North Sutor, Coast Battery

This building is situated on a grass-grown platform cut-back into a steep S-facing slope immediately E of another building that shares the same terrace (NH86NW 9.37). It measures 46m from ESE to WNW by 6.7m transversely over concrete walls with chamfered edges up to 0.4m high. It contains three compartments, a central one about 5.5m in breadth and two flanking which each measure 20.5m long. The central compartment has a concrete floor, and the presence of water pipes, drainage channels and holes for supports suggest this may have been a communal washroom. In both of the flanking compartments there is a line of five square, evenly spaced, central pillars, which together with projections and metal straps visible on the inner side of the SSW wall, once supported a wooden floor. This, together with traces of sill beams, suggest a timber superstructure, while concrete steps on the SSW side close to the WNW and ESE ends respectively mark the positions of doorways.

The building is shown on plans of the North Sutor held by the National Archives at Kew (WO78/5192), one of which is dated to 1 May 1913.

Visited by HES, Survey and Recording (ATW, AKK, KLG), 28 March 2019.