Born out of the sea 400 million years ago Drake’s Island has been a place of pilgrimage, a refuge, a fort, a prison, an observatory and an adventure centre. The fortifications have defended Plymouth from the time of the Spanish Armada to the World Wars. It has been the starting point for the voyages of discovery of some of the greatest of our explorers, Drake, Cook and Darwin. Still a place of mystery and rumour follow in the footsteps of Drake discovering Drake’s Island and the lives of those that lived there.
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The Addition of the Centre and Eastern Artillery Batteries in 1901
The upgrading of the coastal defences continued with the building of the Centre Battery of three gun emplacements to...
1898, The First Breech Loading Battery and the Defences Tested
These next set of plans cover the period from 1898 to World War 1. The defences up to this point had all been Rifle...
The 1895 Island Defences Survey
The next set of surveys done by the Royal Engineers was in 1895 overseen by Lt Col Francis Mascall who was the...