Fort Widley | |
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Portsdown Hill Road, Cosham, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England [1] [2] [3] | |
Coordinates | 50°51′15″N1°04′03″W / 50.8541°N 1.0676°W |
Site information | |
Owner | Portsmouth City Council |
Site history | |
Built | 1860–1870 |
Built by | William Tredwell |
Materials | Brick, earth |
Fort Widley is one of the forts built on top of Portsdown Hill between 1860 and 1868 on the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom. [4] It was designed, along with the other Palmerston Forts atop Portsdown, to protect Portsmouth from attack from the rear. [4]
Fort Widley was a polygonal Fort designed by William Crossman, an officer of the Royal Engineers, who was part of the staff of the Inspector General of Fortifications at the War Office. The fort was built up from chalk, with red brick and local flint being used for buildings and revetment to the large dry ditch which was also dug at the same time.
Armament was fitted into three different categories - the main armament which was mounted on a semi-circular rampart, high angle armament provided by 13-inch mortars, mounted in two protected mortar batteries and close range armament, mounted in one full and two demi-caponiers.
Barracks accommodation was also provided for both officers and other ranks.
Even before they were completed questions arose over the effectiveness of the forts in the face of improving weapons technology [5] and the forts were not fitted with guns until some years after they had been completed. [6] This delay resulted in changes to the fort's planned armament. [6] The originally specified 68-pounder smooth-bore guns were never fitted and instead RBL 7 inch Armstrong guns may have been the fort's first armament. [6] In 1885 the fort was reported to have been fitted with some ordnance while the other Portsdown forts were still awaiting their guns. [7] By the 1890s the fort was fitted with five RML 6.6-inch howitzers, ten RBL 7 inch Armstrong guns, two RML 8 inch howitzers and nine RBL 40 pounder Armstrong guns on carriages that could be moved to wherever they were needed. [6] Fort Widley had its guns removed in 1902. [6]
During the Victorian period Fort Widley and the other Portsdown Forts were used to accommodate various infantry units in the barracks. For example, in 1875 the 30th Regiment of foot were quartered there. [8] By 1886 the South Lancashire Regiment was stationed there.
In First World War it was used as a transit depot. During the Second World War it was modified to provide more accommodation. [5] It was then used by a number of units before housing members of the Royal Corps of Signals and Auxiliary Territorial Service supporting the navy command at Fort Southwick. [5] In 1952 the fort became home to a bomb disposal squadron and a year later an emergency civil control centre for Portsmouth was constructed in the fort's magazine.
The fort was leased to Portsmouth City Council (then the Portsmouth Corporation) in 1961 and was sold outright to the council in 1972. [5] In 1990 the Fort was taken into use as an activity centre for the Peter Ashley charity, providing a number of activities, including an equestrian centre.
In September 2010 the fort was used to host a search and rescue exercise based around a simulated earthquake. [9] Titled Exercise Orion, the event involved teams from seven countries dealing with 35 scenarios over 2 days. [9] [10]
Both the Fort and a gun in front of it have been designated Listed Buildings, at Grades II* and II respectively. [11] [12]
In 2018, the fort was used as a setting for the Hollywood film The Last Vermeer.
Today the Fort is home to an equestrian centre run by Peter Ashley Activity Centres. [13]
The Hilsea Lines are a line of 18th- and 19th-century fortifications built at Hilsea to protect the northern approach to Portsea Island, an island off the southern coast of England which forms the majority of the city of Portsmouth and its key naval base. They are now used as a greenspace and leisure area, also known locally as Foxes Forest.
Portsdown Hill is a long chalk ridge in Hampshire, England. The highest point of the hill lies within Fort Southwick at 131m above sea level. The ridge offers good views to the south over Portsmouth, the Solent, Hayling Island and Gosport, with the Isle of Wight beyond. The hill is on the mainland, just to the north of Ports Creek, which separates the mainland from Portsea Island, on which lies the main part of the city of Portsmouth, one of the United Kingdom's main naval bases. To the north lies the Forest of Bere, with the South Downs visible in the distance. Butser Hill can be seen on a clear day. The hill is formed from an inlier of chalk which has been brought to the surface by an east–west upfold of the local strata known as the Portsdown Anticline.
Fort Cumberland is a pentagonal artillery fortification erected to guard the entrance to Langstone Harbour, east of the Dockyard of Portsmouth on the south coast of England. It was sited to protect the Royal Navy Dockyard, by preventing enemy forces from landing in Langstone Harbour and attacking from the landward side. Fort Cumberland is widely recognised as the finest example of a bastion trace fort in England. It is a scheduled monument and a Grade II* listed building
Fort Gilkicker is a historic Palmerston fort built at the eastern end of Stokes Bay, Gosport, Hampshire England to dominate the key anchorage of Spithead. It was erected between 1863 and 1871 as a semi-circular arc with 22 casemates, to be armed with five twelve-inch guns, seventeen ten-inch guns and five nine-inch guns. The actual installed armament rather differed from this. In 1902 the RML guns were replaced by two 9.2-inch and two six-inch BL guns, and before the First World War the walls were further strengthened with substantial earthwork embankments. The fort was disarmed in 1956 and used for storage until 1999, and is currently in a state of disrepair.
Fort Southwick is one of the forts found on Portsdown Hill, which overlooks the naval base of Portsmouth in the county of Hampshire, England.
Fort Fareham is one of the Palmerston Forts, in Fareham, England. After the Gosport Advanced Line of Fort Brockhurst, Fort Elson, Fort Rowner, Fort Grange and Fort Gomer had been approved by the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom a decision was made to build an outer line of three more forts two miles in advance of the Gosport Advanced Line. Of these three projected forts only Fort Fareham was built due to the need to cut costs. It acted as a hinge between the forts on Portsdown Hill and those of the Gosport Advanced Line, filling the gap at Fareham. It has been a Grade II Listed Building since 1976.
