder is stored ready for immediate use by the guns. It is normally located on the terreplein or in the caponiers.

Explosive

A chemical which when initiated exerts a sudden and intense pressure.

Expose

To switch on a searchlight.

Exterior Crest

Outer edge of a rampart between the exterior slope and superior slope.

Exterior Slope

The outer slope of a rampart beneath the  parapet and below the exterior crest. It is at the angle that loose earth forms, which is about 45 degrees. 

Face

The two sides of a bastion which meet at an angle that projects out towards the enemy. Or the front of a fortification.

Facine

.A bundle of brushwood used to strengthen earthworks and trenches.

Fausse–Braye

An outer rampart separated from the main rampart, normally at a lower level.

Fence

Used in place of an escarp or as ditch defence. Morton’s wire fencing was used for boundaries. This had iron uprights and galvanized iron wire kept under tension  with cog and ratchet.

Field

The area on which a battle is fought.

Field Force

Soldiers required in addition to those of a garrison of a fortress. They performed watch and guard duties in the spaces between fortifications. They could also build field fortifications. It was calculated that 33 men would be needed for every 100 yards.

Field Fortifications

Temporary fortification built to strengthen the permanent fortification s and the field force position.

Field Gun

A wheeled gun that can be taken out from a fort into the field. 

Field Piece

A cannon taken by armies to be used in the field of battle.

Fighting Lamp

A lantern used to illuminate a gun’s breech for night firing. 

Fire Command Post

The position from which a group of guns are controlled.

Firing Step

A raised section behind the parapet that formed a step for soldiers to fire from. It was also called a Banquette.

Fixed Ammunition

Ammunition which has the shell and cartridges were combined in a single unit.This would allow quick loading.

Flank

The part of a bastion that joins onto the curtain, and which the guns for flanking fire are mounted. It is the side of a work between the face and curtain.

Flanked Angle 

A salient formed by two lines of defence.

Flanker 

A fortification projecting so as to command the side of an attacking force. It is located to allow flanking fire across the curtain.

Flanking Gallery

A gallery with gun positions to fire along the length of a wall or ditch.

Flanking Fire

Gun fire that hits the side of an enemy, it is aimed  parallel to a wall or ditch.

Fleche 

A simple and easy to build  arrow shaped field work of two faces that form a salient angle. The rear of a fleche would be open and not easily defended.

Forage Store

A structure for storing food for horses. It is normally located near to the stables.

Forge 

A fire for repairing gun carriges and artillery artillery. equipment

Fougasse

An improvised mortar made from an excavation in the ground that fired stones or pieces of iron.The hole was from 3 to 10 feet deep. 

Fort

A closed work which has parapet flank defences covering in ditches. It is a structure designed primarily for defence.

Fortification

The making of a military position defensible.

Fortress

A major fortified location capable of containing a large force. It is often a town.

Fraises

Sharpened pallisades or stakes fitted on the slope of a rampart, Counterscarp or scarp to slow down an attacking soldier s.

Fraser Construction

A method of building large RML guns from coils that used a few large coils instead of several smaller ones. It was a system invented by W. Fraser.

French Grooves

A rifiling system in which the driving edge has a smaller inclination than the loading side. This arrangement causes the projectile to centralize itself. 

Friction Tube

A device used to fire a gun. It consisted of a copper tube filled with gunpowder that was inserted into the vent of the gun. The bottom was sealed with a cork plug and shellac.A friction tube was not needed for QF guns as a percussion primar was fitted to the base of the brass cartridge.

Front

The distance between the salients of two bastions.

Fuze 

A metal or wooden tube placed in a shell to explode it.

Fuse and Tube Shelf

A shelf in a shell store or she’ll recess for the storage of fuzes. It normally consisted of four box compartments, open at the front for the storage of fuses. Tubes are stored on the top.

Gabion 

A wickerwork cylinder filled with earth used to strengthen ramparts or make entrenchments.

Gabionade

A retrenchment made quicly from gabions to fill a breach.

Gallery

A passageway built inside the walls of a fortress at its based.

Galloping Carriage

A gun carriage used for a light gun that could be drawn without a limber. The carriage had shafts to enabler to be drawn and act as its trail when fired.

Gard–Fou 

A fre e-standing wall located on the top of a revetment to protect sentries  or gunners.
Gardner Gun

A machine gun of one, two or five barrels fed by a vertical magazine and operated by a crank. It was invented in 1874.

Garrison 

The troops based in a fortress to.defend it. 

Garrison Artillery, Royal

Men whose role was to man the guns of a fortress.

Garrison Platform

A platform used for garrison guns in permanent fortification s. It was usually of stone and laid at an incline of 1:15.

Garrison Standing Carriage

A carriage used for guns not to be placed on the front faces of the fort.It was made of two wooden cheeks carried on four wheels.The carriage stood on a platform of stone, concrete or wood with a slope 1:24. Some later carrages were made of iron.

Gas Check

A flat plate of metal used in a rifled gun to seal the b ore and impart spin to a projectile.The plate behind the projectile when the gun is loaded and it falls away when the shell leaves the muzzle.

Gas checks removed the need to have studs on the shell, they were replaced by copper driving bands on shells.

Gas Escape

A hole in a gun’s breech used as an indicator of a failure of the gas ring or steel barrel. 

Gas Ring

A seal fitted to a RML where two parts are jointed 

Gatling Gun

A 10 barallel machine gun rotated by a crank.  

General Artillery Store

An artillery store for unserviceble and reserve stores that are not needed for immediate use by the guns.It can be located any coveniniant location within a fortification and is fitted with hooks, bays,racks, shelves and benches.

General Service Wagon

A wagon used to transport food and stores.

Genouillere

The part of a parapet beneath an embrasure.

Gin

A tripod used to mount or remove gun barrels into their mountings .

Glacis 

A mass of earth raised on the outer side of a ditch forming a long slope down to the normal ground level. The guns sited on the terraplane could sweep the slope and the earth provides protection to the scarp wall.

Gomer Chamber

A chamber in the bore of a gun to concentrate the charge.

Gorge

The rear face of a fortification. A line joining a works inner extremities.

Grazing Fire

Fire that passes close the the surface.

Groove

Part of a gun’s rifling.

Ground Platform

A gun platform made of heavy planks and beams that is laid on the ground.

Guerite

A sentry box or turret situated on a bastion’s salient angle that projects out over the ditch.

Gun 

A cannon used for firing on a flat trajectory over a long distance.

Gun Bank

A raised platform of earth that enables a gun to fire over the crest of a parapet.

Gun Cotton

An explosive consisting of cotton, hemp or linen s oaked in nitric acid. Gun cotton was brought into service in the 1890s and formed the base of many smokeless powders used in the later Victorian period.

Gun Portion

Half of the merlon on each side of a gun.

Gun Powder

An explosive made of charcoal, sulphur and charcoal. The grain of a gunpowder refers to its density, fine grain explodes quicker than large grain. The larger grains are used for larger guns.

Gun Tackle

The blocks and ropes used to raise and lower a gun on a sliding platform. 

Gyn

A tripod used to lift and mount guns.

Gyn Tackle

The lifting tackle used with a gyn. 

Haxo

A casement on a terreplein providing overhead cover for a gun.

Hele’s Rocket 

A rocket that used spin for stabilising rather than a stick. The spin was imparted by baffled deflecting the propelling gas. It was developed by William Hele in 1845 and became obsolete in 1902.

Half Closed Work

A fortification in which the rear is closed by a thin earth rampart, line of obstacles or stockade.

Handspike

A wooden bar used to move a gun or carriage by leverage. The handspikes for heavy guns were shod with iron to reduce wear. Some larger spikes were fitted had a roller on its end to make moving the gun easier.

Haxo Casement

A vaulted casement that had overhead  cover for a gun and its crew. It was invented by General Haxo. They were covered with a mass of earth.

Heavy Artillery

Guns used as fortress defence in fixed batteries.

High Angle Fire (H.A.F)

Fire from guns from a parapet at high angles of fire , in a range of 75 to 83 degrees elevation.

High Explosive

An explosive of high power and rapid action .

Hornwork

An outwork made of two demi -bastions that are joined by a curtain wall. The work is joined to the main fortification by two parrallel wing walls. Sometimes called a Crownwork.

Hot Shot

A heated shot used to set fire  against wooden ships or buildings.

