A gun emplacement is shown on the foreshore of Peel Bay in a landscape painting by John 'Warwick' Smith dating to 1795. The emplacement is crescent-shaped and strongest facing the sea, reducing in height around each side and open at the rear.  The location of the battery was historically described by reference to the 'green', an area of ground now occupied by a public car park. Close study of Smith's painting confirms this location. R.A. Curphey notes that a separate written account shows that the battery was not in fact completed until 1797.  It is noteworthy that no artillery piece is shown in the painting, which may confirm that the battery was at that point still to receive its armament. Smith was a reliable and accurate observer, so these details may reasonably be expected to be an accurate reflection both of the battery's location and its condition (a separate view of the battery in Ramsey shows three cannon present in careful detail). 


The battery was constructed to replace one destroyed in a storm in 1793. Curphey goes on to draw attention to a local newspaper article of May 1864 which records the finding fifteen months prior of fragments of an artillery piece below low-water, near the former site of the battery. By the description and in the opinion of the article, this would seem to relate to a much older type of gun and Curphey proposes that the gun emplacements successively present in the 1790s were constructed to replace a much earlier battery which, if consistent with the type of remains described in 1864, could be as early as the 16th century. This could place it in the same era as the Horse Rock and Half Moon batteries in Peel Castle, and would indicate a clear strategy to defend St Patrick's Isle, the entrance to the harbour, and Peel Bay against maritime attack.