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The unauthorised cultivation of flowering plants and the erection of two pennant stands inside the redoubt may add to the attraction of the sites. However, the careless replacement of the old military path that linked Gough Battery and the 196m site by a new cement path is one example of human actions that can destroy the historic physique of the sites.
The removal of the remaining beams and roofs over the firing trenches at the Devil's Peak Redoubt by unknown visitors or squatters is another example. The fixing of a pole outside the Yau Tong-facing external wall of the redoubt, which might have aggravated the settlement of the wall, is a third example. Hill fires caused by careless smokers and cemetery visitors are a fourth problem. Hill fires pose a big problem, as they lead to serious soil erosion, though such fires may expose some interesting features for pillbox hunters. The erosion is so serious that many natural and man-made features that existed on the 1:600 government survey plan of 1963 can no longer be seen now. An example is the waterway that drains the 6-inch gun emplacement of Gough Battery to the vicinity of the pillbox on the rock (referred to above) has disappeared.
Although the area under study is not part of a country park, the two sites, under government ownership, have escaped the fate of being converted into a service reservoir in the late 1970s and have been protected passively since as a statutory Green Belt zone. Yet, the last government planning proposal to actively manage the area as part of an "urban fringe park," suggested in Metroplan, has yet to be taken up by a government department. It is in this context that the recent construction of a cement path that links the Gough Battery, the 196 m site, and the redoubt could pose a major additional threat to the survival of the remains on the sites, by improving access to a site without any facilities management.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their thanks to Mr. R.G. Horsnell and Mr. Tim K. Ko for their useful advice on the military aspects of the structures on both sites in the course of finalising this paper. They also thank the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust for providing financial support.
114
The unauthorised cultivation of flowering plants and the erection of two pennant stands inside the redoubt may add to the attraction of the sites. However, the careless replacement of the old military path that linked Gough Battery and the 196m site by a new cement path is one example of human actions that can destroy the historic physique of the sites.
The removal of the remaining beams and roofs over the firing trenches at the Devil's Peak Redoubt by unknown visitors or squatters is another example. The fixing of a pole outside the Yau Tong-facing external wall of the redoubt, which might have aggravated the settlement the wall, is a third example. Hill fires caused by careless smokers and cemetery visitors are a fourth problem. Hill fires pose a big problem, as they lead to serious soil erosion, though such fires may expose some interesting features for pillbox hunters. The erosion is so serious that many natural and man-made features that existed on the 1:600 government survey plan of 1963 can no longer be seen now. An example is the waterway that drains the 6-inch gun emplacement of Gough Battery to the vicinity of the pillbox on the rock (referred to above) has disappeared.
Although the area under study is not part of a country park, the two sites, under government ownership, have escaped the fate of being converted into a service reservoir in the late 1970s and have been protected passively since as a statutory Green Belt zone. Yet, the last government planning proposal to actively manage the area as part of an "urban fringe park," suggested in Metroplan, has yet to be taken up by a government department. It is in this context that the recent construction of a cement path that links the Gough Battery, the 196 m site, and the redoubt could pose a major additional threat to the survival of the remains on the sites, by improving access to a site without any facilities management.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their thanks to Mr. R.G. Horsnell and Mr. Tim K. Ko for their useful advice on the military aspects of the structures on both sites in the course of finalising this paper. They also thank the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust for providing financial support
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