Efford Fort

Fort Efford stands on high ground north-east of Plymouth, a 19th-century fort built after the 1859 Royal Commission on National Defence. It was one of the Palmerston Forts designed to protect the Royal Naval Dockyard at Devonport from landward attack. Captain Edmund Frederick Du Cane planned the fort, and George Baker and Company constructed it before the Royal Engineers completed the work. The fort mounted 21 guns, some covering the nearby Laira Battery, and included a barrack block for five officers and 108 men. The fort’s military value faded by the early 1900s, and it was disarmed and sold in 1961. During the Second World War it stored ammunition, and later it became a Grade II listed building in 2003. The Showman’s Guild has used it for storage for many years, preserving its heavy brick walls and parade ground. Visitors find a rectangular fort with grassed ramparts and a central parade ground. The barrack block still stands at the rear, and the old armament shed on the parade ground once held two 5-inch breech-loading guns. The site offers wide views over Plymouth and the Laira valley, and the fort’s masonry shows the quality of 19th-century military engineering.