Hugely entertaining* and interesting afternoon out this week visiting another
one of the local mesh of defences built to defend Portsmouth and the Home
Fleet at the tail end of the 19th Century - and known collectively as
Palmerston Forts (or Folly's if you are of a cynical bent). This time it was
to Stokes Bay No. 2 Battery..
*(said no one in the world ever.. apart from a wargamer..😏)
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| Battery #2 in about 1890 - I've coloured the moat to make it more obvious.. |
This Battery was the largest of five (!) batteries built along
the Stokes Bay Lines in Gosport (at what I think todays equivalent would have been about £12.5M which seems good value), positioned to dominate Spithead, the (Portsmouth) harbour entrance and the eastern Solent but also to provide enfilade and covering fire for other positions in the lines. What remains today is an
architectural onion - so many layers you don't think you could ever unpick
them all!
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Here's what it was built to cover - Portsmouth to the left (east),
Spithead and the eastern Solent in front
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Either way, here's my amateur attempt (and some of the others I visited
with, who are fellow members of the
Palmerston Forts Society [clicky], are unbelievably knowledgeable on this stuff) to try and explain what I
saw, and how it fits.
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| South/sea facing side - those emplacements had 68 pdrs smooth bores first, then 64pdr rifled muzzle loaders, then 7" Rifled Muzzle Loaders.. there's also two layers on show - the darker and lighter concrete marks the transition in the late 1890's |
The Battery went operational in about 1862, it had taken four years to build. It was originally designed to mount 15 guns (the majority of which were 8" smooth bore muzzle loaders, but there were also a couple of 68pdrs) mostly in casemates very similar to those featured earlier in the Blog in the Hilsea Lines, and also like Hilsea it was protected by a moat that went all the way round it
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| All that remains of the original moat - this is on the west side running north/south |
The casemates were
arranged in four ranges (and the map at the top should help you to orientate):
- Left/Front Face with 2 guns on the rampart firing out
to sea (guessing they were the 68pdrs).
- Right/West Face with 6 guns in casemates covering Browndown (another part of the lines) to the west.
- Right/North West Flank with 2 guns firing north-west to provide enfilade fire for Fort
Gomer (another part of the lines).
- Left/East Flank with 3 guns in casemates firing to the
east and 2 further guns in open positions covering the beach in advance of
the moat.
The rear of the battery is open (it was positioned in such a way that the other battery's and forts could cover it, in the same way it did for the others) and when it was built there was no
permanent accommodation (the crews would have had rest area's, but no permanent barracks).
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| Looking down from the ramparts at the back of the west facing casemates - note they are two sizes.. the bigger one's had the guns (and greenhouses 😀) in, the smaller between them would have been some kind of rest area for the crews.. note also how the casemate to the left has been half built over as a result of later developments of the battery |
In the
1880s the smooth bore armament was upgraded, with two 64pdr Rifled Muzzle Loading guns
mounted on the front face and 7" Rifled Breech Loading (RBL) guns elsewhere.
In 1892, following a consultation, the two 64pdr's were replaced with 7" Rifled Muzzle Loading (RML) guns mounted on those fascinating Moncrieff disappearing carriages within the concrete emplacements on top of the battery. Within the battery there were two shell stores/magazines containing 930 7" RBL and 180 7" RML shells (plus barrels of powder and separate charges)
Number 2 Battery’s armament was again
reviewed (and upgraded) in 1899 (fourth upgrade in effect - but this was 37 years after the battery went live so not surprising) along with significant changes to the structure. The 7" Rifled Muzzle Loading guns mounted on the Moncrieff disappearing carriages were replaced with state of the art 6-inch mark VII guns, new magazines were constructed for each gun, together with an additional reserve cartridge store
between them. The old casemates were converted into crew shelters, stores and a married quarters. Some of the old gun casemates were used to install five cone mounted (think upside down funnel with the gun mounted on the spout) maxim machine guns for local defence.
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| The West facing casemates - largely covered as part of the 1899 upgrade/changes - the Museum has plans to get an additional grant to uncover the front face.. |
Unfortunately the construction changes made for this upgrade were far reaching in terms of ongoing damage to the structure as well - the new bits were basically all concrete, and just slapped on top of the old, and which resulted in the huge numbers of chimneys/vents/lifts left to leak for a 150+ years until the current leaseholders (the Historic Diving Society Museum) managed to obtain a Lottery grant to reverse/stop the damage. Think this work is now largely done, and the Museum will re-open next summer..
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| New (left) and old (right) - with an air gap to allow wet/damp/growth..😕 |
The battery was finally disarmed in the early 1900's following the findings of the 1905 Owen Committee who had reviewed all the the defences in the Stokes Bay area and come to the conclusion that the only enemy they would face would already have been badly damaged by outer defences. In the opinion of the Navy this damage would have been bad enough to discourage any further attack so the forts/battery's were superfluous..
The story is not yet over though as in the 1930's the local council purchased the Battery (they still own it), the old parade was used as a caravan park (and greenhouse store 😏) and the casemates for storage but in 1982 the Battery was used as the councils ‘nuclear bunker’ albeit only for 4 or so years..
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| A leftover from the cold war - this was/is the radiation air filter for the nuclear bunker.. |
OK some further photo's which I'll try and group according to context.. these are the two 6-inch mark VII gun emplacements
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Base for the gun mount would have bolted to those.. not lot of difference between this and the next picture but this was the east of the two emplacements..
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| West emplacement... |
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| Expense magazine perhaps? |
I'm a sucker for a casemate - so the following show exteriors and interiors..
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| Expense magazine (for TV storage who knew 😏) interior of one of the west facing casemates.. 162 years that wood surround has lasted - they could have made it a straight edge but they chose to put in a compound curve of both bricks and wooden lintel.. bless 'em.. |
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| Gun opening, same casemate, behind the blanket - note air vent above the opening.. there's soil the other side currently.. |
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| Fully renovated opening on the east side - going to guess this would have been one of the casemates used for the Maxim's - note also the angled edges in the grass which have been put in to show the angle of cover the original gun would have provided - very clever idea who ever had it! |
Time now to move inside the Battery - the following is the (now) main entrance to the battery which is in the middle of the east facing casemates. Unlike the west facing casemates, these are enclosed..
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| Casemate gallery, gun openings to the right - note curved blast proof ceilings |
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| The museum is storing it's exhibits in here, but the gun opening can just be seen - along with an expense store |
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| "Recess, storage for the use of..." |
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| Despite the face that the battery was no longer in use it does look like that at some point soldiers were barracked there as there are still some existing "autograph's" from the time - some of these are dated 1939/1944 and seem to be infantry regiments (rather than anti-aircraft as you might expect).. |
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| Going to guess this might have been a magazine for the guns in the east casemate - it sits at the end of the gallery.. |
Then last of all down into the bowels of the battery to what would have been those new magazines for the MkVII 7" guns..
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| "Serving hatches" for the magazine - shells would have come through here, to be put on the mechanical hoists up to the guns on top of the battery |
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| That's a vent - but this is the hall where shells would have been loaded on to the hoists.. |
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| Inside one of the magazines - light sconce on the wall would have had a lamp in it, with a glass screen either side.. issuing hatch for shells to the left.. |
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| Two more lamp sconces, stairs go up to the west casemate |
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| Close up of a lamp sconce - there are loads of these all over the building, but still those Victorian builders put in the fancy airbricks |
Fantastic day out - very much recommended for a visit..
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Laters, as the young people are want to say...
