2014:471 - Grey Point Fort, Helen's Bay (Ballygrot), Down

An archaeological excavation was carried out at Grey Point Fort, Co. Down, in October and November 2014. The primary research aims of the investigation were to uncover new information about Grey Point Fort Coastal Defence Battery (Ballygrot townland; Defence Heritage Project No. 315; Grid ref J 45698 83254). The excavation was commissioned and funded by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (now the Historic Environment Division, Department of Communities) and was the first at any such monument in Ireland. Excavations were carried out at five locations in and around this State Care monument between 6 October and 11 November 2014, including at the northern Blockhouse (bastion), the western side of the perimeter wall and the frontal shore defences in the environs of the east searchlight emplacement. Much new and useful information about the sequence and techniques of construction and activity at the fort was uncovered.

Historical Background

Grey Point Fort is considered one of the better-preserved examples of a restored 20th-century Coast Defence Battery within Ireland and Britain. It was constructed between 1904 and 1907, with later additions over the succeeding decades, to defend the important shipyards of Belfast, and Belfast Lough generally. The fort is located on the southern shore of Belfast Lough with exceptional vistas of the approaches into the lough. The site of the current fort has been occupied for nearly 100 years despite the fort being decommissioned in 1956. It is currently utilized as a visitor attraction within the Crawfordsburn Country Park and is both owned and managed by the Historic Environment Division, Department of Communities. Although a range of documentary evidence relating to the history of the fort and its various phases of use exists, there is much that is still unknown about how precisely the fortification actually developed throughout the 20th century. Based on the documentary evidence for Grey Point Fort there would appear to have been three broad phases of activity at the fort:

1. The initial construction of the fort between 1904-1907 with additional strengthening of the defences round the fort prior to and during the First World War.

2. A second phase of defensive construction in the 1930s in the years immediately prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

3. A final period which commenced when the fort began to be down-graded in military importance in August 1943, leading to its abandonment as a military fortification after 1956 and its eventual incorporation into Crawfordsburn Country Park in 1971 and its protection as a State Care monument.

The 2014 excavation uncovered evidence of all three main phases of activity.

Evidence of pre-fort activity

Flint, both struck and un-struck, was recovered from most of the excavated trenches. No other early artefacts or features were identified during the excavation.

Phase One

A section in the document Ireland’s Defence Scheme. North Irish defended ports Part II, Belfast Defences. Revised to July 1912 (W.O.33/601) describes how a barbed-wire entanglement has been erected around the battery. In the war period trenches and machine-gun emplacements will be constructed, commanding Helen’s Bay and the land approaches; and an outer line of wire entanglements will be constructed, enclosing the land defences is most useful. It suggests that barbed wire entanglements uncovered in Trenches 1B and Trench 2 pre-date the earthen defences investigated in Trenches 3 and 4 and these all date to Phase One. It is very possible that that iron fence pickets uncovered in Trenches 1B and 2 were the remains of the barbed wire entanglements around the battery completed in January 1911 (Grey Point Fort: Fort Record Book). Many of the archaeological strata in Trench 1B appear to reflect the deliberate infilling of the bedrock and building up of a level terrace below the fort guns. Four iron trench pickets (posts), representing the remains of an early barbed wire defensive boundary for the fort were also uncovered in Trench 1B and the practice trench immediately west of it. The pickets were 1.35m apart and would appear to represent a section of a defensive perimeter at the front of the original fort. Finds from the trench included barbed wire and iron nails. Earthen trenches and dugouts were constructed beyond the boundaries of the fort proper to keep an eye on any potential shore landings by enemy troops. The 2014 excavation showed that some consideration and effort had been put into the construction of these external fortifications, including the construction of drains and metalled surfaces within them. The excavation also showed that these ephemeral defences are still significantly intact. A dugout investigated in Trench 4 was probably constructed at the same time as the shoreline/practice trenches investigated in Trench 3, in the first decade of the 20th century, when additional fort defences were erected in the period of the First World War. It is uncertain how long the dugout was in use. The fortification overlooks a beach and probably housed a machine gun crew that kept watch on this potential landing spot. Some .22 shell casings recovered in the dugout may represent its use for training, as higher calibre bullets would have been issued to troops for use in the event of actual hostilities breaking out. The concrete Blockhouse investigated in Trench 1A possibly also belongs to Phase One.

Phase Two

The stone perimeter wall of the fort, investigated in Trench 1A and Trench IB Northern Extension, probably dates to the second main phase of activity at the Fort and it would have replaced the barbed wire entanglements (uncovered in Trenches 1B main trench and Trench 2) that originally surrounded the Fort. This new building work would appear to have taken place in the years preceding the Second World War as the defences were strengthened with a more substantial defended perimeter. It may be that the wall was built not too long after the Phase One Blockhouse and that the earlier concrete defensive structure became obsolete perhaps within less than 20 years after it had been constructed. It may even be that the Blockhouse was built as a temporary defensive post while the perimeter wall of the fort was being erected. Service cables leading to the most westerly of the coastal searchlight emplacements, constructed in 1936, were uncovered in Trench 2 and may be contemporary with the building of the stone perimeter wall around the fort.

Phase Three

Evidence of activity at the fort after it was decommissioned in 1956 was found in many of the 2014 excavated trenches. These included gravel paths in Trenches 1A, 1B and 2, as well as dumped masonry and concrete, a drain and modern geotextile (terram) - all found in Trench 2. Most of this material relates to the change in use of Grey Point Fort from a military instillation to a visitor attraction within Crawfordsburn Country Park.

Evidence of different types of activity at the fort

The 2014 investigations identified a variety of construction techniques used for the defence of the Fort in the first half of the 20th century. Iron was used for the fence pickets of the early barbed wire entanglements, concrete was used to construct the Blockhouse, earth and re-deposited subsoil for the shoreline defences and stone for the later perimeter wall around the fort. The erection of the defences also involved altering the existing landscape around the fort and included dumping material to level the terraces below the guns for the insertion of the barbed wire entanglements (Trench 1B), lowering the underlying bedrock (Trenches 1B northern extension and Trench 1A) and the digging into subsoil for construction of the forward shoreline defensive trenches (Trenches 3 and 4).

Conclusions

The 2014 research excavation at Grey Point Fort Coastal Defence Battery, Co. Down, was the first at any such monument in Ireland. Although the investigation did not involve excavation within the core of the complex of buildings of the fort, much useful and exciting information about the sequence and techniques of construction and activity at the fort was uncovered from the excavation.

References

Gailey, I. and Dixon, H. (1987) Grey Point Fort, Co. Down. DOENI guide card.

Montgomery, H. (in prep.), PhD. Training Kitchener’s New Army, 1914-1916: Archaeological Perspectives on the Irish Experience.

Ó Baoill, R. and Montgomery, H. (2015) ‘Excavations at Grey Point Fort, Co. Down’. CAF Data Structure Report No.108. Licence number AE/14/ 170. DHP No. 315. Unpublished report produced for the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (now the Historic Environment Division, Department of Communities). https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/CentreforArchaeologicalFieldworkCAF/PDFFileStore/Filetoupload,509495,en.pdf

Northern Ireland Environment Agency (ndg) Grey Point Fort: A short guide to the fort complex.

Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen's University Belfast BT7 1NN