Why this matters
A local castle; wider significance not recorded.
Overview
Knowles Battery formed part of the Palmerston defence ring built after the 1859 national inquiry into invasion risk. Designed by Edmund Du Cane for thirteen guns, it overlapped neighbouring forts to protect the landward approach to Devonport Dockyard before military change made it obsolete and a school occupied the site.
Who built and held it
Captain Edmund Du Cane designed the work; George Baker and Company built it and the Royal Engineers completed it. The War Department held it as part of Plymouth's linked land defences.
Attack, change and use
Thirteen intended guns connected their fire with Woodlands and Agaton forts, blocking approach to the naval dockyard. The battery was disarmed after becoming obsolete in the early twentieth century and sold in 1930.
What survives
A primary school built over the site in the 1960s, but scheduled remains of the fort survive within and beneath the school grounds.
Why it mattered
Knowles shows that Devonport was defended from attack over land as well as from the sea, using several forts whose overlapping guns worked as one planned system.
History checked 16 August 2026 against the named sources below.
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