West Blockhouse Fort
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West Blockhouse Fort is a mid-19th century
coastal artillery Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of c ...
fort at West Blockhouse Point, a rocky
headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, John ...
near Dale, Pembrokeshire, to the west of
Milford Haven Milford Haven ( cy, Aberdaugleddau, meaning "mouth of the two Rivers Cleddau") is both a town and a community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is situated on the north side of the Milford Haven Waterway, an estuary forming a natural harbour that has ...
in Wales.


History


West Blockhouse

The site of the present fort was previously occupied by a disused
blockhouse A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive stro ...
which had been built by order of King
Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
as part of a national fortification programme initiated in 1539. It was called West Blockhouse; a corresponding but uncompleted gun tower on the other side of the Milford Haven Waterway near
Angle In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two Ray (geometry), rays, called the ''Side (plane geometry), sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the ''vertex (geometry), vertex'' of the angle. Angles formed by two ...
was called East Blockhouse. West Blockhouse was demolished in preparation for the construction of the present fort and there are no visible remains.


West Blockhouse Fort

The present fort was planned in the early 1850s in response to a perceived threat from the Emperor Napoleon III of France, who had come to power following a ''coup d'etat'' in December 1851. It was intended to protect the anchorage at the mouth of the Milford Haven Waterway by means of interlocking fire with nearby Thorn Island Fort and Dale Fort which were constructed at the around the same time. A date of 1857 is inscribed over the main entrance, and it had been completed by 1858. Although there were various proposals to either rearm the fort's increasingly obsolete six 68-pounder muzzle-loading guns or to abandon it altogether, it was not until 1893 that it was reduced to the status of a "practice battery" and was finally disarmed in 1900. However, in 1901, the terreplein or gun platform was rebuilt to take four 5-inch gun breech-loading guns and a further two 3 pounder quick-firing guns were installed on the roof of the barrack block. By 1907, the nearby West Blockhouse Battery having been completed, all of the guns at the fort had been removed, but it continued in use for storage and accommodation. During the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the fort became the headquarters of the Haven's
searchlight A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direc ...
defences and two searchlight positions were built close by. The military presence at the fort ended in 1956 and the fort was allowed to become derelict. The buildings were purchased by the
Landmark Trust The Landmark Trust is a British building conservation charity, founded in 1965 by Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or architectural merit and then makes them available for holiday rental. The Trust's headqua ...
in 1969 and the land in the following year. Restoration began in late 1986 and included the internal reconstruction of the barracks as holiday apartments and rebuilding the original brick vaulted roof that had been replaced with concrete to support the quick-firing guns. The architect for the conversion was Andrew Thomas of Thomas Jones Associates,
Builth Wells Builth Wells (; cy, Llanfair-ym-Muallt) is a market town and community in the county of Powys and historic county of Brecknockshire (Breconshire), mid Wales, lying at the confluence of rivers Wye and Irfon, in the Welsh (or upper) part of ...
. The fort became a Grade II*
Listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
in 1996, because it is "Probably the best preserved of all the ' Palmerston Forts' around Milford Haven".


West Blockhouse Battery

In 1900, work started on a battery for modern
breech loading A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle). Modern firearms are generally bre ...
coast artillery on a site 150 yards (138 metres) to the west of the fort and higher up the cliff. At the same time, a similar battery was constructed across the haven at East Blockhouse near Angle. The battery was completed with an armament of two BL 9.2-inch Mk X guns and three BL 6-inch Mk VII guns. Over the following decades, various guns were withdrawn and then reinstated, but in 1939, the 9.2-inch guns were removed, leaving two 6-inch guns which seem to have been manned until the abolition of coastal artillery in 1956. The site is now derelict and although the concrete gun emplacements remain, other features of the battery have been demolished, buried or have become overgrown.


References

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See also

* Palmerston Forts, Milford Haven * West Blockhouse Point Beacons Forts in Pembrokeshire Grade II* listed buildings in Pembrokeshire History of Pembrokeshire Grade II* listed forts Landmark Trust properties in Wales