ABSTRACT
Defence activities frequently have an impact upon the form and function of cities that long outlives the original military necessity that created them. The lines of long, obsolete fortifications, the fields of fire or inundation determined by superseded technologies and the buildings erected to accommodate longdeparted armies and their supplies, can remain as visible features of the urban landscape, often shaping the internal morphological structure of the city, centuries after the defence functions which brought them into being have disappeared. Cities whose locations were selected on defence criteria, whose growth was caused and shaped by defence considerations, or whose economies, societies and urban self-image were formed in military service, generally continue in existence once that impetus has disappeared, but with a distinctive legacy, welcome or not, which is directly attributable to the previous defence functions.
