Beacon Hill Battery (also known as Beacon Hill Fort) is a late-19th and 20th century coastal fortification that was built to defend the port of Harwich, Essex. It is a scheduled ancient monument.
Tudor blockhouse: House-upon-the-Hill
The first fortification built on the site was one of three blockhouses, constructed at Harwich during the reign of Henry VIII, following his visit to the town in 1543. These were Device Forts, built at Tower House, Middle House and the House-upon-the-Hill. They were abandoned within ten years, only to be briefly revived in 1588, owing to the threat posed by the Spanish Armada. By 1625 the site had again fallen into disrepair and Harwich was considered to be defenceless. The site of the actual blockhouse was destroyed by erosion.
Napoleonic Wars
A nearby site was chosen for Harwich Barracks. These were built in 1803. The original occupants were the West Essex Regiment and the Royal Buckinghamshire Militia. On the promontory itself, an earthen artillery battery of five 24-pounder guns was constructed in 1812, intended to supplement the larger Harwich Redoubt, which had been completed to the north in 1810 and was armed with ten 24-pounders. By 1822, the battery had been lost to erosion, and a replacement planned in 1839 was not built. One of the results of the committee's report was the ordering of a new artillery battery at Beacon Hill in September 1888; work had been completed by May 1892. The battery was built to an innovative design; an artificial mound in the centre of the promontory served to conceal the underground magazines, shelters and ancillary buildings, while creating a natural-looking profile against which, the lighter weapons at the foot of the mound would be difficult to see. The rear of the work was protected by a defensive perimeter built to a new design called the Twydall Profile, consisting of an earthen rampart, fronted by a glacis sloping down to a shallow ditch that concealed a steel palisade fence. In 1894, a former practice battery sited near the tip of the headland and dating from 1871 was rebuilt to mount four RML 64-pounder guns on traversing carriages for close defence. Two QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns were added in 1898.