Sunderland, Wave Basin Battery

HER Number:
84

District:
Sunderland

Site Name:
Sunderland, Wave Basin Battery

Place:
Sunderland

Map Sheet:
NZ45NW

Class:
Defence

Site Type: Broad:
Battery

Site Type: Specific:
Coastal Battery

General Period:
Early Modern

Specific Period:
C19

Form of Evidence:
Structure

Description:
The general anxiety about the defences of the UK led to the River Wear Commissioners giving the War Office in 1860 a site for the erection of a battery on the south side of the River Wear, next to the Wave Basin. Its precise date of construction is unknown, but the battery was certainly finished by 1882. It was "entirely constructed of masonry and consisted of a mole projecting into the river, surmounted by four gun emplacements …The main armament consisted of four 80 pounder Rifled Muzzle Loading (RML) Guns", - old 68 pounder smooth bore guns converted by the insertion of rifled liners. Because of the expansion of the port and construction of new piers, the battery was soon obsolete, and was retained only for training until perhaps the beginning of the 20th century. LISTED GRADE 2

Easting:
4092

Northing:
5814

Grid Reference:
NZ40925814

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 84 >> Fortress Study Group, 1987, Wave Basin Battery, Sunderland, Fortress Study Group Conference, 1988, The Defences of Tyneside - Wave Basin Battery, pp. 1-2 Dept. of National Heritage, of Buildings of Special ... Interest, 920-1/9/215 1875, Official plan of Hudson Docks in Sinclair N.T., 1986, Railways of Sunderland, p 60; NMR monument number 956440; Vertical aerial photograph reference number RAF 106G/UK/1585 5006 20-JUN-1946; C.S. Dobinson 2000 Twentieth century fortifications in England. Volume 6.1. Coast Artillery, 1900-1956 6.1 Page(s)106-115; C.S. Dobinson 2000 Twentieth century fortifications in England. Volume 6.2. Coast Artillery, 1900-1956, 6.2 Page(s)227; Michael J. Anderton 2000 Twentieth century military recording project: World War Two Coastal Batteries, page 57