Part of an extensive scheme known as Palmerston Forts, after the prime minister who championed the scheme, it was built to defend the landward approaches to the east of Plymouth, as an element of the plan for the defence of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Devonport.

Designed by Captain (later Maj General) Edmund Frederick Du Cane,[1] it was built by George Roach and Company.

The fort was connected by a military road to the nearby Stamford Fort, Watch House Battery and Brownhill Battery.

[3] By the early 1900s the fort had become obsolete as a defensive position and was disarmed.

Along with a number of other parts of the Staddon Heights defences, it became a scheduled monument in 1969.