Shornemead Fort is a now-disused artillery fort that was built in the 1860s to guard the entrance to the Thames from seaborne attack. Constructed during a period of tension with France, it stands on the south bank of the river at a point where the Thames curves sharply north and west, giving the fort long views up and downriver in both directions. It was the third fort constructed on the site since the 18th century, but its location on marshy ground led to major problems with subsidence. The fort was equipped for a time with a variety of large-calibre artillery guns which were intended to support two other nearby Thamesside forts. However, the extent of the subsidence meant that it became unsafe for the guns to be fired and the fort was disarmed by the early 20th century.

Shornemead Fort was in use from its completion in 1870 to its abandonment in the 1950s. Much of it was demolished by the Army Demolition School of the Royal Engineers in the 1960s. The barracks and administrative buildings have been completely destroyed and only the front of the casemates survives along with the magazines underneath, though the latter are now flooded and inaccessible. The surviving fragments of the fort and the area around it are part of a nature reserve and can be visited by the public.

Early development

left|thumb|Map of the area of Cliffe, Coalhouse and Shornemead Forts

The Thames was guarded by a number of forts built around Gravesend and Tilbury in the 16th and 17th centuries but these were inadequate against the threat of the new generation of artillery that had emerged by the end of the 18th century. The first Shornemead Fort was provided with a barracks, magazine and defensible gorges and was planted with walnut trees nearby to supplement the garrison's food supply and provide wood for the stocks of their muskets.

After the defeat of Napoleon the battery was abandoned. It was rebuilt in the mid-1840s, along with Coalhouse Fort. The second Shornemead Fort was constructed between 1848–52 to a polygonal plan inspired by the ideas of the French military engineer Montalembert, in a novel move away from the bastioned trace design used in other British forts of the time. It was an open battery like the first fort, but with much more numerous and powerful artillery – thirteen 32-pdr. guns on traversing carriages, each with a range of . It recommended that a triangle of forts should be established on the lower Thames, east of Gravesend. This would involve replacing the old Coalhouse Fort on the Essex shore with a new fortification, similarly replacing the existing Shornemead Fort and building a wholly new fort at Cliffe. The location of the forts would enable interlocking arcs of fire from their guns. It was originally intended that the forts would form part of a line of defences running all the way to Chatham, but the rest of this chain was never built. Shornemead was regarded as being in a particularly strategic location as it commanded river bends at which ships would have to slow down, making them more vulnerable.

Construction

The third and final iteration of Shornemead Fort was constructed between 1861 and 1870 at an estimated cost of £211,063. It was substantially larger than its predecessor, replacing the vulnerable open emplacements with immensely strong casemates capable of resisting direct artillery fire. They were over thick, with layers of steel and wood faced with granite.

At some point between 1895 and 1907, Shornemead Fort was disarmed. Subsidence had made it structurally unsafe for its emplaced guns to be fired, and it was in any case strategically redundant by that point. It was used for a time by the Thames Militia Division (Submarine Miners), Royal Engineers, as a training facility linked with the nearby submarine mining depot. It was temporarily re-armed in 1913 with two 12-pdr. QF guns in emplacements outside the fort and again in 1941 when it was designated as an emergency battery.

The barrack accommodation of Shornemead Fort was used for many years by soldiers training on the nearby Milton rifle range. A permanent staff was based at the fort, and the barracks included lecture rooms, staff accommodation and even a swimming pool built to the east of the fort.

References

  • Palmerston Forts Society
  • Photographs of Shornemead Fort in the 1920s
  • Photographs of the flooded magazines under Shornemead Fort