Hot Shot Furnace

A furnace used to hear up hot shot. Addison’s portable furnace  came into use in the 1860s. Once at full working  temperature it took 15 minutes to heat eacHowitzer H

Howitzer 

A short barreled weapon used to fire explosive shells in a curved or indirect fire. The later howitzer could fire at a high angle, up to 45 degrees, and a low velocity. 

Hurter 

A piece of timber used to protect the inside of a parapet from gun carriage wheels. It was fitted at the head of the platform next to the interior slope of the parapet.

Hydraulic Disappearing Mounting

A disappearing mounting in which the gun  is returned to its firing position by hydraulic power. 

Hydropneumatic Disappearing Mounting

A gun which was returned to the firing position by hydropneumatic power.

Impliments

See sidearms.

Indirect or Curved Fire

Fire at an elevation up to 15 degrees using guns at reduced charge or howitzer and mortars. 

Interior Slope

The inside slope of a parapet that is steep to allow men to stand close to its crest when firing.

Interior Crest or Crest

The top edge of the parapet where the superior and interior  slopes meet.

Intermediate Works

Temporary works built between the permanent works of a line of defence. They could consist of trenches, batteries and redoubts.

Intrenchment

A trench or ditch

Intrenched Camp

A pre-prepared position to which a n weaker force could retreat and reorganise. 

Invalide 

A.section of the Royal Artillery that was replaced in 1859 by the Coast Brigade.

Issue Bar

An iron bar at the top of a lift shaft used to lift shells out of the lift.

keep

A strong structure within a fortress that would act as  the last defendable position.

Laboratory

A room.where gunpowder was mixed or charges made up.It later became a space were activities related to handling gun cotton were carried out. It was under magazine regulations and normally consisted of two rooms with a shifting lobby at the entrance. The inner room was for filling and examining the outer room examining prior to filling and checking packages.

Ladder Lift

A cartridge lift consisting of an endless chain ladder onto the rungs of which the cartridges were placed.

Lamp

A lantern used to light a magazine or gun emplacement.

Lamp Barrow 

A wheeled conveyance for transferring lamps to the lamp reccesses from the lamp room.

Lampman 

The man who maintained the lamp s in a fort, especially in the magazines. This included their lightin g.

Lamp (or Lant ern) Recess

A small tunnel or alcove in a wall for placing a lamp. To prevent a spark entering a magazine it would be fitted with a pane of glass in a brass frame. In longer recesses the lamp may be placed on a tray or trolley running on rails moved by a hooked stick or endless leather strap.

Lamp Room

A room used for the maintenance and cleaning of lamps.

Land

The space between a  gun’s rifiling grooves.

Land Mine

An explosive charge detonated by electo contacts or trip wires. They could be placed in a defensive pattern on the glacis.

Lancaster Carbine 

A Snider converted carbine used n the Royal Engineers.

Lancaster Gun

A gun firing an elongated shell down an oval bore with a twist that gave spin to the shell. It was introduced my Mr. Lancaster.

Lanyard

A tarred light cord or rope attached to a friction tube which was pulled to fire the gun.The lanyard had a wooden toggle at one end to pull on and the other end was attached to the ring of the friction tube. A garrison lanyard was just under 12 feet long.

Latrine

A soldier’s toilet.

Laying a Gun

Adjusting a gun so it aims at a target.various combinations of methods were used for coastal defence,  with the gun layer, gun captain, position finding station, and depression range finder station being used as appropriate.

Lee–Enfield, Long

A magazine loaded rifle brought into service in the 1850s.It had a range up to 900 yards.

Lee–Enfield  Short 

This version was used by rifile corps and infantry sargents. It had an effective range up to 600 yards.

Lee –Metford 

A magazine rifle introduced in 1888.

Lift

A shaft used to raise cartridges and shells from the magazine to the higher gun level.It could be a cartridge lift, shell lift, ammunition lift or general lift.A return lift was used to returning practice rounds to the stores.

Lifting Bridge

A drawbridge which was hinged at the inner end so that it could be raised by chains attached it.

Lifting Eyebolt

A ring screwed into the the head of a large projectile to help with its loading.

Light Balls

An oblong canvas case stretched over a wrought iron frame filled with a substance that burnt  with a intense fla me . They were used to light up an enemy at night.

Lighting (Lamp) Passage

A passage built next to a magazine to allow lamps to be placed into the recesses to light the magazine.

Limber

A two wheeled hitch between a gun carriage and the horses that pulled it.It supported the trail and carried some ammunition, tools and equipment.

Line of Defence

The line of the top of a scarp that received flank defence. Also a line drawn from an angle between a curtain and the flank of a bastion to the shoulder of the opposite bastion.

Line of Fire

A imaginary line from.The muzzle of a weapon to the point being aimed at.

Line of Metal Marking

A cross line marked on the right trunnion of a gun showing the intersection of the surface of the metal by the vertical passing through the gun axis when the trunnions are horizontal.

Line of Sight

The visual line passing through the two gun sights and the target.

Lines with Intervals

A series of detached fortifications placed at intervals that give protection to each other by their fire crossing in the interval between them.

Liner 

The inner tube of a gun that lined the bore. 

Linestock

A shaft that held a slow fuse that fired a gun.

Load

To ready a gun for firing by putting in a cartridge and shell.

Loading Bar

A short iron bar into which the tackle is attached that is used to raise a shot to a muzzle. The bar was located over and just in front of the point at which the gun comes to test after recoiled.

Lodgement

A temporary defensive work built on a captured part of an enemy fortification.

Loop

An iron ring used the suspend a gun when being mount ed . It is often found on the centre line in the vaulting of a casement.

Loophole

An slits or openings in a wall for firing a rifile through. Each position needed 3 feet of wall space. To prevent bullets from entering brick ones are stepped and concrete ones sloped. They are often skewed to fire on a specific position.

Luff Tackle 

A tackle consisting of one single when one double sheaved  block.

Lunette

A work with two faces forming a salient angle and two  flank faces parallel to the capital.The flanks are normally perpendicular to the firing direction. It was used to cover a ravelin.

Lyddite

An explosive made from picric acid used as a shell filling.Named after the Lydd testing ground.

Machine Gun

A gun able to fire multiple shots in succesion .These came into use in forts from the 1880s to replace the smooth bore guns used in the flanks.

Machine Shed

An artillery store for storing the equipment used to transport and mount garrison guns.

Machicoulis

A projecting gallery used to defend a ditch or gateway.

Machicolation

An opening for firing downwards to the foot of a wall. It can be in the form of a projecting gallery.

Magazine

A building used to store gunpowder in barrels or cases.The word was sometimes used to describe any ammunition store. 

Magazine Conditions

The safety regulations concerning the storage of ammunition.

Magistral Line

The line of the top of the scarp. It is drawn thicker on a plan.

Mantlet

A curtain of woven rope hung in an embrasure to protect a gun crew of a large gun from material flying into the casement of the exterior face is hit. 

Mantlet Bar

An iron bar fitted across an embrasure to hang a mantlet from.

Mantlet Door

A door fitted to the magazines to limit the force of an explosion. It consisted of layers of matting fitted on a strong angle iron frame.

Martello  Tower

A small circular coastal fortification used to mount artillery

Martin’s Shell

A hollow spherical shell insulated with a loam and cow hair mixture into which was filled with molten iron. It became obsolete in 1869.

Martini Henry Rifle

A single shot rifle that came in use from the 1860s that combined the Martini falling breach and Henry barrel. It has an extreme range of 3,000 yards.

Maxim Gun

A single barralled machine gun fed from below by loops on a band contained in a box. The gun fired at 600 rounds per minute.

Merlon 

The solid section of a parapet between two embrasures.

Militia 

Reserve force of part time soldiers

Militia Artillery

A reserve military artillery.

Mine

A tunnel dug to attack or defend a fortification.

Or

A charge of high explosive used as a land or sea mine.

Minie Rifle

A rifle that had a ball.with a small iron cup in a hollow in its rear. This caused a ball to expand on firing to fill the groves.

Mitrailleuse

Murlti-baralled breach loading semi-machine gun.

M.L.R

A muzzle loading rifled gun.A term used to describe new rifiled guns rather than converted smooth bore guns.

Moat 

A ditch, it can be dry or wet.

Moncrief Gun

A disappearing gun in which counterweighted barrel was lowerd down into a pit between firing that provided protection and concealment. In Moncrief ‘s full system th ese pits would be dispersed , but this the weapons were not deployed in this manner.

Mortar

A short barraled, large calibre gun firing a heavy shell at a high angle of elevation, between 15 and 5o degrees. The name came from its resemblance in shape to the chemist’s mortar. They were not fitted with wheels.

