Harry's Walls

Harry’s Walls stands on St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly, a small granite island off Cornwall. It is the half-finished remains of an artillery fort begun in 1551 by Edward VI’s government to guard Hugh Town harbour from French attack. The plan showed a square fort with four bastions in the new Italian style, each with protective orillons and living quarters around a central courtyard. Two light guns called sakers were installed in 1554, but the work stopped soon after. The name comes from a popular mistake linking it to Henry VIII rather than Edward VI. Historians such as Andrew Saunders call the intended design the most advanced military engineering of its date in England. Yet later writers like William Borlase in the 18th century criticised the site as poorly chosen. Modern research suggests the fort would have commanded the harbour well enough, working with other defences. The main reason for abandonment was cost: Edward’s government spent heavily on fortifications across the realm. Once the French threat faded, the half-built walls were left to decay. Today the south-west corner survives best, two bastions and a curtain wall of granite blocks and rubble rising about two metres high. An unfinished ditch runs along the outside, and a prehistoric standing stone stands just north of the remains. Managed by English Heritage, the site is open to visitors and protected as an ancient monument. The angular bastions and their orillons still show the Italianate style planned five centuries ago.