400 Years Of Military Advancement: Plymouth’s Island Fortress

For generations, Drake’s Island, situated just outside of Plymouth harbour, had been owned by the Ministry of Defence. Recently, however, this island bastion has gone into private ownership. In this documentary, Bob King, the gatekeeper of Drake’s Island, gives Dan an exclusive tour of this extremely militarised scrap of land.

0:00 – Welcome to Drake’s Island: A Military History
3:28 – From Tudor Towers to Victorian Superguns
8:09 – Inside the Secret Ammunition Tunnels
11:08 – How The Island Survived a 4-Year Siege
15:34 – Exploring Palmerston’s Folly & The Casemates
22:27 – The Future of this Historic Island Fortress

From Drake’s Island: Plymouth’s Island Fortress

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i’m very excited now because for years I’ve sailed in and out of Plymouth Harbor and you always pass by this squat forbidding island it’s called Drakes Island and for generations it’s been owned by the British Ministry of Defense but now it’s just gone into private ownership and I’ve been invited to uh come on and check it out [Music] [Music] hey Bob how’s it going hi Dan welcome to Drake’s Island oh thanks for having me i mean this is a legend this place everyone in the area has got their stories about Dra gold buried here tunnels underneath just how militarized is this landscape it’s extremely militarized but it was always a case of deterrence works the first building that we knew about on the island that was St michael’s Chapel that’s first mentioned in 1135 so that sat right at the very top of the island that was knocked down in 1550 for the first TUDA fortifications and that really coincided when we had the first effective cannon and those cannon had a range of 600 meters 600 yards if you like which funny enough is the distance between here and the hoe yeah 14 firing points at various points all around the island so it’s all round defense cuz you couldn’t interlink your arcs with other existing forts around here and in fact just around the corner we’ve got the remains of one of those two 1550 artillery towers they had three military buildings right on top of the island as Devonport was built in 1720 they collapsed those buildings started the buildings that are just up there behind us and put another battery on top of the island because they developed howitzers which is the long arc as I’m sure you know the next advance in military technology was in reaction to the the world’s first ironclads warships being launched in 1859 we then had that further advance when we solved the problem of the gas breach at the rear so those guns started appearing on the island around about 1895 together with search lights and other interactions then but it’s always been a military fort in that sense the armed forces used it until when uh 1963 they finally left although it was rarely manned at times we have maximum manning 490 in World War II first military men on the island were four gunners paid for by Edward V 6 for only two years it was manned relatively regularly during the age of empire because Plymouth was one of those ports that was the point of departure for regiments going abroad so they come to Plymouth to form up while they’re waiting for the troop ships the stores to be got together so there would be a small infantry detachment between 20 and 90 it varied regiment to regiment and a battery of about 60 gunners on the island so for 400 years this was a military site a military site mainly but there were other bits involved with it back in 1772 before Captain Cook went on his second circuit navigation of the world we were still trying to solve the problem of longitude he was taking the first four sea chronometers to be tested at the time and Mr richard Bailey from the Royal Greenidge Observatory came down set up an observatory on the top of the island took readings up there that played its part in solving that problem of longitude so it’s got much more to it than just the pure military side of life well let’s go and take a look yeah absolutely let’s go okay so from here we can see actually the oldest part of the island fortification still remaining and the newest build that was built so if you look right over there you see what looks like the end of the wall yeah that end of the wall that’s so remember all the vegetation gone that’s one of the original two TUDA artillery towers so take that vegetation off wooden platforms on the top guns on the top that’s what you had there short range cannon so you want them right on the water’s edge okay yeah and here this is the late 1960s uh boat house that was built for the Adventure Training Center there would have been a slip down the front here and although the outer wall looks very old it’s actually recycled stone looks like the Tudtor’s built to last 60s not so much exactly exactly so what period is this entrance way uh we think at times it would have gone back to TUDA periods but as with most of the island things gets recycled so stuff gets knocked down the stones used to rebuild we think this is probably 1600s to 1700s handsome isn’t it yeah it’s amazing stuff the first engineer on the island was a guy called Frederick Geneibelli he was Elizabeth the first trench master or engineer and we know he built the first fortifications there were the 14 batteries or firing points all dotted around the island and he also built three buildings on the top of the island so that was a gunpowder store a barracks for 300 for the militia if they were ever deployed and a general store as well and Plymouth was becoming by that stage pretty much the most important naval base in the country it it’s a real highlight of the island’s key uh role as a keystone of defense during the English Civil War because it enabled Plymouth to withstand that four-year siege you can get a real