The coast at Kingsand, Cornwall
It's difficult to tell where Kingsand finishes and the neighbouring village of Cawsand begins, and many of the buildings on the far left are actually in Cawsand. The local council has given up trying, and now the sign at the side of the road simply says Kingsand-Cawsand. But until the middle of the 19th century Kingsand was in Devon and Cawsand was in Cornwall. The pretty former fishing villages are on the Rame Peninsula in the far south-east of Cornwall where they overlook Plymouth Sound. In the distance is part of Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, jointly owned by Plymouth City Council and Cornwall County Council.
In the centre of the picture the long dark grey building behind the village is the former Cawsand Fort. This was part of the 19th century naval defences of Plymouth and Devonport and was built on the site of a late 18th century battery. Like several other forts around Plymouth Sound, it has been converted into housing.
The requirement for defences in and around Cawsand Bay first became clear in 1779 when a 66 strong Franco-Spanish fleet anchored there intending to land 30,000 soldiers ashore. The invaders had planned to seize the high ground and bombard Plymouth and the Devonport dockyard. As with the earlier Spanish Armada, storms - plus the arrival of an English squadron - forced the ships to weigh anchor and depart. A battery was then constructed at Cawsand but following the end of the Napoleonic wars the threat subsided.
In the late 1850s a new threat was perceived when the French built the first heavily armoured ocean-going ironclad, "La Gloire". This immediately rendered the Royal Navy's wooden ships obsolete and prompted the British to build a ring of forts around their various dockyards, including the fort at Cawsand, which was on the site of the earlier battery. The British also responded by building their own ironclads, with HMS Warrior and its sister ship, both of which entered service in the early 1860s.
The coast at Kingsand, Cornwall
It's difficult to tell where Kingsand finishes and the neighbouring village of Cawsand begins, and many of the buildings on the far left are actually in Cawsand. The local council has given up trying, and now the sign at the side of the road simply says Kingsand-Cawsand. But until the middle of the 19th century Kingsand was in Devon and Cawsand was in Cornwall. The pretty former fishing villages are on the Rame Peninsula in the far south-east of Cornwall where they overlook Plymouth Sound. In the distance is part of Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, jointly owned by Plymouth City Council and Cornwall County Council.
In the centre of the picture the long dark grey building behind the village is the former Cawsand Fort. This was part of the 19th century naval defences of Plymouth and Devonport and was built on the site of a late 18th century battery. Like several other forts around Plymouth Sound, it has been converted into housing.
The requirement for defences in and around Cawsand Bay first became clear in 1779 when a 66 strong Franco-Spanish fleet anchored there intending to land 30,000 soldiers ashore. The invaders had planned to seize the high ground and bombard Plymouth and the Devonport dockyard. As with the earlier Spanish Armada, storms - plus the arrival of an English squadron - forced the ships to weigh anchor and depart. A battery was then constructed at Cawsand but following the end of the Napoleonic wars the threat subsided.
In the late 1850s a new threat was perceived when the French built the first heavily armoured ocean-going ironclad, "La Gloire". This immediately rendered the Royal Navy's wooden ships obsolete and prompted the British to build a ring of forts around their various dockyards, including the fort at Cawsand, which was on the site of the earlier battery. The British also responded by building their own ironclads, with HMS Warrior and its sister ship, both of which entered service in the early 1860s.