Cliffe fort
For my first full exploration I decided to give cliffe fort a go. There was enough information available during my research for me to be confident enough to give this a try. The walk down to the fort is about a mile, past the sailing club, they didn’t seem to pay too much attention to me so I just carried on. I definitely learnt the lesson that ‘less is more’ of this explore, as after lugging all my camera gear there and my heavy old manfrotto studio tripod – none of which I used!
Firstly I took a little wander around, and spotted these wrecks which I took a few pics of.
Access to the fort was easy to spot, it clearly is regularly visited, there were even some helpful (if wobbly) homemade steps there!
History bit. Cliffe fort is part of the defences built to protect England during the 1800’s. There is a series of redoubts, lager forts like fort Amherst and the royal military canal. All were designed to slow down land based attacks from the continent towards London. Cliffe fort was designed to protect the river Thames from enemy ships sailing up and giving the country a pounding! What is really interesting is that Cliffe fort has A Brennan Torpedo station which was added in 1890. This was a really clever wire-guided missile used for harbor defense, and it was guided by an operator at the fort, and by adjusting the wires it can be moved left and right to hit enemy ships, which is pretty clever for the 1890’s! more information about the Brennan Torpedo can be found here:
Brennan torpedo - Wikipedia
The fort was used during the first and second world war and armed with anti aircraft guns. The fort has solid casemates for protection.
As I went in the middle of the day, I did have to keep as out of sight as possible. The fort is in 3 levels, the bottom level is flooded, there is a very helpful rope down to the middle level and the upper level.
Enough chat – to the pictures.
The sign greeting you ☺
Exterior
The torpedo launcher
Inside the fort
Excuse the 'wonky' ones - first explore excitement!
For my first full exploration I decided to give cliffe fort a go. There was enough information available during my research for me to be confident enough to give this a try. The walk down to the fort is about a mile, past the sailing club, they didn’t seem to pay too much attention to me so I just carried on. I definitely learnt the lesson that ‘less is more’ of this explore, as after lugging all my camera gear there and my heavy old manfrotto studio tripod – none of which I used!
Firstly I took a little wander around, and spotted these wrecks which I took a few pics of.
Access to the fort was easy to spot, it clearly is regularly visited, there were even some helpful (if wobbly) homemade steps there!
History bit. Cliffe fort is part of the defences built to protect England during the 1800’s. There is a series of redoubts, lager forts like fort Amherst and the royal military canal. All were designed to slow down land based attacks from the continent towards London. Cliffe fort was designed to protect the river Thames from enemy ships sailing up and giving the country a pounding! What is really interesting is that Cliffe fort has A Brennan Torpedo station which was added in 1890. This was a really clever wire-guided missile used for harbor defense, and it was guided by an operator at the fort, and by adjusting the wires it can be moved left and right to hit enemy ships, which is pretty clever for the 1890’s! more information about the Brennan Torpedo can be found here:
Brennan torpedo - Wikipedia
The fort was used during the first and second world war and armed with anti aircraft guns. The fort has solid casemates for protection.
As I went in the middle of the day, I did have to keep as out of sight as possible. The fort is in 3 levels, the bottom level is flooded, there is a very helpful rope down to the middle level and the upper level.
Enough chat – to the pictures.
The sign greeting you ☺
Exterior
The torpedo launcher
Inside the fort
Excuse the 'wonky' ones - first explore excitement!
