South Sutor

This building platform, which formed part of the infrastructure of the battery introduced by the Admiralty during the First World War, was largely of timber construction and measured 6.9m in length from NE to SW by about 4.5m transversely. Its superstructure was supported on a grid of concrete piles each measuring 0.6m square and spaced up to 3.3m apart. The top of each pile bears a rebate to house a timber beam. Because of the topography, the SE side of the building has been set on a platform dug into the steep natural slope. The stump of a vertical post is visible at the edge of that platform in the centre of the building. A fragmentary length of a concrete-lined gully on the SW is probably part of a drain running down from the Engine House above (NH86NW 11.19).

The building is annotated ‘Cook House’ on a plan of the battery in the Fort Record Book held in the National Archives at Kew (WO78/5192 18/19), but it is also unnamed on a second plan (WO78/5192 18/19). The former also depicts a path adjacent to its ENE gable where the entrance was located. The plans also show another building situated immediately to its SW, which is annotated ‘Store’ (WO78/5192 18/19). This was also rectangular on plan and measured about 3m from NE to SW by 2.5m, but no trace of it was seen on the date of visit.

Both the cookhouse and the store are also shown on a photograph (SC893188) taken on the 29 August 1913 from a point slightly higher up the slope to the SE during the construction of the battery. This indicates that the cookhouse had a pitched wooden roof with a ventilation cowl on the ridge and a chimney near the E corner. Its timber frame was clad with corrugated iron sheets and there was a window above a central doorway situated in the NE gable. Construction of the storehouse to the WSW was less advanced, as its timber frame had yet to be clad. However, its pitched wooden roof was already in place, although (like that of the cookhouse) this had yet to be waterproofed. The store’s frame indicates that it would have had a doorway off-centre in the NE gable and a window in the SE wall. A second photograph (SC1116235) taken on the same occasion indicates that the cookhouse had two windows in its NW side and another twice the size in its SW gable.

Visited by HES, Survey and Recording (ATW, AKK), 19 February 2020.