Modern gun battery.


A gun battery was first constructed on Douglas Head in early 1797, as part of a wider response to the threat posed by foreign privateers to the Island's coastline and its shipping.


By the 1860s, a series of batteries providing interlocking fields of fire from one end of Douglas Bay to the other was no longer necessary, and a single emplacement was constructed to protect the harbourmouth.


The new battery stood slightly to the east of the 1815-1821 barbette, and its earthwork parapet is shown on the Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1867-8. The battery is variously described as being armed with two or four guns, and its timber construction to resemble the deck of a warship. An undated photograph in the Manx National Heritage collections (pg/7888/58) shows part of the battery with three cannon present.


The battery was soon rendered obsolete by advances in naval gunnery, and from 1870 the local gunners received their training in Liverpool.