I took advantage of a free morning to take the dogs on a walk to the nearby Woodland Woods, located in an outer suburb of the city of Plymouth. I’ve walked in these woods on many occasions, but have usually entered it from the eastern side; today I ventured in from the west, due to being interested in finding a few nearby geocaches.

The walk itself was largely enjoyable and largely uneventful – a man walking his dog attempted to engage me in conversation about the arrival of travellers on a nearby field (“shame, shame,” he uttered), and I found myself becoming annoyed with a woman shouting into her phone during a bland and pointless conversation (which was on loud speaker, of course) who seemed to keep walking down the path I headed down (despite my best efforts to avoid her); but the highlight was walking around Woodland Fort.

Woodland Fort is part of a chain of fortifications that stretches around Plymouth, starting by the home I grew up in near the Tamar river, all the way to the Plym river. They were constructed during the 1860s, with Lord Palmerston – Prime Minister at the time – ordering them due to the fear of invasion from the French (a fear that was never realised). By 1920 the military sold off Woodland Fort, and for the past century it has been largely neglected by the local council, no doubt due to the huge cost needed to renovate it and put it to good use.

Having found a couple of geocaches I took the dogs to the fort; I didn’t realise that we could simply walk in and have a gander at all of these lost bits of hidden history. I had previously marvelled at the fort from looking on the outside from the wood, so it was something of a treat to explore in closer detail. The following photographs come from this visit.

If anyone has any information about the history or uses of the fort, I would love to hear from you.