Summary
A late C18 bastion and associated features of the Gosport Lines surviving as upstanding remains, earthworks and buried archaeological remains.
Reasons for Designation
Bastion No 1, built in 1797 to 1802 as part of the Gosport Lines, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity: as a relatively rare example in England of a surviving section of a bastioned defensive line;
* Historic interest: the Gosport Lines were originally built by the esteemed engineer Sir Bernard de Gomme in the later C17 and this bastion was added after a Franco-Spanish invasion attempt led to the re-fortification and strengthening of the Lines in the late C18; * Architectural interest: as a well-preserved example of a late C18 artillery bastion comprising a substantial rampart with brick-lined gun emplacements, a terreplein with in-built magazines, an external moat and a brick caponier;
* Survival: most of the components of the bastion survive including the rampart, gun emplacements, terreplein, earthwork ramps, external berm, moat and brick caponier, as well as an adjoining section of the Gosport Lines and a former covered way;
* Documentation: the site is well documented in historical terms, including written accounts, historic plans, maps and photographs;
* Potential: for archaeological deposits associated with the construction and use of the bastion and wider Gosport Lines;
* Group value: with the other scheduled sections of the Gosport Lines and the designated artillery fortifications associated with Portsmouth Harbour, such as Fort Monckton, Fort Gilkicker, Fort Grange, Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth town defences and Eastney Fort, among many others; together serving as an impressive ensemble that well illustrates the defence of this strategic harbour over a long period of time.
History
The first purpose-built artillery fortifications were constructed at the end of the C15, although the date range of continuous bastioned defensive lines in England extends from the mid-C16 to the mid-C19 (see Saunders 1998). A bastioned enceinte, the basic enclosure or ‘body of the place’, was designed on strictly mathematical lines with systematic and scientifically placed lines of fire. One of the characteristic elements was the angle bastion itself consisting of two flanks, springing from the curtain and usually sited at a change in angle in the defensive line. The distribution of bastioned defensive lines in England was predominantly determined by the existence of naval dockyards and the towns and facilities built in association with them. Most supported and complemented the Royal Navy in protecting England from invasion. They thus arose from national defensive policies and not from local initiative and can be distinguished as a monument class from the temporary fieldworks of the Civil War period, for example. Under these terms of reference there were only 11 locations where this form of defence existed, of which nine survive in much-varying states of preservation, including: Berwick-upon-Tweed; Brompton Lines, Chatham; Devonport; Garrison Walls, St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly; Gosport Lines; Hilsea Lines (Portsmouth); Portsmouth; Queensborough Lines (Sheerness); Sheerness (Ibid). The fortifications underwent long periods of neglect but were revived at times of invasion threat. The bastioned system became increasingly complex during the C18, as well as more costly to build and demanding of troops and guns to defend it. Methods of siegework also became increasingly systematic and predictable so engineers began to look for alternatives and continuous bastioned lines were ultimately supplanted in the mid-C19 by rings of detached forts with or without connecting earthworks.
Gosport remained a small town, primarily a fishing village, until after the Civil War when the Gosport Lines began to be constructed (Oxford Archaeology 2014, 57). During the Civil War, Gosport was held by parliamentary forces, whilst Portsmouth was a royalist stronghold. In August 1642, two gun batteries were erected; a two gun platform screened by bundles of sticks during construction and a ten gun platform screened by a barn. The former proved very effective; damaging St Thomas’s Church (now the Cathedral) which the royalists had been using as a watch tower (Ibid 25). Therefore, upon the unmasking of the latter, larger gun platform (and capture of Southsea Castle), the Governor of Portsmouth surrendered, intimidated by the prospect of further bombardment. The strategic importance of Gosport to Portsmouth and its harbour was thus proven. After the Restoration in 1660, King Charles II’s Chief Engineer, the Dutchman, Sir Bernard de Gomme was tasked with drawing up plans for fortifications around Gosport, including the Gosport Lines. A similar undertaking was carried out around Portsmouth on the other side of the harbour. The final form of the Gosport defences showed some significant differences from the original design and the Gosport Lines were incomplete when de Gomme died in 1685 (Ibid 25). The fortifications comprised four main elements: Blockhouse Point, Charles Fort, James Fort, and the Gosport Lines which provided the western defences of the town. On the 5th and 6th September 1663, the King inspected the fortifications and declared himself ‘mightily pleased with all that is done’ but expressed ‘pity it should not be finished’ (Williams 1979, 17). De Gomme’s plans for an outer rampart for the Gosport Lines were not completed, and in the following decades the fortifications appear to have deteriorated.
In 1748, work began to re-cut and/or rebuild the lines under the engineer John Peter Desmaretz and would continue for many years. Two gateways were permanently established through the ramparts and a section of the rampart and moat enlarged and improved by 1751. Further works began in 1757 when a covered way and glacis were added to the existing lines, and a major extension began northwards, running parallel with Weevil Lane and, beyond Forton Lake, around Priddy’s Hard. In the following two decades little further work appears to have been done, and a French spy described the Priddy’s Hard line in very bad condition in 1768. A crisis occurred in 1779 when, with much of the British army and navy engaged in the War of American Independence on the other side of the Atlantic, France and Spain planned a joint invasion. A pair of French spies carried out an extensive reconnaissance of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight (Ibid, 44). They visited Gosport twice and reported that it was ‘virtually without defence, protected on the landward side only by an ill-maintained entrenchment…which would fall at the first assault, and by a feeble enceinte much too extensive for its garrison’ of one militia battalion (Ibid). The invasion plan was for a Franco-Spanish fleet to obtain command of the English Channel, seize the Isle of Wight, and then simultaneously attack Portsea Island and Gosport. In the event, the Armada was much delayed in reaching the Channel and the smaller British fleet sighted but did not engage them. Short of water and provisions, effected by bad weather, delayed communication and rampant sickness, the Armada withdrew in September 1779 and the danger passed. Nonetheless, hasty improvements were made to Britain's coastal defences. The gates, platforms and palisades of the Gosport Lines were repaired, the rampart and moat near Weevil Lane improved, a covered way and glacis added to this section and the bastion enlarged.
