Details

The monument includes a gun battery and two adjacent platforms for temporary
buildings, all dating to the English Civil War and situated on the northern
coastal slope of St Mary's, overlooking Bar Point and the north west end of
Crow Sound in the Isles of Scilly.

The battery survives with a near semicircular, earth and rubble terrace built
out from the slope, with its rounded end facing NNE, and provided with
flanking banks to the west and south east. The battery's terrace measures
12.5m WNW-ESE by 14m NNE-SSW at its base, rising 2.5m to a levelled upper
surface measuring 6.5m WNW-ESE by 8m NNE-SSW. A broad shallow ditch, 3m wide
and 0.3m deep, runs alongside the outer edge of the terrace's base. The two
earthen flanking banks are up to 6m wide, rising to 1.3m high on their
northern side and 0.7m high on their southern side. They extend 12m west from
the terrace's south west corner and 10m south east from its south east corner.
The two associated platforms are separated by a gap of 2m on a north east-
south west axis, the north eastern platform extending from 3m north west of
the tip of the battery's western flanking bank. Each platform is formed as an
ovoid levelled area, its long axis orientated WNW-ESE along the contour, cut
into the slope on its uphill side and terraced out from the slope on its
downhill side. The south western platform measures 12m WNW-ESE by 5m wide; the
north eastern platform measures 14m WNW-ESE by 6m wide.

This battery and its platforms form part of an integrated system of Civil War
coastal defences which survive extensively around St Mary's. These defences
include breastworks bordering potential landing places and near important
settlements and installations, coupled with a system of batteries commanding
complementary fields of fire over the waters around much of the island's
coast. The battery in this monument has a field of fire over the inner,
north west, end of the important strait of Crow Sound, the main route of entry
for shipping into the Scilly archipelago from the east. Its position also
covers nearly the entire area of the northern inner waters of the Isles of
Scilly between the major islands of St Mary's, St Martin's and Tresco. This
battery complements the fields of fire of other Civil War batteries on the
headlands of the north east and north west coasts of St Mary's, while most of
the shoreline of St Mary's bordering Crow Sound is also defended by a
breastwork, from 85m north east of this monument.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

The Isles of Scilly, the westernmost of the granite masses of south west
England, contain a remarkable abundance and variety of archaeological remains
from over 4000 years of human activity. The remote physical setting of the
islands, over 40km beyond the mainland in the approaches to the English
Channel, has lent a distinctive character to those remains, producing many
unusual features important for our broader understanding of the social
development of early communities.
Throughout the human occupation there has been a gradual submergence of the
islands' land area, providing a stimulus to change in the environment and its
exploitation. This process has produced evidence for responses to such change
against an independent time-scale, promoting integrated studies of
archaeological, environmental and linguistic aspects of the islands'
settlement.
The islands' archaeological remains demonstrate clearly the gradually
expanding size and range of contacts of their communities. By the post-
medieval period (from AD 1540), the islands occupied a nationally strategic
location, resulting in an important concentration of defensive works
reflecting the development of fortification methods and technology from the
mid 16th to the 20th centuries. An important and unusual range of post-
medieval monuments also reflects the islands' position as a formidable hazard
for the nation's shipping in the western approaches.
The exceptional preservation of the archaeological remains on the islands has
long been recognised, producing an unusually full and detailed body of
documentation, including several recent surveys.
Civil War fieldworks are earthworks which were raised during military
operations between 1642 and 1651 to provide temporary protection for infantry
or to act as gun emplacements. The earthworks, which may have been reinforced
with revetting or palisades, consist of earth and rubble platforms or banks
and ditches.
The Civil War fieldworks of the Isles of Scilly form a major part of the 150
surviving examples of fieldworks recorded nationally. They present an
unusually complete system of fortifications from this period, both in the
surviving range of fieldwork types represented and in the surviving pattern of
their strategic disposition.
Three main types of Civil War fieldwork have been recognised on the Isles of
Scilly: breastworks, batteries and platforms; these could be deployed
separately or in combination to form a defensive complex.
Breastworks, which on the Isles of Scilly run beside the coastal cliff edge,
consist of an earth and rubble bank, up to 4m wide and nearly 2m high but
generally much smaller, usually accompanied by a ditch on the landward side.
Sixteen surviving examples are recorded on the island.
Batteries are levelled areas or platforms, generally up to 20m across,
situated on a hilltop or terraced into a slope to serve as gun emplacements.
They vary considerably in size and shape and are usually partially or wholly
enclosed by a bank, occasionally incorporating one or two outer ditches.
Twenty batteries survive on the Isles of Scilly, several connected by
breastworks. Adjacent to some batteries are examples of the third fieldwork
type, platforms. These are partly terraced into, and partly out from, sloping
ground and represent sites of lookouts and temporary buildings. Eight such
platforms, measuring up to 12m by 8m in size, are known to survive on the
islands. These fieldworks and fieldwork complexes were occasionally associated
with other classes of defensive monument on the islands, including earthen
artillery forts and blockhouses.
The fieldworks were designed to defend the deep water approaches to the
islands, especially St Mary's where most examples are found. Fieldworks are
also known from Tresco, Bryher, Samson, St Agnes and Gugh. The circumstances
of their construction are recorded in contemporary historical documents which
indicate most were built by the Royalist forces which controlled the islands
for the entire Civil War period except during 1646-8.

This Civil War battery and its associated platforms have survived well,
forming a small but complete and interrelated complex of fieldworks. Their
situation, and the survival of extensive historical documentation giving the
context in which they were built, demonstrate clearly the strategic methods
employed by the Civil War military forces and the functions of batteries
within them. These methods are also well illustrated by the complementary
relationship of this monument to the other surviving batteries along the
coastline of St Mary's.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
O'Neil, BH St J, Ancient Monuments of the Isles of Scilly, (1949)
Ratcliffe, J, The Archaeology of Scilly, (1989)
Other
consulted 1994, Parkes, C., AM 107 for Scilly SMR entry PRN 7487, (1988)
Title: 1:2500 Ordnance Survey Map; SV 9112
Source Date: 1980
Author:
Publisher:
Surveyor:

Title: 1:25000 Ordnance Survey Map; Outdoor Leisure 25; Isles of Scilly
Source Date: 1992
Author:
Publisher:
Surveyor:

Source: Historic England