Mortar Battery

A position for protecting and concealing a group of mortars. The battery may be casemated or in open pits. 

 Mouth

An embrasure’s exterior opening. 

Movable Armament

Guns that could be deployed outside of the fortification.

Motte

An artificial steep -sided mound on which is located the principle tower of a castle.

Mount

An artificial earth mound on which guns can be mounted.

Musket

A smooth bore light gun used by the infrantry.

Muzzle

The front end of a gun out of which the shot is fired, the opposite end to the breech.

Muzzle –Loader

A gun loaded from the muzzle end, as opposed to a breech loader.

Muzzle Pivoting Carriage

A gun in which the axis around which it elevated and depressed was at the muzzle. This design enabled the casement opening could be made smaller. 

Needle Musket Gun 

A breech loading gun in which was fired by a pin that was forced through the gunpowder by a spring. The gunpowder was ignited by some detonating powder at the rear of the bullet.

Nordenfelt 

A multi-barrel gun of up to ten barrels mounted  side by side. 

Oblique Fire

Fire that aimed to hit a target at an oblique angle.

Obturation 

The means used to seal the breech of a B.L. gun to prevent gas leakage through the beach mechanism when it is fured .

Obus–torpilles

High explosive mortar shells of about 6″ calibre .

Open Work

A fortification with parapets on the exposed sides only. This is normally the front and rear sides with the rear being open.

Ordnance

A word used to describe an artillery weapon rather than one c character carried by the infantry. Itdivuded b divided into field, heavy or siege. 

Victorian types:

Smooth bore 1845′-1860

Rifle Breach Loader RBL 1860-1870

Rifiled Muzzle Loader RML 1870-1880

Steel Breach Loader BL 1880-1890

Steel Quick Fired QF 1880-1890

Wire b Breech Loader BL 1890-

Wire Quick Fire r QF 1890-

9.2″ Became staple armament of coastal defences

I

II 

III B

Built in caste iron pedestal.

IV 

Axial recoil, more compact . Designed to give 20 degree depression.

VCHI

 XI

6″ Gun

 standard coastal defence gun

I

II 

Shorter recoil,on cast iron pedestal

6″ QF  MK II

 6″ BL  MK VII

 7.5″

 10″

12″
Orillin

A round of earth with a wall face on a casemented battery. It covers cannon in the retired flank and prevent them being dismounted.? It is the projecting face of a bastion beyond the line of a retired flank to protect a Flanker.? Xxx

Outworks

Work that external and separate from the main body of the fortification but inside the glacis. 

Overbank Carriage.

A gun carriage  with a bracket for light guns  that enable the gun to fire over a parapet.

Overhead Shield

A steel plate fitted as a shield to provide overhead cover.

Pallisade

A fence used as a ditch defence or a wall made of sharpened logs.

Palliser Conversion

A liner used to convert a smooth bore gun to a rifilield muzzle loading gun (RML). To fit it the bore was bored out to make it wider, a tube fitted, which was exp ended by firing a large charge.

Palliser Shell

An armour piercing shell with an extremely hard nose. It was widely introduced for RML guns after the late 1860s. It aS designed by  Captain Palliser.

Parachute Light Ball

A shell formed of two thin iron hemispheres riveted together. It contained a burning mixture and a  parachute to illuminate a battlefield. The light ball was fired from a mortar using a small charge .

Parados 

A rampart at the rear of work that protected it from reverse shell fire.

Parade 

A flat area used to muster and parade troops.

Parallel

A trench dug parallel to a work by an attacker. Several parallels would be dug in stages as an attacker got nearer the fortification.

Parapet 

A bank of earth or wall enclosing a work that provided protection to the troops. Guns fire either through or over t he parapet . It s width depended on the amount of protection required, from  3 feet for musket fire to 18 feet for heavy fixed guns. 
Parapet Mounting

A machine gun mount that allowed firing from the top of a parapet. It had a cross piece bar that sat on the top of the parapet.

Pas de Souris

A staircase that provided access between a ditch and terraplain or outworks.

Penetration

The distance that a shell can enter a target.

Percussion Fuse

A fus e that initiates a shell on impact. Moorsom’s fus e was introduced in 1861, and Pettiman’s in 1866.

Petard

An explosive charge used for blowing structures such as walls and gates in. It was formed of a metal bell shaped gunmetal which would be filled with powder and its mouth sealed with mastic. 

?

Permanent Fortification

A fixed  fortification built to remain in position for a long time, including during peacetime. The y were built to defend a country’s border or strategic position s. It is normally has masonry construction.

Perpendicular Fortification

A tenaille system ?

Piasaba Brush

A bore cleaning brush.

Pillar Loading

An unsuccessful method of loading a gun under cove r that was used with the  38 ton gun. The projectile was  placed on a pillar and the barrel turned around for loading.

Pillar Mounting?

A Q.F. mounting consisting of a  cylinder moving within a fixed outer one.The outer cylinder too was flush with the ground levell and  the inner cylinder carries traversing and elevating gear. The cylinder is raised to fire over the parapet and lowered to hide the gun.It was used on the  4.7″ QF gun, 6 and 1 2 pounders.

Piquet or Picket

Troops deployed to form a line of security outposts.

Pistol

A handgun issued to the Calvary. 

Pivot

The point around which a gun is traversed.

Pivot Block ?

The block around which the slide is connected and the slide is connected. 

Place of Arms

A position for defending troops of the of outworks, or troops conducting a sortie to assemble. It is usually at in the covered way at a ‘re-entering or salient point.

Plain Groove

Gun rifiling in which the bottom of the groove was concentric with the bore.

Plane of Fire

Tbe vertical plane passing through the axis of a gun.

Plane of Site

The plane representing the general direction of the ground in which a work is built.

Platform, Gun

A horizontal stone, wood or masonry plane used to place a gun on in a fortification. Later platforms were built at an angle to check the recoil.

Platform, Mortar 

Raised platforms on parade  to mount a mortar on.

Platform Wagon

An open sided wagon used to transport guns and heavy associated equipment.

Plunging Fire

Fire from a position above its target.

Point Blank

The point at which a round hits the ground when the gun has no elevation. A gun is said to be laid point blank when the line of sight is parallel to the guns axis, that is it is pointing directly at the target.

Polygonal System or Fort

A fort with a polygonal trace whose weapons was designed for active defence.

Polygroove System

A rifiling system using a large number of shallow grooves. From 1859 onwards it was used for all R.B.L s.The

Port Bar

A iron bar placed across a gun port during the loading of a large R.M.L.  It assisted in loading by holding up the end of the rammer stave.

Port–cochere 

A roofed structure projecting out from an entrance.

Portfire

A slow burning match used to ignite the powder in an artillery piece. It was made of a length of light cord impregnated with saltpetre, sulphur and dust powder.

Port War Signal Station

A location from which vessels approaching a port could be challenged.

Position– Gun of

A gun designed for a permanent position in a fortress.

Position Finder

An instrument used to direct guns onto a target. It took into account the movement of a target, and was either of a depression or horizontal type. It was invented by Major Watkins, and came into use from 1887 onwards.

Position Finding Cell (P.F.C.)

A room or building containing the equipment the range and position of a target. It consisted of two chambers, one containing a receiving instrument and the other transmitting instrument. This later instrument may be no more than a calibrated telescope. At the receiving cell the readings from the transmitting cell and receiving cell are combined to calculate its position and range by trigonometry.

The cells were located at the flanks of a baatery , and if more than one calibre was controlle d, a position finder would be required for each one.

By plotting the course and speed of the target the predicted position of the target is passed electrically to the guns where it displayed on dials.

Cells are normally low lying concrete structures sunk into the ground with a n opening covered by iron shutters. The roof was camouflaged by being covered by earth. 

inside the cells w as three concrete pillars to support the plotting table and instrument . The transmitting dials were contained in recesses in the concrete wal ls. 

Postern

A secondary entrance to a fort. This may.be a side entrancsally sally port for access into the ditch.

Powder Cart

A two wheeled cart with space for four barrels of powder and a shot locker.

Powder Correction

Adjustments mad e that allow for the strength of gunpowder.

Preponderance 

The excess weight at the breach end of a gun when it is balanced on its trunnion.

Preventer Rope

A rope attached to a gun slide to assist with its running out. It is fitted to an eye at the rear of the slide and around a wooden bollard on the platform.

Pricker 

A thin metal spike used to pierce a charge through the vent of a R.M.L. gun before the friction tube is inserted. 

