Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Defence of the Realm - Penarth Head Fort and Coastal Battery . . .

The second defence will be batteries on each side of the Steep Holmes, the third similar batteries on both sides of the Flat Holmes, and the fourth defence a fort mounting heavy ordnance at Lavernock Point, a promontory just below Penarth Roads. Between these defences a very formidable crossfire could be maintained. In no case would the ordnance be required to command a greater range than 2,000 yards. - The Engineer [015] [499] 22nd August 1862.

1864 - Fortifications - Defence of the Bristol channel : Mr. Newdegate said (in Parliament), he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, What arrangements for the defence of the Bristol Channel have been made? Viscount Palmerston replied, that his noble Friend at the head of the War Department had made arrangements for the purchase of sites at Portishead, with a view to the erection of batteries for the defence of the south side of that channel. There were two Holmes called the Steep and the Flat Holmes in that vicinity, and also another point, he thought, on the north side. Surveys were being made, and steps would be taken in order to obtain sites at those places in the event of batteries being required there. - Hansard [931] 22nd April 1864.

1892 - 'Many local gentlemen who are entitled to write Colonel, Major, Captain, etc., before their names have written in that we are absolutely defenseless should an enemy send an ironclad up Channel to attack us. I hear a subscription is about to  be started to defray the cost of mounting a Gatling gun and two pea shooters on the tower of the Church ; this should frighten the "darned mounseer" and would be quite as effective as the present armaments on Lavernock and the Holms.' - Penarth Observer [1132] 13th May 1892.

1893 - 'The Garrison Gunner is, in my opinion, most necessary as a deterrent ; his usefulness is like that of a notice that 'A Fierce Dog is on the Premises.' - Lt.Col Sir George Clarke, KCMG, RE - 28th December 1893. [1134