Woodland Fort is one of the Palmerston Forts that form Plymouth's north eastern defences, whose purpose was to defend the Royal Dockyard at Devonport from the possibility of a French attack, under the leadership of Napoleon III.

Designed by Captain (later Maj General) Edmund Frederick Du Cane,[1] it was built by George Baker and Company and finished by the Royal Engineers.

It was released by the military in 1920,[2] and eventually became Grade II listed, and is currently on Historic Englands' Buildings at Risk Register.

The gatehouse is sited to the south of the fort and retains some of the original drawbridge mechanism.

The former barracks are still in use and maintained by a group of volunteers but other areas of the fort suffer from a lack of maintenance and vandalism.