Priming

Filling a vent of a gun with powder in order to fire it.

Profile

The cross section of a work through its galcis, ditch and rampart.

Projectile

A shell or shot fired from a gun. 

Prolongation

A line made as an extension of an existing line of defence.

 Propellant 

 An explosive charge used to propel a shell or shot out of a gun.

Protected Barbette

A protection for a disappearing gun, or one with depressed loading.

Prussian System

A system where the fortification act together to form a line of defence. In this system each fort is independent, but also provides flanking fire to its neighbours. It had two types of armament, long range for flanking fire, and short range for self defence. The later was normally mounted on caponiers.

Quick Fire Guns, Q.F.

A gun with a quick action breach mechanism that used a  combined projectile and charge.

In the 1880s 3 pdr and 6 pdr guns were used. In 1887 a 4.7″ was introduced.  

? Other guns

Quill Tube

A shaft of a goose feather filled with gun powder that was placed in a vent to fire a gun.

Quoin 

A wooden wedge used to support the breech end of gun or mortar barrel. It can be adjusted to change the elevation of a gun.

Racer Track

A steel or wrought iron  curved track set into a gun emplacement floor to enable the quick traversing of a gun. Racers were set in granite blocks or fixed on iron chairs.

Rammer

A tool used to ram home the charge into a gu n, or the man who rams the charge.It is a side arm with a head of elm and ash stem.

Ramp

A sloping road giving access to the terreplein from the parade level  for troops, ammunition  and gun carriages. Sometimes it was at right angles to the rampart to act as a traverse.

Rampart

The high earthwork bank on which guns and troops are  positioned to defend the fortification. It forms the main defence of a fortification.

Range 

The distance  between a gun and its target.

Range Finder

An instrument used to determine the range of a target.

Range Indicator (Clock Dial)

An instrument used in coastal batteries to communicate the range and deflection of a target to batteries from a range finder. It consisted of a circular board with two hands and markings like a clock face.

Ravelin

A ‘V’ shape work in front of a rampart and its ditch and between two bastions. It can also refer to a fortified island in a moat in front of the curtain. 

R.B.L.

Rifile Breach loading gun.

Rear Chock Carriage

A naval gun carriage in whwithout  rear wheels (Trucks) that sits on its front trucks and a chock at its rear.

Recess

A recess in the vicinity of a gun to store charges, shells , spares and equipment.

Recoil 

The reaction of a gun on firing making it move in the opposite direction to its line of fire. 

Recuperator

A device to return a gun to its firing position used in later versions of breech loading guns.

Redan 

An outwork of two faces and an open rear.  The two faces form a salient angle. When the faces are smaller than about 20 yards it is sometimes called a fleche. Variations included double, triple and blunted.

Redoubt 

An small enclosed fortification which does not have flank defences of its own ditch.It s simple structure does not have bacaponiers caponiers , or other such structures.

Reduit

A small citadel used as a last resort defence.

Re–entering Angle  Re-Entrant 

An angle of a work that projects inwards away from the enemy.

Refused Flank

An obtuse angled flank that cannot be enfiladed.

Relief

The height of a point in a work above the horizontal plane of the base of a scarp. The height above a plane of construction is called ‘constructive ‘ relief, and that above the ditch the ‘absolute ‘ relief.  The ‘relief of the work’ is that of the crest of the parapet.

Repository Drill

Gun crew training to mount, transport and mount a gun.

Retired

A work within a bastion or other work which is given up in stages after the main defences are breached. It is a form of Retrenchment.

Retired Flank

A recessed casement or p platform within a bastion flank?

Retrechment

A line of works inside a fortification that cut off part of it to enable defence after attackers are inside the fortification.

Reverse Fire

Fire aimed to hit the rear of the enemy.

Revetment 

An escarp’s retaining wall. A full revetment is one where all of the escarp i s revetted, and a demi where only part of it has a wall.

Ricochet Fire

Low angled fire that grazed the parapet to enflied the the fortification in a way that sweeps through the gun s and troops on it.q

See Bounding Fire

Rifle

A rifi led long barral led gun used by a soldier s .

Rifield Breech Loading Gun (R.B.L.)

Rifled guns using the ‘Amstrong’ system of construction.It was built up by shrinking layers of coils of wrought iron on its other. It was brought into service in 1859.

Rifield Gun

A gun with with spiral groves cut in its barrel that give spin to its projectile making it more accurate.

The projectile s fired these guns will have one of the following to give rotation 

Coated with soft metal -RBL

Fitted with a driving band near its base – BL

Fitted with studs -RML

Having a copper gas check attached to its base -RML

Rifled Howitzer

A gun that could fire at a high angles and therefore give indirect fire down onto the roof of bomb proof structures.

Rifled Muzzle Loader(RML)

A rifled gun that was loaded through its muzzle. It referred to converted guns rather than those built as rifled weapons.

Rifling

Grooves in a gun’s vote which gives a spin to a projectile. Muzzle loader s needed a wider and deeper grooves to allow the studs to be engaged during ramming.

Ring Bolts

Iron rings set into a casement’s wall or floor.They were used to secure traversing and gun mounting tackle.

Rocket

These were either signal rockets or war rockets. They were first used in 1806 and the two types were Congreve ‘s or Hale’s.

Rolling Bridge

A bridge over a ditch that can be rolled back to within the gates. The most common fortification type used a rack and pinion system to operate.

Sabot 

A wooden plate or cylinder attached to the bottom of a projectile that prevents damage to the barrel or projectile when it is fired and stabilizes it .

Saddle Mounting

A bracket fitted across an embrasure used to mount a light gun.

Sailient Angle

The angle of a work that projects towards the field.

Sally Port 

An opening in a glacis or curtain that enabled troops to exit to engage the enemy. See Postern.

Sap 

A trench dug by an attacker to advance towards a fortification. It normally followed a zig zag form.

Smooth Bore Breach Loading Gun (SBBL)

A 32pdr gun which was adapted by replacing the breach end with interrupted breech -closing mechanism. It was used to fire case shot for flank defence of fortifications.

It had a rate of fire of three rounds a minute with a maximum range of 350 yards.
Scarp

See Escarp

Sconce 

A detached fort with bastions.?

Segment Shell

A thin cast iron shell lined with cast iron segments built up in layers. It was used against groups of troops beyond the range of case shot or behind cover.It was first introduced in 1860.

Service Charge

The amount of powder in a charge for a given nature of gun.  A Full Service Charge was the largest recommended charge for a particular model of gun.

Serving Room

A chamber from which cartridges are issued to the guns. They are normally located at the top of cartridge lifts where the lift shafts are in side recesses and a hatch gives access to the gun floor.

Sheers 

Spars of wood used to lift guns used with tackle, slings, guys,and chains.

Shielded Casement

A casemented battery with armour plated gun shields. May be single or double tiers, and also may be curved fronted.!

Shell?

A ho know  gun  projectile. with an explosive filling. The following types were used by coastal artillery.

Shell Bearer 

A device used to lift a shell from a shell lift or shell store to a gun muzzle. It consists of a cradle fitted with  handles.

Shell Block

A block of wood with a conical hole used to hold a shell point downwards to allow filing through its base. Shell blocks were located in shell filling rooms and laboratories where there would normally be a lifting ring in the ceiling above for attaching lifting tackle.

Shell Filling Room

A space in which shells were filled. often located near the guns. From the 1880s onwards the y were no longer required as shells were delivered to the fort filled with explosive.
Shell Gun

A gun designed to fire hollow shot or shells rather than solid shot of a cannon.

Shell Lift

A shaft and equipment used to raise shells from its stores to gun store. Normally it linked the shell passage with the gun casement behind the gun. 

Shell Recess

A space for storing small quantities of shells near a gun. It is normally made of a cupboard like space  cast into the concrete of a gun emplacement and fitted with double doors.

Shell Store

A space for shell storage.

Shell Truck

A truck used to move shells. In the shell room is was  two wheeled and on the gun floor four wheel ed.

Shelving

Within a magazine it was a framework to store powder barrels and shells.The shelves were 10 inch wide supported 4″ square uprights and crosspieces. In shell stores and shell recesses their was a dedicated fuze and tube shelf.

Shiftin g Lobby

A room in which men changed in and out of magazine working cloths.It was not required for shell stores.

 Shifting Room

A room in which gunpowder is transferred from one barrel to another.

 shot Gun

A smooth barrel cannon designed to fire a solid iron ball or hollow shell. A

Shoulder Angle or Shoulder

The angle where the face and flank of a work meet.