feeling for that at one of our viewing platforms on top of the mast and so what are these buildings here elements of these buildings start in 1720 so the building right over there the part that’s facing us now is a barracks for 130 the building here was originally the marquarters for the master gunner and six small marquarters are you allowed to bring your wife over if you’re stuck yeah certainly the early censuses 1861 there were six families on the island the 1871 census shows 13 families on the island not a bad posting all have been ramps I guess to get the get the guns up well not not just the guns but also the ammunition some of the biggest guns we’ll see on the island the top of the island the 12 in 25 ton guns a single shell is 272 kg to fire that took 38 kg of gunpowder and we’ll see at the top of this rank thick raw iron rings like this which are the hauling rings they used to have a hauling rope on the front of the ammunition basket which would be on wheels and they’d obviously pay that through the hauling ring possibly on a block and tackle and haul it up and you can see that just down there and you’ll see a lot of these around the island all at about ankle level this granite block here was the original uh site of the flag pole probably 1720sish queen Victoria painted and drew the island both in 1846 and 1852 when you look at those paintings you’ll see a flag pole that’s where it was i can’t believe they’re just gigantic guns just lying around so Victoria Reginas yeah these are Armstrong guns and the one lying down there the 32 pounder you can see the cipher on the top this is great yeah george one so it’s 1750 to 1780 sometime and a 32 pounder there’s quite a difference between the guns because these would have been you know four to five man gun crew reload time 2 and a half to 3 minutes these big guns eightman gun crew 5 minutes to reload with 5 minutes really yeah for a well-trained crew but these guns could punch through 15 inches of steel at a kilometer just shows you the revolution there’s only 100 or so years between that cannon and this one but look at the technology yeah so that that’s raw raw iron so that would fail after a certain amount of of firings or potentially with these two the rear two cylinders are raw iron but the barrel steel so it can take that much bigger charge and therefore the much greater pressure that that produced you get a whole view of the Plymouth Sound from up here and you could traverse right around here and the arc of fire so yeah there’s a couple of things so you’ve got the break water out there you’ve got Fort Bobby Fort Pickle and the Breakwater fort so they were the outer defenses for Plymouth this was the first line of the inner defenses okay let’s go and have a look at the upper level of tunnels which would have been the four magazines for these big guys up here like see it’s pretty narrow down here yeah this is one of the original guards but if you look down there that’s the shaft that goes down to the bottom so there would have been a chain up to the top that’s on a crank that you’ll see down there and then there’s an ammunition basket and so that’s the level of tunnels below we’ll get to see those in a bit they weren’t taking any chances were they cuz that’s a long way down and they must have been worried about incoming shells penetrating to this well absolutely so that 272 kg shell will punch through 15 in of steel at a kilometer you want your bulk ammunition bearing in mind it’s tons and tons of gunpowder yeah these aren’t combined um shell cartridge by this stage these are still separate they’ve absolutely got to be at the deepest point of your island which is why you’ve got these maze of tunnel let’s go have a look okay so this is one of the four magazines um as we come in the bulk ammunition would have come up from the hoist that we’ve just seen and then be stored in here like I say those guns took 5 minutes to reload so you would leave your forward um shot and shell in here as a bit of extra protection before the gunners took it on the outside to reload and again this is another one of those hoists that goes to the top so again you can see the remains of the chain link here so when we go to explore the top of this battery you’ll see where some of these come out because of the size of it we’re guessing this is possibly World War II because at that stage you definitely had the combined um cartridge shell although the 12 pound from World War I also used the combined cartridge shell whereas the 6 in you still use separate so you’ve got high explosive buried underground where the enemy can’t get at it but they’re so heavy you need hoist to get them up to the guns above and so these are like those things that they have in restaurants and stately homes those dumb waiters or whatever they call them little lifts for food that comes up and down i I have always favor calling these dumb gunners dumb gunners right brilliant so again you can see areas around here where you had exits um they wouldn’t necessarily have um steps down them but if you just come out here you can see where they would have had a hoist they could have bought as the stuff came up from below trolley out here lifted up again up to the top side so they they were quite ingenious about how they went about um everything in here another straight lift up to the top and again although this is worn out now it would have had a cartridge lift number so the gunners would have known bang where you going where you putting it up so that ramp that we came up to go up to the top this is about halfway down and this is where they came out that’s clever yeah but you can see this was an original wall going back there and these are the your retraining walls coming out if you come around this way this brings us halfway up the ramp that we originally walked up to to the guns on