Newhaven Fort is a Palmerston fort built in the 19th century to defend the harbour at Newhaven, on the south coast of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It was the largest defence work ever built in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...

and is now open as a museum.

History

Design and construction

Newhaven Fort from North side looking in

A new fort to defend the port of Newhaven was a recommendation of the 1859

Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom The Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom was a committee formed in 1859 to enquire into the ability of the United Kingdom to defend itself against an attempted invasion by a foreign power, and to advise the British Government on ...

, during the administration of Lord Palmerston. The design of the fort commenced in 1862 and was overseen by 22-year-old

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

Lieutenant John Charles Ardagh, working from an office in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

.Newhaven Fort - ''Lieutenant Ardagh - The man who built the Fort''
The site selected was on cliffs overlooking the harbour called Castle Hill, which was already occupied by a

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

which originated in the mid-16th century. Instead of levelling the site, as was customary, Ardagh designed the fort to conform to the existing contours. A 40 foot wide

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

protected the northern and western sides of the fort, which were lined with concrete, the first time this material had been used to any extent in a British fortification. The junction of the northern and western arms of the moat was protected by a

counterscarp A scarp and a counterscarp are the inner and outer sides, respectively, of a ditch or moat used in fortifications. Attackers (if they have not bridged the ditch) must descend the counterscarp and ascend the scarp. In permanent fortifications th ...

gallery and a

sally port A sally port is a secure, controlled entry way to an enclosure, e.g., a fortification or prison. The entrance is usually protected by some means, such as a fixed wall on the outside, parallel to the door, which must be circumvented to enter an ...

. The eastern side overlooking the harbour was protected by a short wet moat and by the embankment of the harbour. A

caponier A caponier is a type of defensive structure in a fortification. Fire from this point could cover the ditch beyond the curtain wall to deter any attempt to storm the wall. The word originates from the French ', meaning "chicken coop" (a ''capon'' ...

at the foot of the

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

cliffs was reached by a tunnel from within the fort. The garrison was to be housed in

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" me ...

d barracks built into the northern and western ramparts. The main entrance at the north east angle was accessed by an "Equilibrium Bridge" designed and

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

ed by Ardagh himself. Work commenced in 1864, with a workforce of 250 men and three

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be ...

s. Shingle for the concrete was taken from the beach and clay for the six million bricks required was found nearby. Work was completed in the summer of 1871 and the guns were emplaced in 1873.

Military service

The fort proper was originally armed on the eastern side in the 1870s with two 9-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns on Moncrieff disappearing carriages, the only such arrangement in the UK. From about 1906 the armament consisted of two modern 6-inch Mark VII breechloading naval guns, and two modern light QF 12-pounder guns for defence against

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of ...

s. The main 6-inch Mark VII guns were replaced in 1941 by a battery of BL 6-inch Mk 24 coastal guns (a modern coast defence version of the Mark VII built during World War IITony DiGiulian
British 6"/45 (15.2 cm) BL Mark VII 6"/45 (15.2 cm) BL Mark VIII 6"/45 (15.2 cm) BL Mark XXIV
/ref>), which were located west of the fort. During the Second World War it was manned by the 521st (Kent and Sussex) Coast Regiment, Royal Artillery.

Preservation

The army vacated the fort in 1962. Restoration began in 1982 following a failed commercial redevelopment venture, and 6-inch Mk VII guns have been re-installed in the fort to approximate the 1906 - 1941 armament. The fort is preserved and maintained by Lewes District Council as Newhaven Fort.

Media

In 2015 the fort's network of tunnels was featured extensively in the British horror film, '

The Cutting Room The Cutting Room is a music venue in New York City that was open at 19 West 24th Street from late 1999 through January 2009 for music of all varieties and reopened at the beginning of 2013 in a new location at 44 East 32nd Street. It was co-owned ...

'. In the BBC TV programme ''Great British Railway Journeys'' (Series 7, Episode 7), Michael Portillo visited Newhaven Fort.

Image gallery

File:BL5.5inchGunNewhavenFortMarch2008.jpg, File:BL6inchGunMkVIINewhavenFort1March2008.jpg, File:QF12pounder12cwtNewhavenFort1March2008.jpg, File:Caponnier, Newhaven Fort - geograph.org.uk - 821682.jpg, File:Newhaven Fort stairs down to beach tunnel.jpg,

Notes

External links

Newhaven Fort
: official website
Victorian Forts data sheetRedoubt Fortress Museum
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110618163222/http://www.eastbournemuseums.co.uk/ , date=18 June 2011

Forts in East Sussex Museums in East Sussex Military history of Sussex Palmerston Forts Military and war museums in England Newhaven, East Sussex