The primary modern meaning for sally port is a secure, controlled entryway, as of a fortification or a prison. The entrance is usually protected by some means, such as with a fixed wall blocking the door which must be circumvented before entering, but which prevents direct enemy fire from a distance. It may include the use of two doors such as with an airlock. In former times, from around 1600 to 1900, a "sally port" was a sort of dock where boats would pick up a ship's crew and ferry them to the vessel anchored offshore, or vice versa. The term is occasionally still used today, especially in coastal Great Britain. However, there are not many old sally ports left.
Read more about Sally Port: Etymology and Historical Usage, Modern Usage
Famous quotes containing the words sally and/or port:
“It is handsomer to remain in the establishment better than the establishment, and conduct that in the best manner, than to make a sally against evil by some single improvement, without supporting it by a total regeneration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Through the port comes the moon-shine astray!
It tips the guard’s cutlass and silvers this nook;
But ‘twill die in the dawning of Billy’s last day.
A jewel-block they’ll make of me to-morrow,
Pendant pearl from the yard-arm-end
Like the ear-drop I gave to Bristol Molly—
O, ‘tis me, not the sentence they’ll suspend.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)