Shrapnel

A shell designed to fragment on firing. It was a weapon used against infantry.

Shunt Groove

A groove of a rifled bore used to centre a projectile before it leaves the muzzle.It was not a success and was replaced by a p!ain groove.

Side Arms 

The equipment used to load and fire a gun such as the rammer, sponge and wad hook.

Side Arm and Tackle Store

A store used for the storage of side arms and tackle. The store should serve not more than eight guns, but one is not needed for casement guns.The store would be fitted out with a rack for side arms with a bay per gun, brackets for tackle and shelves for brushes.

Side Closing Breech

An adaption to allow easier closing of the breach of a 40 pdr. RBL. 

Siege

A planned organised attack on a fortress conducted in a staged manner.It was estimated that  over six times the number of troops defending a fortress would be needed in the siege forcs.

Siege Guns

Siege Platform

A portable platform used to mount a siege gun, Mortar or field gun when firing from the same spot for an extended period.

Siege Train

A collection of movable guns and mortars to locate in field works.

Siege Wagon

A wagon fitted with movable trays for carrying shells and shot.

Siege Works

Fortified works built by the attackers of a fortress used to mount siege artillery.

Sights

Metal pieces fitted to a gun to align it onto a target.Normally they are fitted in pairs , fore sights and hind sights. 

Sill 

The inner edge of the bottom of an embrasure.

Six–feet Parapet Slide

A wrought iron gun slide designed for coastal batteries designed to fire over a 6ft.parapet. 

Skids

Lengths of timber used to assist in the movement of mounting of ammunition or ordnance.

Skidding

Wooden shelving in a magazine for storing barrels of powder. It consisted of two parallel pieces of wood that supported the barrels testing on their ends.vertical p pieces kept the barrels from.touching the walls or rolling. In a large magazine the skidding would be d divided into bays.For stacks above five rows a horizontal transom.would be fitted.

Slide

A traversing platform for a gun.

Sling

A rope or chain fitted with thimbles used to  for the lifting of ordnancy.

Sling Cart

A two wheeled cart used to move ordnance over short distances. Loads were slung underneath.

Sling Wagon

A four wheel ed wagon used to transport a gun barrels by slinging them beneath the axle trees.Forts were provided at least one to move guns up the ramparts.

Sling Wagon Shed

A building usually located on a first parade to house the sling wagon.

Slope

An angled earth heap forming a rampart, parapet or Banquette. Slopes may be defined as superior, exterior or interior.

Small Arms

Portable firearms such as rifles , cabinets and pistols.
Small Port Carriage

A gun mounting which allowed it to be raised and lowered to different heights that allowed smaller ports to be used.

Smith and Fitters Shop

A building containing a forge and other equipment used to make repairs to guns and mountings. A fitters shop will exist when there are heavy guns, this will have a drilling machine and lathe.

Smoke Ball

A paper shell that contained a burning composition that produces large amounts of smoke.

Smooth Bore

A cannon whose bore has no rifling. 

Sods 

Turf blocks used to stabilise the earth bank of a  fortification. 

Sole

Solid Shot

A round cast-iron ball .

The bottom.of an embrasure.

Speaking Tube

Metal tubes used to communicate used in coastal batteries.

Sponge

A side arm used to clean a gun bore after firing. It was a wooden cylinder covered  with lambswool  or  similar material which was dampened with water to extinguish any burning or got material that may detonate the next round prematurely.

Spur 

An arrow shaped projection from the face of a curtain wall.

Stool–bed

The flat platform fitted to a gun carriage onto which the wedge which supports the breach sits. At the breech end an elevating screw supports the bed and raised or lowers the breach, whilst the muzzle end of the bed is free to pivot.

Storm Poles 

See Fraises.

Sub – calibre

A smaller gun mounted co-axially with the barrel of a larger gun for practice.

Submarine Mine

An underwater explosive charge laid in a defensive mine field.They were laid in a pattern and were donated by electricity from a control point. The minefields were covered by defence electric lights and Quick Fire guns.

Sunken Battery

A gun battery with its terraplain three feet below the ground level and the sole of its embrasure at ground level.

Sunken Loading Way

A trench in the front of an emplacement to protect the men in it and fitted with a movable  loading stage on rails.

Superior Slope
The upper surface of a parapet that slopes down towards the enemy.It normally has a gradiant  of 1:6.

Sweep Plate

Iron plates inserted into the floor of gun emplacement used to traverse a gun.

Swing Bridge

A bridge over a ditch that pivots around its vertical axis.

System 

A method of fortification such as Polygonal system or Prussian System.

Table Lift

A n ammunition lift using a table with wheels that ran on vertical guide bars.It was powered by a winch and steel wire.

Tackle

A device of one of more blocks and a rope used to assist in the moving or lifting of ordnance.

Talus 

The sloping section of a work.

Tampion

A wooden plug fitted in the muzzle end of a gun when not in use to prevent dirt and moisture from entering the barrel.

Tangent Scale

A device for measuring the angle of elevation of a gun.

Tangent Sight

A type of gun Sight.?

Tenaille

A low lying work built in a ditch to protect the curtain. Tenailles were located between bastions. It covers the Sally Port and can form a place of arms 

Tenaille Trace System

A series of redans built at right angles to each other to form a zig-zag.

Tenaillon 

A small irregular shapes work located on one side of a Redan.

Terreplein

A broad level on the rampart behind the parapet, wide enough to give room to work the guns , and allow passage of ammunition and gun carriages.
Territorial

Part time volunteer trained to take on a defence role in wartime. The y were formed i 1908 and became the Territorial Army in 1920.

Tete–de–Point

A fortification on the vulnerable side of a brid ge.

Thickness of a Parapet

The distance between the Exterior crest to the foot of the interior slope.

Throat

The interior opening of an embrasure.

Thumb Stall

A leather strap worn by the gunner who operat ed the vent to prevent prevent thumb injury.it had a cup for the thumb.

Time Fuze

A fuze in a shell or mine that sets it off after a pre-determined time.

Torpedo

This could be fired from a torpedo boat or from ashore. The latter was a guided type called ‘Brennan’.

Touch Hole

The place where a gun is fired by touching it with a lighted taper. It was the vent of a gun.

Tourelle

A small turret for a quick firing gun. Nordenfelt designed a disappearing version .

Trace
The horizontal plan of a fortress. A trace shows horizontal extent of the works various part s and its angles of fire. It can also refer to a plan of just the Magistal line of a work.

Trail

A field gun’s rear part that rests on the ground.

Training Arc

A graduated brass plate set into the casement floor next to the racers used for position finding.

Trajectory

The curving path taken by a projectile when fired.

Traveller

An overhead rail used to move shells.it consisted of two rails on which a four wheel truck ran with chain block attached.

Travelling Carriage

A gun carriage used for light rifled or movable armament. It was used for  guns used in works created between forts or to supplement the ones on a parapet. They were designed to be deployed quickly with little preparation needed.

Traverse

To turn a gun to point at a target.

Or

An earth bank built to protect troops from enfilade f ire or reduce the effect of shell bursts. Traverse s were built across ramparts or terrepleins.

Traversing Gear 

Equipment use to traverse an RML.

Traversing Platform

A metal or wooden platform which supports a gun and can be traversed on racer tracks. It is sometimes called a slide.

Traversing Rack

A cast iron toothed rack inserted into a casement floor to  assist in traversing a heavy RMLs

Tray Lift

A lift used to raise shells and cartridges from the stores to the gun level. It consisted of trays attached to an endless chai n that ran over pulleys at the top and bottom. The chains were powered by winch and gearing attached to the lower pulleys.

Tread

The top surface of a Banquette on which soldiers will stand when firing their weapons.

Trench 

An excavation for covering troops.

Tresidder’s Cartridge Store

A cartridge store built where overhead space was limited. It wonto  low tunnel with a track on  which a long truck ran. Th e cartridges were stored on the truck which could be moved by a winch and wire rope to align the cartridges to an issue chamber in the tunnel’s centre.

Trou–de–loup

An inverted cone shaped hole in the ground with pointed stakes is placed to slow down attackers.

Truck Lever

A handspike with a roller at one end.

Trucks 

Wheels on which a gun platform or carriage sits.

Trunnion 

The side pieces of a gun barrel that form a pivot in its carriage. 

Tumbril 

A two wheeled cart used by pioneers and miners to transport their tools.