the top of the island yes so that’s that that battery that leads all the way round so if we come to the top of the mast I think you can get a real feeling for how the island was the sentinel for Plymouth until that advance in artillery technology that got the big guns on the island so you can see up here looking all the way around dominates you can’t get you could not get in and out of this port without controlling this island could you exactly and really the the English Civil War highlights that so the English Civil War 1642 the garrison of Plymouth has built its defenses to the north and they’re parliamentarians they’re parliamentarians and the interesting thing was Charles I removed the governor of the island and of Plymouth Sir Jacob Ashley before hostilities broke out to command all his infantry oh I see yeah in that power vacuum the mayor of Plymouth who was a parliamentarian appointed Sir Alexander Keru a parliamentarian captain of the island big mistake yeah yeah so you you’ve got that side of it so Plymouth is being held by parliamentarians together with the island you’ve got two great royalist armies one under Prince Morris that’s what’s now Mount Batton stretching round to the north of the town there’s a ridge line up there that kind of stretches Eggbuck and Witty Manor where he had his um headquarters and through to Groundhill and then you have Prince Robert over at Mount Edge across there linking up with Prince Morris’s forces around there plymouth was the only parliamentarian town to hold out during the English Civil War so its population doubled to about 10,000 or so a lot of disease it was not easy but they had just enough supplies and the key point was holding this island and the vast bulk of the navy declared for parliament so the parliamentary navy could come under the guns of St nicholas Island as Drake Island was known then out of range of the Royalist batteries at Mount Batton and Mount Edgeham underneath our guns into Mil Bay directly opposite and Plymouth always had just enough just enough ammunition just enough supplies just enough men to withstand that siege so you mentioned this island hasn’t always been called Drake’s Island when the Royal Engineers Office put tenders in for building works on the island it was always for works on St nicholas Island a bit later on in the 1800s it would sometimes be St nicholas stroke drakes in brackets but it really seems only to be known as Drake’s sort of colloially from about 1820 on and certainly when Queen Victoria sketched and painted the island in 1846 and 1852 she labels it Drake’s Island so next thing you’re going to tell me is Drake one of the most famous sailors in history son of Devon you’re going to tell me he doesn’t have anything to do with this island very very little well the island’s named after him but Drake died on a sea voyage he was buried at sea it’s never but it’s never been found but his second in command Christian Hoes named the nearest island which is off central Panama Drake’s Island the original Drakes Island is actually in Panama it seems to be an element of Victorian rebranding um you know it was the age of empire we we’re renaming not only us the French um are renaming places after their famous battles and who we perceive as our you know our greatest sons and you know Drake with his role in the Armada is perceived as that so it seems to be for that reason it was called Drake’s is is that man-made is that a submarine barrier there or something yeah absolutely army we call them dragons teeth they’re the anti-tank ones i think the Navy call them sharks teeth or dolphins they’re reinforced concrete from World War I in World War II they would have just been wireg filled with heavy rubble and there was a submarine boom that was first put in in 1910 then to close off the rest of the the channel at the back of the island they threw a sort of cage of steel and concrete around Plymouth didn’t they yeah absolutely i mean it it was absolutely key with Devport it was headquarters Western Command during World War um two up until 42 I think it was when it moved up to Liverpool so yeah this was absolutely key as commanding those Atlantic lifelines for that first part of of the world of World War II so my grandpa was in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War he always talks about coming to Plymouth so to think if I’d been standing up here I’d have seen his ship okay so this end of the island the tunnel complex we’re going to go through the casemates we’re going to see was all um in reaction to the 1859 Royal Commission on the Defense of the United Kingdom which is the Palmyon Faults um in essence we’re going to go in through here so these are the bulk magazines so the ones we saw on the top of the island were the forward magazines this is where they held the bulk and you can see in there one of the old ammunition trolley with it wheels missing ledges down there holding various bits and pieces and a vent that goes up to the top of the island but this is one of three three main chambers yeah they’re absolutely amazing so you’ve got three chambers all interlink by open arch which is where they kept the bulk um ammunition and gunpowder and as we come in here just round onto the left this is where they had the lighting because you had your gunpowder in here this was half inch thick sheet glass that was fixed so the guys would have been able to come in with a lighted wick stay outside of the ammunition magazine but still lit an oil lamp that side if needs be and the guys would have worn canvas uniforms and canvas or Indian mockers and shoes again to prevent any spark whatsoever and there were lots of examples weren’t there in this period of catastrophic accidents yeah of magazines getting blown up yeah exactly fortunately didn’t happen on the island such a dangerous job so if we come through