Survey Data
Reg No
14929006
Rating
National
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social, Technical
Original Use
Battery
Date
1810 - 1820
Coordinates
195314, 214232
Date Recorded
09/10/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Freestanding ashlar masonry battery with blockhouse, constructed after c.1815. The front of the battery is of half-hexagon plan form. The battery is approximately 200 feet wide. The blockhouse's external wall away from the battery enclosure is formed into two splayed faces, forming an obtuse angle in plan. Within the battery, there are gun positions for seven front-pivoted traversing platforms. Guns were mounted on traversing platforms and fired over the broad parapet to the north and west. The end walls of the blockhouse contain musket loops at the lowest level. At the lowest level, at the same level as the dry moat in which it stands, were stores and the powder magazine. The upper level housed the gun battery for living accommodation and a staircase, in the thickness of the wall, leading up to the gun platform. Single window opening at each end of the blockhouse at first floor level. The entrance to the battery was originally by a drawbridge across a dry moat. A smaller drawbridge or timber gangway provided access from the battery to the doorway of the blockhouse.
Appraisal
Sited on Incherky Island, Keeloge Battery is similar in design to the Shannon Estuary forts that were built at this time. This enclosure or battery is smaller, but there is the same type of "bombproof barrack" placed at the rear of the battery. They were constructed at a time when the possibility of an invasion by Napoleon was pre-empted by the construction of these military fortifications.