Turret 

A n armoured dome for mounting and protecting a gun.

Twydall Profile

A system of defence consisting of a firing step on an earth parapet with a ditch and unclimable fence in front.infantry were dispersed in difficult to see earthworks and the artillery hidden in mobile positions.Concrete open backed concrete casements provided shelter for the troops. The system was introduced in the 1870s at Chatham a nd was named after an area in the Town.

Twydall Redoubt
One of the redoubts of the Chatham defences which acted as infantry strong points.

Unclimbable Fence

A fence made of strong iron railings with horizontal bars at the top and bottom, and spikes riveted to the top of the railings. Unclimable fences were often used as a ditch defence.

Under–cover Loading

A gun emplacement layout that allowed the gun to be loaded without exposing its crew.

Vamure

A parapet built on the front edge of a rampart

Vasseur Mounting

A gun mounting that used a short steeply sloped slide.It ran on rollers around a central pivot , and used buffers to check the recoil. It was named after its designer.

Vent

A hole in the barrel of a gun into which gunpowder is poured or a tube fitted to fire the gun.To prevent corrosion by the powder a copper or wrought iron brushes were sometimes fitted in the hole.

Vent Plug

A wooden plug used to block the vent of a gun when not in use.

Vent Piece

A block of metal inserted into the top of a RBL gun to close the gun’s breach and chamber. It was fitted with the vent and held in position by a breac h screw.

Vertical Fire

Projectiles that fall at an angle greater than 45 degrees.

Volunteer 

A part time trained soldier who can be called on.To serve when require d.

Wad 

A pad used to hold a charge in a gun’s chamber, hold the shot , fill the fuse and filling  holes in shells or reduce wear in the barrel.

Wadhook Worm 

A side arm use to extract burnt material and wads from a gun. It had a hooked corkscrew metal end.

Wadmitilt 

A woollen or cow hide placed on a magazine floor or wrapped around gunpowder barrelsto prevent damage to the barrels.

Wagon

A two or four wheeled horse drawn vehicle.

Watkins Position Finder

A device used to calculate the position of a target using telescope fitted to a plotting table. It was fitted with a transmitting system to pass the data . It was named after its inventor.

Wedge Gun

RBL guns that did not use a screw breach.

Wedge Wad

A wedge shaped pad inserted into the bore of an RML gun to hold the projectile in place. It was made of two wooden pieces joined by a piece of bent cane.

Whitworth Gun

A gun with a hexagonal spiral bore.

Windage 

The space between the bore of a gun and its projectile which in a smooth bore gun caused inaccuracy. 

Wire Guns

Breech loading guns made by coiling wire under tension on to a tube.

Woolwich Groove

A type of rifiled groove in which the edges are rounded to reduce the tendency of the edge of the groove to split.

Woolwich Infant

The large RML guns made at the Woolwich Arsenal. 

Work

A general term for any defensive military construction.

Work

A spiral side arm used to extract material from a gu n bore.

Yoke Mounting

A mounting used in the Spithead Sea forts that allowed the gun to recoi l in the confined space of a casement. The mounting spread the lo ad between the floor and ceiling.

Zalinski Gun

A weapon that threw shells of high explosive by using compressed air. Its range was short but it made no noise or smoke. They were used in the USA but not adopted for use in Brirain, but one was tested.

A Handbook of Military Terms , David Moore, Palmerston Forts Society , 19z

The historic defences of Plmouth,Andrew Pye and Freddy Woodward, Exeter Archaeology, 1996

Artillery  of the Napoleonic Wars , Kevin Kiley, 2015 , Frontline Books

American Artillerists Companion , Louis Dr Tousard, 1809, Conrad

 Fortification , sir George Sydenham Clarke, 1907, reprint Beufor

A quick guide to Archiving standards

Research into my book projects has led me to an involvement in a local history
Trust.  This involvement has led me into the world of archiving. My task is to
set up an archive system for their documents; a task requiring an understanding
of the ISAD (G) , a standard used by archives all over the world.

As I attempt to grasp the basics of this standard, and put it into practice
it seems appropriate that I share the journey on this blog.  I will start that
journey with my notes on the ISAD(G).

In these posts I will use a generic historic preservation Trust as examples.   

What is ISAD (G)?

ISAD (G) is the International Standard for Archival Description (General). It was developed by a Committee of the International Council on Archives. The first edition came out in 1996 and it was revised in 2000.

Click to visit the Committee’s website>

What is the Purpose of Archival Description?

Archival material is made more accessible by creating accurate and appropriate descriptions and organizing them to explain the context and content of the material.

What are the Contents of ISAD(G)?

ISAD(G) provides general guidelines for archival description that can be applied to archival material regardless of its form or medium. The information outlined in ISAD(G) is not static and may be updated as new information about the content or context of the materials becomes available.

What are the purpose of these Rules?

These rules for archival description are part of a process that will:

• ensure the creation of consistent, appropriate and self explanatory descriptions;
• facilitate the retrieval and exchange of information about archival material;
• enable data sharing;
• allow descriptions from different locations to be integrated into a unified information system.

The Elements of the Rules

The rules consist of 26 elements that may be combined to create the description of an archival entity. These elements are organized into seven areas:

The Severn Areas

1. Identity Statement Area -essential information about the identity of the unit of description.
2. Context Area – information about the unit’s origin and custody.
3. Content and Structure Area – information about the subject matter and its arrangement.
4. Conditions of Access and Use Area – information about the availability of the unit of description.
5. Allied Materials Area – information about materials with an important relationship to the unit.
6. Note Area Information that cannot be placed in any of the other areas.
7. Description Control Area – information on how, when and by whom the description was prepared.

The Six Essential Elements

Of these 26 elements there are six that must be included in a all descriptions.

• Reference code;
• Title;
• Creator;
• Date(s);
• Extent of the unit of description;
• Level of description.

The extent to which any given archival description will incorporate more than these essential elements will depend on the nature of the unit of description and its level.

Structure (multi-level description/hierarchy)

The arrangement, sub-division, and structure of an archival catalogue indicate how the collection is managed and accessed.

Different levels of organization require appropriate descriptions of varying degrees of detail. The most general level of description is the collection (Fond), followed by its parts. Often, the individual parts, such as series, files, items or pieces, can only be fully understood when viewed in the context of the entire collection.

Intermediate levels, such as a sub-collection (sub-fonds) or sub-series, may also be included. Each of these levels may be further subdivided according to the complexity of the administrative structure and/or the functions of the material’s generating organization.

Before writing the archival description, it is generally helpful to sort and arrange the collection.

1. Fonds e.g. The collections created or held by the Trust
2. Series e.g. The records of the internal organisations of the Trust, such as its working groups.
3. Sub series e,g. a functional area of the Trust’s activities
4. File: e.g, A group of items of the same source
5. Item: e,g, An individual document
   

Rules and preferred formats for archival description

To ensure constancy and assist in searching an archive there are some fundamental rukes and formats to follow.

Fundamental Rules

• Describe from the general to the specific – When describing a collection of items, it is important to start with a general overview of the collection as a whole. Then, as you move to more specific parts of the collection, provide more detailed descriptions. To present this information in an organized way, it is best to create a hierarchical structure that starts with the broadest level (the whole collection) and proceeds to the more specific levels (series, file, and item).
• Provide only such information relevant to the level of the description – do not provide detailed file or item content information at collection (fonds) level;
• Link descriptions – To specify the position of each description in the hierarchy, link it to its next higher unit of description;
• Do not repeat information – to avoid redundant information, give information that is common to many parts at the highest appropriate level. Do not repeat information at a lower level of description that has already been given at a higher level.

Formatting Rules

Abbreviations: These should be expanded, unless the abbreviation is more commonly used version. If the abbreviation, dots or spaces are not to be used.

e,g RML, RBL and QF are to be used when a gun is included in the description. No other abbreviations are to be used.

Numbers: Those under twenty should be written in words unless they represent a scale or money. Multipliers of ten can also be written in words, for example, two houses and sixty sheep, Fractions are best written out.

Text fields: All should begin with a capital letter. Thereafter, capital letters need only be used for proper names and place names.

Punctuation : Keep it to a minimum. Still use the punctuation required for proper English usage and comprehension.

• Lists in the description can be separated by semi-colons;
• Put a full stop at the end of the description, but not in the title;
• Avoid using parentheses ( ) unless necessary.