Bastion No 1 (also now known variously as Trinity Bastion, Vicar’s Bank and Tragedy Bank) was part of the last section of the Gosport Lines to be constructed between 1797 and 1802 using convict labour. Preparations had begun long before but land for the bastion was owned by the Bishop of Winchester and leased by the Minister of Holy Trinity Church for the vicarage garden. A legal challenge ensued and the Board of Ordnance, which managed the lines, had to pay substantial compensation to both parties in order to complete the fortifications. The vicarage next to the bastion became the residence of the Commanding Officer, Royal Engineers. Once constructed, the bastion included 14 gun positions in brick-lined emplacements firing over the parapet of a large rampart, two expense magazines and four shell recesses built into the earth of the rampart behind the terreplein. The original armament comprised 24-pounder and 18-pounder smooth bore guns mounted on traversing platforms and standing carriages. At the foot of the rampart was a berm acting as a sentry path. There was originally a water mill at the south-east corner of Cockle Pond that used the flow of the tide into the pond but this was bought by the Board of Ordnance in 1804 and demolished to clear the field of fire. From 1844, the gun positions were renewed with granite setts embedded in concrete and the embrasures re-cut and sodded, whilst the moat and ditches of the Gosport Lines were widened and deepened. After 1853, an earth bank was erected south from the moat towards Haslar Lake, forming a small covered way along the peninsula; this originally turned at right angles back towards the moat with a glacis at its south end. A caponier was positioned next to the sluice on the north side of the moat in order to protect it; the west gallery of this caponier remains today. Behind the caponier, a section of the rampart and wall were used as a school of musketry. In about 1855, a sluice was added to separate the moat from the harbour and allow the high tide to be retained within it. By 1890, a footbridge was added next to the sluice. The current footbridge is a modern replacement.
In the early 1800s, the ramparts of the Gosport Lines filled a social as well as a military role, providing a fashionable promenade with fine views. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, most of the guns on the ramparts were removed, although some remained in the 1890s. The Gosport Lines were superseded by other defences. The Gosport Advanced Line, formed of the Gomer-Elson line of forts, was constructed from 1852 further to the west, whilst a network of Palmerston forts was also built at Portsdown Hill between 1861 and 1874 to protect Portsmouth Harbour from an invasion force attacking from land to the north or east. Sections of the Gosport Lines were gradually demolished. Walpole Road was driven through the lines to link the High Street to Alverstoke, whilst the main gateways were also demolished by 1890. The process continued although several lengths of the lines have survived through to the present day, including three scheduled sections (Schedule entries 1001849, 1001850 and 1010741). The site was bought by Gosport Borough Council in 1955, and the bastion repaired and restored in 1979 to 1981. The site was cleared of trees and brickwork repaired in 2019. In 2000, Southern Archaeological Services carried out an evaluation and watching brief, which identified the original rampart profile and indicated it was constructed of beach gravel extracted from the moat. In July 2020, Museum of London Archaeology carried out a three-day archaeological evaluation on the site in order to determine the potential for the survival of the original ground surfaces. A metalled surface was located to a gun emplacement and a stone surface uncovered on the inside of the traversing ring, as well as a potential metalled surface to the terreplein (Porter 2020). There was no indication of iron traversing gun furniture and it is likely that the gun carriages were wooden at Gosport like those at Portsmouth. The moat of Bastion 1 is designated as a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) and has a population of rare molluscs, and also crustaceans.
Details
A late C18 bastion and associated features of the Gosport Lines surviving as upstanding remains, earthworks and buried archaeological remains.
PRINCIPAL FEATURES
A bastion formed of a rampart with brick-lined gun emplacements, a terreplein approached by earthwork ramps, an external berm, moat and brick caponier, adjacent to which are the earthworks of a former covered way. The bastion is adjoined to a rampart forming a short section of the Gosport Lines to the west.
DESCRIPTION
The bastion and short section of the Gosport Lines to the west have a large earth rampart with a berm at its base that originally acted as a sentry path. Beyond the rampart is a large moat, up to about 68m wide, which is separated by a sluice from the harbour to allow the high tide to be retained within it. The sluice was built in about 1855 but has since seen later repairs and alterations and is adjacent to a modern footbridge. Immediately south-east of the moat is the earthwork of a former covered way. The bastion itself has 14 brick-lined gun emplacements built to fire out of embrasures in the rampart. The guns are no longer in position, but it is recorded as having originally been armed with 18 and 24 pounder smooth-bore guns mounted on traversing platforms and standing carriages. The gun positions have iron pintles or pivots and stone traversing rings. They are positioned on an earthen terreplein approached by two earthen ramps. Set into the terreplein are two expense magazines and four shell recesses built of brick and missing their original doors but with modern steel grilles. Immediately south-east of the bastion is the surviving west gallery of a brick-vaulted caponier with rifle loopholes set into its walls. There are C19 brick walls retaining some of the bastion earthworks.
EXCLUSIONS
The monument excludes the modern footbridge, all modern fences and fence posts, lamps and lamp posts, signs and sign posts, litter bins, groynes, pavements and paved surfaces, railings and hand rails, modern doors and security grilles, drain covers and bollards. However, the ground beneath all these features is included. The brick wall to the garden of the former vicarage is completely excluded.