Fort Nelson, in the civil parish of Boarhunt in the English county of Hampshire, is one of five defensive forts built on the summit of Portsdown Hill in the 1860s, overlooking the important naval base of Portsmouth. It is now part of the Royal Armouries, housing their collection of artillery, and a Grade I Listed Building.
A muzzle-loading rifle is a muzzle-loaded small arm or artillery piece that has a rifled barrel rather than a smoothbore. The term "rifled muzzle loader" typically is used to describe a type of artillery piece, although it is technically accurate for small arms as well. A shoulder arm is typically just called a "rifle", as almost all small arms were rifled by the time breechloading became prevalent. Muzzle and breechloading artillery served together for several decades, making a clear distinction more important. In the case of artillery, the abbreviation "RML" is often prefixed to the guns designation; a Rifled breech loader would be "RBL", or often just "BL", since smoothbore breechloading artillery is almost nonexistent. A muzzle loading weapon is loaded through the muzzle, or front of the barrel. This is the opposite of a breech-loading weapon or rifled breechloader (RBL), which is loaded from the breech-end of the barrel. The rifling grooves cut on the inside of the barrel cause the projectile to spin rapidly in flight, giving it greater stability and hence range and accuracy than smoothbore guns. Hand held rifles were well-developed by the 1740s. A popularly recognizable form of the "muzzleloader" is the Kentucky Rifle, which was actually developed in Pennsylvania. The American Longrifle evolved from the German "Jäger" rifle.
Fort Gomer was one of the Palmerston Forts, in Gosport, England, the southernmost and first-built Polygonal fort in the defence line to the west of Gosport. It was located on land immediately to the west of the present Gomer Lane. Fort Gomer was the most southerly fort in the line of five which formed part of the ‘Sea Front and Spithead Defences’, Inner Line, Land Front, Left Flank. This line of forts was later known as the Gomer-Elson Line or 'Gosport Advanced Line' This consisted of, from south to north, Fort Gomer, Fort Grange, Fort Rowner, Fort Brockhurst and Fort Elson. An inscription above the main entrance through the barrack block read `Erected AD 1853’. The fort was almost complete before work began on Fort Elson in 1855. The estimated cost of Fort Gomer was £92,000 in 1869.
Browndown Battery, also referred to erroneously in some sources as Browndown Fort, is a former military coastal defence fortification and base on the Southern shoreline of England in the county of Hampshire. First erected in the mid-1840s, the battery was continuously modified until disarmed in 1905/6. It has been a Grade II Listed Building since 1983.
The RML 9-inch guns Mark I – Mark VI were large rifled muzzle-loading guns of the 1860s used as primary armament on smaller British ironclad battleships and secondary armament on larger battleships, and also ashore for coast defence. It should not be confused with the RML 9-inch Armstrong Gun, used by the Dutch navy, the Spanish Navy, and other navies.
Puckpool Battery is a battery located at Puckpool Point, close to the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. It is one of the many Palmerston Forts built on the island to protect it in response to a perceived French invasion. Construction of the battery began in 1863 and was completed by March 1865.
Redcliff Battery is a battery located to the west of the Culver Cliffs and east of Yaverland on the Isle of Wight, England. It is one of the many Palmerston Forts built on the island to protect it in response to a perceived French invasion. Construction of the battery began in April 1861 and was complete by September 1863 at a cost of £4,776. Most of it has fallen into the sea. Only small amount left May 2020
Sandown Barrack Battery is a battery located in Sandown Bay close to Sandown on the Isle of Wight in England. It is one of the many Palmerston Forts built on the island to protect it in response to a perceived French invasion.
Fort Rowner is one of the Palmerston Forts, in Gosport, England.
The Stokes Bay Lines were part of the great Victorian fortification of Portsmouth Harbour under Lord Palmerston. In 1857 Major Jervois had proposed a complex system of moats (ditches), ramparts and batteries to close off the gap between the new fort at Fort Gomer, and the earlier fort at Fort Gilkicker, and Fort Monckton. This defensive moat was to become the ‘Stokes Bay Lines’.
Fort Monckton is a historic military fort on the south-east shoreline of the Gosport peninsula, Hampshire. Built on the ruins of Haselworth Castle to protect Portsmouth Harbour at the start of the American War of Independence, it was rebuilt in the 1880s as a Palmerston fort.
Fort Elson was one of the early Palmerston Forts, in Gosport, England, the northernmost polygonal land fort in the defence line to the west of Gosport. It was located on land immediately to the south of Elson Creek, to which it was connected by a sluice. Fort Elson was the most northerly fort in the line of five which formed part of the ‘Sea Front and Spithead Defences’, Inner Line, Land Front, Left Flank. This line of forts was later known as the Gomer-Elson Line or 'Gosport Advanced Line' This consisted of, from south to north, Fort Gomer, Fort Grange, Fort Rowner, Fort Brockhurst and Fort Elson. Work began on Fort Elson in 1855. The estimated cost of Fort Elson was £63,740 with the actual cost £61,180.
The RML 8-inch howitzer was a British Rifled, Muzzle Loading (RML) Howitzer manufactured in England in the 19th century, which fired a projectile weighing approximately 180 pounds (82 kg). It was used in siege batteries and in fortifications.
The RML 6.6 inch howitzer was a British Rifled, Muzzle Loading (RML) Howitzer manufactured in England in the 19th century, which fired a projectile weighing approximately 100 pounds (45 kg). It was used in siege batteries and in fortifications.