Italics: bold text and underlining: Do not use Italics: bold text and underlining

Double quotation marks “ “ can cause problems, so use single quotation marks for ‘book titles’, quotes, etc,

Place Names or personal names: Where these are given in a different spelling in the document to that in current usage, use the modern spelling in the title. In the description, quote the spelling given in the document and then give the modern spelling in square brackets [ ] after it.

Describing documents: The order is type of document, subject, place. For example, Plan, Redoubt 5, Maker

Name of a place: This should be given before its description, for example, Maker parish rather than the parish of Maker

Personal and corporate names: The order should be first name, last name, occupation, abode, for example, John Smith, Farmer, Millbrook

The Elements

• ISAD(G) ‘essential’ elements have been marked with an asterisk.

Identity statement area

Reference number/code*

This identifies uniquely the unit of description such as a collection or document.

Examples

RCT Rame Conservation Trust (Collection)

RCT/WG Records of the Redoubt Working Group (Series)

RCT/WG/2 Research material produced internally (File)

RCT/WG/2/1 Plans of underground structures (item)

Title*

This names the unit of description.
It provides either a formal title or a concise supplied title.

If appropriate, shorten a long formal title, but only if this can be done without loss of essential information.

For supplied titles, at the higher level, include the name of the creator of the records. At lower levels one may include, for example, the name of the author of the document and a term indicating the form of the material comprising the unit of description and, where appropriate, a phrase reflecting function, activity, subject, location, or theme.

Examples:
Advent Parish Church (Collection)
Register of baptisms, marriages and burials, Advent (Item)
Plans of Truro Cathedral (Sub-collection)
Accounts, Workmen’s Compensation Policy (Item)
Administration (Series)
Tremayne Family of Heligan, St Ewe (Collection)

At collection (fonds) level this should sum up the identity of the collection. It should give the name of the main organisation, or the person(s) or place involved, where this is a single entity. Collections of like documents covering a number of places can be described as ‘Cornish deeds’ or ‘Cornish estate papers’. Wholly miscellaneous collections of records may need to be called simply by the person who deposited them or about whom they relate, for example, ‘Moss collection’ or ‘Mary Coate papers’.

At lower levels this should be a succinct description of the item, for example, the type of document, the place it relates to, person/organisation involved, as appropriate. For example, ‘Minutes, Miller’s Charity Fund’, ‘Administration of probate, Thomas Turner, yeoman, Gwennap’ or ‘Register of baptisms and burials’.

Date*

This identifies the date(s) of the unit of description.
Record at least one of the following types of dates for the unit of description, as
appropriate to the materials and the level of description.

• -Date(s) when documents were created. This includes the dates of copies, editions, or versions of, attachments to, or originals of items generated prior to their accumulation as records. Identify the type of date(s) given.
• –Date(s) when records were accumulated in the transaction of business or the conduct of affairs. -Other dates may be supplied and identified in accordance with national conventions.

Record as a single date or a range of dates as appropriate. A range of dates should always be inclusive unless the unit of description is a record-keeping system (or part thereof) in active use.
Examples:
1678
1678-1856, Apr-Nov 1908, Jan 1836-Sep 1838 (no space between hyphen and numbers/letters)
Sep 1965
23 Apr 1839
1890s, c1670 (no dot)
12th-15th century, Late 19th century, 20th century
(no dots)

Level*

Used to identify the level of arrangement of the unit of description.

Examples

• Fonds Collection
• Sub-fonds Sub-collection
• Series
• Sub-series
• File Item
• Item Piece

Extent and medium (format)*

Used to identify and describe the physical or logical extent and the medium of the unit of description.
Thus records the extent of the unit of description by giving the number of physical or logical units and the unit of measurement. Give the specific medium (media) of the unit of description. Alternatively, give the linear shelf space or cubic storage space of the unit of description. If the statement of extent for a unit of description is given in linear terms and additional information is desirable, add the additional information in parentheses.

Examples: Extent – 3 boxes / 2 items, Medium (format) – volume / photograph / map

At CRO the following formats are used:

• audio visual,
• CD ROM
• electronic media
• glass negative
• manuscript
• map
• microform
• Ordnance Survey plan
• pamphlet
• photograph/postcard
• photographic negative
• plan,
• print/drawing
• printed material
• various formats,

Context Area

Creator*

Identifies the creator (or creators) of the unit of description.
This records the name of the organization(s) or the individual(s) responsible for the creation, accumulation and maintenance of the records in the unit of description.

Administrative/biographical history [fonds or series level only]

Provides an administrative history of, or biographical details on, the creator (or creators) of the unit of description to place the material in context and make it better understood.

Records concisely any significant information on the origin, progress, development and work of the organization (or organizations) or on the life and work of the individual (or
individuals) responsible for the creation of the unit of description. If additional information is available in a published source, cite the source.

For persons or families record information such as full names and titles, dates of birth and death, place of birth, successive places of domicile, activities, occupation or offices, original and any other names, significant accomplishments, and place of death.

For corporate bodies record information such as the official name, the dates of existence, enabling legislation, functions, purpose and development of the body, its administrative hierarchy, and earlier, variant or successive names.

Custodial/archival history [fonds level only]

This provides information on the history of the unit of description that is significant for it authenticity, integrity and interpretation.
Record the successive transfers of ownership, responsibility and/or custody of the unit of description and indicate those actions, such as history of the arrangement, production of contemporary finding aids, re-use of the records for other purposes or software migrations, that have contributed to its present structure and arrangement. Give the dates of these actions, insofar as they can be ascertained. If the archival history is unknown, record that information.
Optionally, when the unit of description is acquired directly from the creator, do not record an archival history but rather, record this information as the Immediate source of acquisition.

Immediate source of acquisition [fonds level only]

Thus identifies the immediate source of acquisition or transfer.
Record the source from which the unit of description was acquired and the date and/or
method of acquisition if any or all of this information is not confidential. If the source is
unknown, record that information. Optionally, add accession numbers or codes.

Content and structure area

Scope and content (description)

This enables users to judge the potential relevance of the unit of description.
Give a summary of the scope (such as, time periods, geography) and content, (such as documentary forms, subject matter, administrative processes) of the unit of description, appropriate to the level of description.

Example
Accounts relating to the asylum’s contributions under the Workmen’s Compensation Act (1897, revised 1906), 1913-1920 and 1929-1932. The Act stated that those who were injured at work should receive compensation. [Item level]

At collection (fonds) level this should be used to describe the various types of record contained within the collection. Each item does not have to be described here as each will be described individually in detail at item level. Background information, such as biographical details, should be put in the administrative history.

Where a straight run of documents exists, for example, a set of minutes, the description, covering dates and number of volumes/items will usually suffice at fonds level. It is useful to record the number of volumes of each class or number of bundles of plans. Note the number in parenthesis, for example, ‘Minutes, 1854-1904 (3 volumes), accounts, 1860-1890 (4 volumes), plans, 20th century (2 bundles).’

At lower levels further information about the contents of the document may be added. This may include the parties and terms of a lease; varied contents of a notebook; key entries in a diary, minutes or a letter; background information, etc. Abbreviations should be avoided, for example, use March rather than Mar, William rather than Wm.

When describing documents,

“minutes” or ”accounts” is preferable to “minute book”
“correspondence” rather than “letters”

A full stop should be put at the end of the description.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Provides information on any appraisal, destruction and scheduling action.
Record appraisal, destruction and scheduling actions taken on or planned for the unit of description, especially if they may affect the interpretation of the material. Where appropriate, record the authority for the action.

Accruals

Informs the user of foreseen additions to the unit of description.
Indicate if accruals are expected. Where appropriate, give an estimate of their quantity and frequency.

Arrangement

Provides information on the internal structure, the order and/or the system of arrangement of the unit of description.
Specify the internal structure, order and/or the system of classification of the unit of
description. Note how these have been treated by the archivist. For electronic records,
record or reference information on system design. Alternatively, include any of this information in the Scope and Content element.

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access (access status, closed until, access conditions)

Purpose: To provide information on the legal status or other regulations that restrict or affect access to the unit of description, for example, Data Protection and Freedom of Information.

Specify the law or legal status, contract, regulation or policy that affects access to the unit of description. Indicate the extent of the period of closure and the date at which the material will open when appropriate.

Conditions governing reproduction (copyright)

To identifies any restrictions on reproduction of the unit of description.

Give information about conditions, such as copyright, governing the reproduction of the unit of description after access has been provided. If the existence of such conditions is unknown, record this. If there are no conditions, no statement is necessary.

