Browndown Battery

Browndown Battery, also referred to erroneously in some sources as Browndown Fort, is a former military coastal defence fortification and base on the Southern shoreline of England in the county of Hampshire. First erected in the mid-1840s, the battery was continuously modified until disarmed in 1905/6. It has been a Grade II Listed Building since 1983.

The first batteries at Browndown were erected on the shore at Browndown Point to the west end of Stokes Bay at Gosport to defend the western approach to Portsmouth harbour and to prevent an enemy landing on the beach. These batteries were known as Browndown Battery East and Browndown Battery West. They were complete by 1852 but were heavily criticised by James Fergusson (who was later to become the Treasury Representative on the 1860 Royal Commission into the defences of the United Kingdom) in his papers The Peril of Portsmouth and Portsmouth Protected. According to an armament list of 1860 Browndown Battery East had positions for three 68pr of 112 cwt. and seven 8-inch smooth bore guns of 65 cwt. whilst Browndown Battery West had positions for three 68pr. and eight 8-inch smooth bore guns. Ordnance Survey maps indicate the eastern battery had fallen in disuse by 1870 whilst the western one was retained until it was replaced by a new battery as part of the western defences of Portsmouth Harbour.

In 1890 The Defence Committee reviewed a proposal to remove or remodel the two old Browndown Batteries in Stokes Bay, and recommended that the Eastern Battery, being superseded by the work at the western extremity of the Stokes Bay Lines, and interfering with the fire of that work, should be removed; that the western battery should be retained, as it is of value to flank the beach, but that its present armament may be removed.

Although the completion of the Stokes Bay Lines in 1860 had rendered the Browndown Batteries obsolete, there was a need for a battery to protect the deep water anchorage off Browndown Point and the new Browndown Battery was constructed for two 12.5-inch R.M.L. guns on the site of the old Browndown battery West, paid for under the Imperial Defence Loan of 1888 at a cost of £4,237. Building commenced in October 1888 and was completed in August 1889. The rear wall (or gorge) of the old battery was retained and two sea facing concrete emplacements were constructed for the new 12.5-inch R.M.L. guns on C pivot dwarf traversing platforms. The magazines for shells and cartridges were placed between the two emplacements. A side arm and artillery store was built to the right of the battery.

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