Monument record 0563600000 - THE CITADEL, WEST WYCOMBE PARK (RIVER WYE)

1752 map marks 'fort & citadel', an island in Wye beside old London-Oxford road (tracing filed). Resembles typical civil war sconce - a square feature with triangular projections & a 'tail', also with projections at the sides & a pointed end. Genuine? (NB proximity of road) or C18 Dashwood garden 'folly' for mock battles etc? (B1).
Island now featureless. No indications of fort (B2).
Thomas Phillibrown's diary records a visit to West Wycombe in the 1750s and describes how Francis Dashwood kept a small fleet of ships moored on the lake for mock battles with 'a battery of guns in form of a fort' (B3).
Several of Dashwood's vessels on the lake, including a modestly sized yacht and what might be described as a 'man-of-war' (said to be of 60 tons), can be seen in William Hannan's paintings of 1752, later engraved by William Woollett. Sir Francis also built himself a small fort and during one battle the fun had to be suspended after one of the captains was hit by a blank round 'which occasion'd him to spit blood and so put an end to the battle' (B4).
The 1752 Jolivet map depicts and lists a citadel set on an island within the river to the east of the Cascade. An elevation plan of the citadel by Jolivet (perhaps not shown as finally constructed) also exists. The citadel as depicted on the map comprised an elongated diamond-shaped island set in line with the watercourse, topped by a fort with triangular bastions at the north, south and west corners. A more elaborate diamond-shaped bastion is depicted at the east end of the structure and there is a suggestion of a continuous parapet. It may have been constructed as a folly or as the setting for spectacles and amusements, but the fort's location at the nearest point to the original Oxford-London road and its mid 18th century replacement hints at the possibility of a more serious intent. The citadel, if it was ever built, seems to have been demolished by the time of the 1767 map. Richardson depicts the island as an irregular oval, tapering slightly to the east, with no signs of former structures. The 'Citadel', possibly pre-dating Jolivet's plan by at least two decades, survives as an oval platform flanked by the river on the north and south. It measures 90m in length and is 10m at its widest point. The island is enclosed by a very low earth wall and the current form correlates well with its depiction on Richardson's map but contrasts markedly with the earlier description by Jolivet, and it is uncertain if the Fort was ever built to the specifications outlined on Jolivet's drawing (B6).