here we’ll come into one of the tunnels as well again you can see these little lighting passages that go off to the side and behind here if you remember the hoist I showed you at the top of the island you can see the shaft up there you can see the pulley there that we saw from the top that’s the hand crank and the chain and that’s your ammunition basket just behind you there you can see another one of those lighting recesses and you’ll see a number of these all around the place it it goes to show the astonishing investment in military infrastructure in the UK at the height of empire yes places like Portsouth and Plymouth being surrounded by forts like this yeah but the irony is these were built to counteract the threat from the uh Emperor Louis Napoleon Bonapart’s nephew these weren’t complete until 1871 and they’re known as the Palmyan follys because in 1870 the emperor Louis Napoleon who were building all these um from his threat from the ironclad warships had been defeated in battle by the Prussians y and had sought and was given asylum in England and was in Chiselhurst in Ken he was he was living here yeah so the guns hadn’t even arrived on the island and it was always all obsolete okay so we come out to the other side of uh the island now again you can see how it’s all path around here there are 21 of these individual casemates that would have housed a 9 in 12ton gun so they’re around about 2/3ish the size of the big guns on the top of the island we’re going to step into this one right here which is stripped back as it was done originally and as with a lot of things on the island all the casemates were adapted over time back in the day this was the floor you can see the tracer rings on the ground down here where the gun would have traversed left and right when it was originally built the arches would have been open both at the back and at either side almost like a gun deck on a ship it is that’s That’s what a casemate is it’s simply a technical term for a housing for a gun these guys here are 10-in thick iron blast shields really yeah made in the Milwall Iron Works up in London so where these arms come out we would have had rope looped around Oh yeah all of these if you got a breeze coming towards you you don’t want hot embers coming in so as the gun’s finally laid both of these would be shut you’d have a rope curtain in effect all right around the gun and as it recoiled the bit that’s draped around the barrel would just flap back into place preventing anything coming through pretty handsome spiral staircase isn’t it yeah it’s absolutely magnificent and again you can see here what a commanding position these casemates had around the entrance to Plymouth across there and all the way out to the breakwater fort combined with the 12-in 25 ton guns on the top of the island and that building right there is quite interesting oh yeah that’s actually a World War II minefield control tower the original plan for Plymouth was to lay naval minefields out in the sound and the plan was that they would be linked by electric cable that would come back from there so the mines could be detonated remotely so we could cut off the back end of the island prevent enemy submarines getting in this way but we could let our own ships out because it’s not contact and it’s not magnetized fuses i I’ve never found out whether they actually laid any i’ve got a feeling they didn’t but that’s what it was designed for so you’ve got fortification from the Tudtor to Second World War second World War exactly from Henry to Hitler and all ports in between so we believe this is part of one of those original 14 batteries that was around the island but although there looks like what is seats in there at the moment we’re guessing this was originally the shot lockers where they would have stored the cannonball just cannonballs yeah cannonballs or the two balls with chain on um and the gunpowder and of course right up until they stopped using those smaller guns there would have been a furnace associated with them as well heated shot heated shot and again like I say you meant you all this vegetation is gone this is not here when it’s a fortification so you have to imagine that gone wooden platforms with the guns on the top the cannons on there and the shot down here so you’ve got well 17th maybe 18th century over there and then well looks like 20th century is this first and second world war yeah this is first and second world war through here yeah absolutely so that’s a base plate for a 12 pounder gun down there and these are the tracer rings and the central um holding ring for a World War II twin six pounder righty and that’s it that’s the end of the armament second World War that’s the end of the arament it was ceased to be um a military fortification really after World War II the military were on it until about 55 although they didn’t move out completely until ‘ 63 when it became an adventure training place [Music] so what’s the future hold for Drake’s Island well the future is really cool i’m involved in both the history and the heritage and the conservation which is all part of phase one because they’re really really important things to preserve the development itself it’s not to change the skyline we can only really develop inside the buildings so you can’t build new buildings you can’t build second or third stories onto existing buildings otherwise and the great thing about the history side of it is the insides to these are old barracks they’re not stately homes there’s nothing much to actually preserve on the inside for nearly 500 years the public were pretty much excluded from this island there were times when they could get on and this is now in a way returning it to the people of Plymouth yeah and it it’s great to be able to share that that history with [Music] them heat heat [Music] [Applause] [Music]