Hi all,yet another monster of a day last week in Kent !!!
Decided that a trip to the Medway area was in order and duly reserched the available sites,as per usual,however,we bit off much more than we could chew and only got to about 50% of them !! Still,gives us more reason to go back.!!
The main purpose for visiting Cliffe was,obviously,to view the Fort,but,on the way there is quite a bit to see !!
First off is this abandoned 'floating'crane which must have been rusting away here for years !!!
A few hundred yards further along the path(and after walking over the roof of a completely buried pillbox) a set of anti tank cubes are visible.(apparantly-i've since discovered that these have original names scratched into the concrete)
Next up is the wreck of The Hans Egede a wooden auxilliary 3 masted ship built in 1922 at Thuro Denmark,which has probably been beached here since the sixties.
Just after here you get the first real glimpse of the fort ! And its bloody impressive !!
Allocated to the Fort in 1890 was a Brennan Torpedo Station.This torpedo was basically a wire guided harbour defence missile that was launched by rails.It became a standard harbour defence throughout the British Empire and Cliffe was one of 3 bases in Britain.It was decommisioned in 1905 !!
Amazingly,at low tide the launch area can still be seen.
........Torpedo's eye view !!
Now onto the Fort (which has been done on here before)so, just a few phots!!
Finally a couple of shots of the Coastel Battery watch towers/control offices that remain.
Well worth a visit !!We didnt manage to get into the interior of the fort, unfortunately,and after pressing the shutter for the last time were evicted from the site by the countries friendliest security patrol !!
Decided that a trip to the Medway area was in order and duly reserched the available sites,as per usual,however,we bit off much more than we could chew and only got to about 50% of them !! Still,gives us more reason to go back.!!
The main purpose for visiting Cliffe was,obviously,to view the Fort,but,on the way there is quite a bit to see !!
First off is this abandoned 'floating'crane which must have been rusting away here for years !!!
A few hundred yards further along the path(and after walking over the roof of a completely buried pillbox) a set of anti tank cubes are visible.(apparantly-i've since discovered that these have original names scratched into the concrete)
Next up is the wreck of The Hans Egede a wooden auxilliary 3 masted ship built in 1922 at Thuro Denmark,which has probably been beached here since the sixties.
Just after here you get the first real glimpse of the fort ! And its bloody impressive !!
Allocated to the Fort in 1890 was a Brennan Torpedo Station.This torpedo was basically a wire guided harbour defence missile that was launched by rails.It became a standard harbour defence throughout the British Empire and Cliffe was one of 3 bases in Britain.It was decommisioned in 1905 !!
Amazingly,at low tide the launch area can still be seen.
........Torpedo's eye view !!
Now onto the Fort (which has been done on here before)so, just a few phots!!
Finally a couple of shots of the Coastel Battery watch towers/control offices that remain.
Well worth a visit !!We didnt manage to get into the interior of the fort, unfortunately,and after pressing the shutter for the last time were evicted from the site by the countries friendliest security patrol !!
