page_title: Flat Holm
section_title: Batteries and barracks
hierarchical_section_title: Flat Holm / Buildings / Batteries and barracks
caption_attribution_description: English: Montcrieff 'dissapearing gun' as installed on Flat Holm island in 1800's
context_page_description: Flat Holm is a Welsh island lying in the Bristol Channel approximately 6 km from Lavernock Point in the Vale of Glamorgan. It includes the most southerly point of Wales.
  The island has a long history of occupation, dating at least from the Bronze Age and later sub-Roman period. Religious uses include visits by disciples of Saint Cadoc in the 6th century, and in 1835 it was the site of the foundation of the Bristol Channel Mission, which later became the Mission to Seafarers. A sanatorium for cholera patients was built in 1896 as the isolation hospital for the port of Cardiff. Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first wireless signals over open sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock. Because of frequent shipwrecks a lighthouse was built on the island, which was replaced by a Trinity House lighthouse in 1737. Because of its strategic position on the approaches to Bristol and Cardiff a series of gun emplacements, known as Flat Holm Battery, were built in the 1860s as part of a line of defences, known as Palmerston Forts. On the outbreak of World War II, the island was rearmed.
context_section_description: Flat Holm was fortified in the 1860s following a visit by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to France, where they had been concerned by the strength of the French Navy. The Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, under direction of Lord Palmerston, recommended fortification of the coast in 1865. The defences on the island, which became part of a line of defences known as the Palmerston Forts, were completed in 1869.
  Flat Holm Battery is a series of gun emplacements on Flat Holm built to protect Bristol and Cardiff across the channel. There are remains of four battery sites on the island:
  Castle Rock Battery: three guns in two Moncrieff pits and one open-backed pit
  Farm House Battery: two guns in one full Moncrieff pit and one open-backed pit
  Well Battery: one gun in an open-backed Moncrieff pit.  The gun was removed by Army Apprentices in 1964.
  Lighthouse Battery: three guns in two full Moncrieff pits and one open-backed pit
  These four emplacements run from the northern to the southern point of the island, along the western coast. Nine Rifled muzzle loaders (RMLs) on disappearing Moncrieff carriages were built at the Royal Gun Foundry, Woolwich. They were mounted in four separate batteries, all in Moncrieff pits, 2 m (7 ft) in diameter and 3 m (10 ft) deep, constructed of limestone blocks and bricks. These pits had the advantage of being almost invisible to shipping and also offered protection to the gun crews. The RML 7-inch 7 ton guns were too heavy for mobile land service. They consisted of a steel rifle tube surrounded by wrought iron coils, and cascabel, with an overall length of each gun is 361 centimetres (142 in). They used a 52.3 kg (115 lb) Palliser shell and were mounted on the Moncrieff disappearing carriage.  The guns were never needed and were fired only for test purposes.
  In 1869, stone barracks were built to sleep up to 50 men. However, the 1881 Census for Flat Holm shows that the barracks were occupied only by the Master Gunner, Thomas Barrett, his family, and five soldiers. Barrett's son, Albert, was born on the island on 31 December 1881. The men were stationed on the island to keep the guns in good working order but the garrison would have been reinforced by regular artillery and volunteer troops if ever an invasion had been imminent. The barracks for the battery were located near the southernmost battery emplacement. Other fortifications included a large drainage basin, underground storage tank, an administrative building and a secure store. A "ditch-and-bank" system served to protect the Lighthouse Battery from cross-island attack. The barracks were vacated in 1901 and the buildings have now been restored by the Flat Holm Project for educational use.
caption: Moncrieff 'disappearing gun'
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