Language

Identifies the language(s), script(s) and symbol systems employed in the unit of
description.
Record the language(s) and/or script(s) of the materials comprising the unit of description.
Note any distinctive alphabets, scripts, symbol systems or abbreviations employed.

Physical characteristics

This provides information about any important physical characteristics or technical
requirements that affect use of the unit of description.
Indicate any important physical conditions, such as preservation requirements, that affect the use of the unit of description. Note any software and/or hardware required to access the unit of description.

Finding aids

This identifies any finding aids to the unit of description.

Give information about any finding aids that the repository or records creator may have
that provide information relating to the context and contents of the unit of description.

[Location – for example, Shelf B2. Not part of ISAD(G), but some information will be necessary for inclusion on CRO’s CALM database and individual repository use.]

Allied materials area

This give the existence and location of originals
To indicate the existence, location, availability and/or destruction of originals where the
unit of description consists of copies.

If the original of the unit of description is available (either in the institution or elsewhere record its location, together with any significant control numbers. If the originals no longer exist, or their location is unknown, give that information.

Existence and location of copies

Indicates the existence, location and availability of copies of the unit of description.

If the copy of the unit of description is available (either in the institution or elsewhere)
record its location, together with any significant control numbers.

Related units of description (allied materials, related materials)

Identifies related units of description.

Record information about units of description in the same repository or elsewhere that are related by provenance or other association(s). Use appropriate introductory wording and explain the nature of the relationship. If the related unit of description is a finding aid, use the finding aids element of description to make the reference to it.

Publication note

This identifies any publications that are about or are based on the use, study, or analysis of the unit of description.
Record a citation to, and/or information about a publication that is about or based on the use, study, or analysis of the unit of description. Include references to published facsimiles or transcriptions.

Notes area

This provides information that cannot be accommodated in any of the other areas.
Record specialized or other important information not accommodated by any of the
defined elements of description.

Description control area

Archivists note

This explains how the description was prepared and by whom.
Record notes on sources consulted in preparing the description and who prepared it.

Rules

Identifies the protocols on which the description is based.

Record the international, national and/or local rules or conventions followed in preparing the description.

Dates of description

Indicates when this description was prepared and/or revised.
Record the date(s) the entry was prepared and/or revised.

Glossary of terms associated with ISAD(G)

Access. The ability to make use of material, sometimes subject to rules and conditions.

Access point. A name, term, keyword, phrase or code that may be used to search, identify and locate an archival description.

Accrual. An acquisition additional to specific material already held by a repository.
Appraisal. The process of determining the retention period of records.

Archival description. The creation of an accurate representation of archival material, by capturing, analyzing, organizing and recording information that serves to identify, manage, locate and explain archival materials and the context and records systems which produced it. This term also describes the products of the process.

Arrangement. The intellectual and physical processes and results of analyzing and organizing documents and their descriptions in accordance with a structure/hierarchy.

Author. The individual or corporate body responsible for the intellectual content of a document. Not to be confused with creators of records.

Collection. The whole of the records, regardless of form or medium, organically created and/or
accumulated and used by a particular person, family, or corporate body in the course of that
creator’s activities and functions (i.e. a fonds).

Corporate body. An organization or group of persons that is identified by a particular name and that acts, or may act, as an entity.

Creator. The corporate body, family or person that created, accumulated and/or maintained
records in the conduct of personal or corporate activity. Not be confused with collector.
Custody. The responsibility for the care of documents based on their physical possession. Custody does not always include legal ownership or the right to control access to records.

Document. Recorded information regardless of medium or characteristics. (See also Record.)

File. An organized unit of documents grouped together either for current use by the creator or
in the process of archival arrangement, because they relate to the same subject, activity, or
transaction. A file is sometimes the basic unit within a record series.

Finding aid. The broadest term to cover any description or means of reference made or received by an archive service in the course of establishing administrative or intellectual control over archival material.

Fonds. The whole of the records, regardless of form or medium, organically created and/or
accumulated and used by a particular person, family, or corporate body in the course of that
creator’s activities and functions (i.e. a collection).

Form. A class of documents distinguished on the basis of common physical (e.g. water colour, drawing) and/or intellectual (e.g. diary, journal, day book, minute book) characteristics of a document.

Formal title. A title which appears prominently on or in the archival material being described.

Item (piece). The smallest intellectually indivisible archival unit, e.g., a letter, memorandum, report, photograph, sound recording.

Level of description. The position of the unit of description in the hierarchy.
Medium. The physical material, container, and/or carrier in or on which information is recorded (i.e., clay tablet, papyrus, paper, parchment, film, magnetic tape).

Provenance. The relationship between records and the organizations or individuals that created, accumulated and/or maintained and used them in the conduct of personal or corporate activity.

Record. Recorded information in any form or medium, created or received and maintained, by an organization or person in the transaction of business or the conduct of affairs.

Series. Documents arranged in accordance with a filing system or maintained as a unit because they result from the same accumulation or filing process, or the same activity; have a
particular form; or because of some other relationship arising out of their creation, receipt,
or use. A series is also known as a records series.

Sub-collection (sub-fonds). A subdivision of a fonds containing a body of related records corresponding to administrative subdivisions in the originating agency or organization or, when that is not possible, to geographical, chronological, functional, or similar groupings of the material
itself. When the creating body has a complex hierarchical structure, each sub-collection has as many subordinate sub-collection as are necessary to reflect the levels of the hierarchical
structure of the primary subordinate administrative unit.
Supplied title. A title supplied by the archivist for a unit of description which has no formal title.

Title. A word, phrase, character, or group of characters that names a unit of description.
Unit of description. A document or set of documents in any physical form, treated as an entity, and as such, forming the basis of a single description.

Wip.A community archive

Create Archive system

Set up archive admin folder

Within cloud storage for arvivest use.

Register Archon code from natioal.archives

Enabled access to manage your archive system on Discovery.

Gives free off-site storage of catalogue

Gives visibility of archives existence

Set up collection structure document

Obtain RWG feedback

Give reference number system and format

Enables cataloguing

Define index number format

Ensure numbers are all in same format.

Set up accession form

Use Kresen Kernow as base

Records required information on taking into archivsy

Hard copy available for short notice aquasitionse

Set up Accession index excel

To cross reference from with catelouge

Set up catalogue index Exel

Download template from.MYA

Adapt spreadsheet if required

Define minimum entry

Set up format standards Dates

Obtain RWG feedback

To improve e search 

Dates 

Abbreviation s

Names

File names

Key words for searching

Obtain RWG suggestions

Description format

Obtain RWG feedback

Define physical storage.

Cabinet, drawer namimg

define digital standards:

File types

File storage

Back up method and routine.Gives

Produce one page used guide for archiving

Produu one page used guide for archive users.

Request feedback from RWG

Request feedback from Kresen Kernow

Produce assecion plan.

Priority order

Suggest

RWG minutes as pipe clean to test and commence ongoing archiving.

Then;

RWG Primary internal

RWG Primary reports external authors

RWG Primary original documents 

RWG Secondary research resources .

Review next priority.

Conduct assecion in agreed order.

Plan public as was

Consider new assecion

 Going archive.

Then:

RCT and RWG admin 

RHT 

T – Trust acrchives

1. AGM minutes

2. Minutes

3. External reports

R – RWG archives

1. RWG administration

1.1 minutes

2.1 Primary documents produced by RWG

2.2 Primary Documents produced by external sources for RWG

2.3 Primary research Documents by non RWG sources

2.3 Secondary research Documents

e.g. RHT/R/1/1/0001 

To be added to document in pencil or in file name of electronic.

C- community archives

Set up physical location document and system 

Create succession form and filing system 

Important. Must be done before cataloguing . Linked to catalogue by Index number. Number sequential. 

Create catalogue form

Use MYC spreadsheet. One form for who!e Archive, treat as single Fond to make it simpler.upload when ready to go public.

Six must have fields

Level

Ref number

Title 

Date (original date of creation)

Format book/CD/map etc

Extent:size e.g. Number of files

Location: physical locations

Description:Important to locate, use keywords

Define house formats

Dates 

Names 

Keywords

Redoubt 1 etc
Formats 

File names

Populate assecion forms

Priority 

 RT and RWG  admin forms as ongoing.

RT and RWG primary reports

RT and RWG External reports

RWG Primary documents

RWG Secondary documents

Populate catelogue 

Preservation

Acid free plastic

Do not mix newspaper with other document s

Stable environment

Pdf for documents. PDF.A preggers

Tiff if possible for archive pictures. JPEG for public accesz.

Cloud good with back up.