Bembridge Fort, IOW

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hnmisty

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I thought I'd make this my first proper thread...
I found this place on the map so we went to have a look whilst we were onto the Isle of Wight at Easter.
It was a bit of a shock to say the least, I was expecting a pile of earth!

Its an old Palmerston fort, built to help protect Portsmouth from the French. It was used during WWI and again during WWII as an anti aircraft station, you could still see some of the gun placements.
Place was locked up as tight as could be (there's a company who have some aerials in there) but it is opened every now and again by the National Trust in IoW, will have to go to one of these because it fascinated me!

There's a bit more info here
http://islandupdate.org/History.aspx

I'm pretty sure there is an AA gun placement at the top in this one
bembridge3.jpg


It had these at all the corners
bembridge4.jpg


And very pretty walls!
bembridge2.jpg


bembridge5.jpg

bembridge.jpg


I would liked to have got more pics but my camera memory was full. There were what may have been air vents the whole way round the outside, my sister's foot kept going down them!

We also explored all the NT and EH sites (I may have been sick on King Charles II's bowling green at Carisbrooke Castle, oops!) and a very intriguing, tiny little church and very old grave yard, but unfortunately we were having to rush for the ferry and camera memory card was completely full by then so only got two pics on my phone and don't know how to get them on here!

Hope you enjoy and hope I did it all right!
 
Nice one mate, I am intending to visit IOW at some point in the future so may have to get myself to this place. :)
 
I should get my arse in gear and get my report up when I went on an open day.

It is currently owned by the NT, and space is rented to a company called Micronair, who have been in there since the 60/70s.
The thing you can see up on top is an Allen Williams Turret, there are 2 of them, there is also a gun pit for a lewis gun.
The bits on the corners are called Carponiars, 2 levels inside to the soldiers inside could protect the fort, if anyone entered the dry moat.
Its quite fancy as the designer of this one, upon excavating all the chalk, decided it would be handy to use the flint that came out with it, within the walls, hence the pretty patterns.
There is alot of history in this place, I think Palmerston Forts has a bit, aswell as photos.
Im pretty sure the aerials are met ones, and measure the weather, rain fall, wind, temp etc etc.

But not a bad first report :mrgreen:
 
Thanks for the extra info! :D I did wonder why they went to such an effort to make the walls look nice!
I'm doing my Gold D of E and am thinking of finding out if I can do my residential there...
Did you get out to Appuldurcombe House whilst you were on IoW? Its an EH ruined Baroque house, was abandoned and then had its roof blown off by an AWOL sea mine dropped in WWII.
Will have to go back there and investigate some of the ones you found, will try to remember the name of the little church and graveyard I found.
 
Hi mate, yeh Im aware of Appuldurcombe, I had a look round there a while ago, cant remember if I put a report up or not.

I live here, so most of my reports are local, click my siggy below for the reports.

Where abouts was this church, we have a few :mrgreen:
 
It was not far out from Yarmouth, maybe a mile or two? Next to a bloody gurt manor house, its down a very short footpath, amongst some trees. The name that's sticking in my mind is St Swithins, google produces a Swithins Crescent near where I think it is and a St Swithins church but its big and not quite in the right place, I must have got the name wrong. On the OS map it says "ruins of" but what was there wasn't a ruin, 4 walls and a roof.
We absolutely loved IoW and certainly enjoyed the sunshine- came home to a grey, drizzly Somerset. Joy!

ETA:
Apparently its Old Thorley Church/St Swithun's Church
http://www.isle-of-wight-fhs.co.uk/gallery/ga/images/thorley_old_church.jpg
Are you allowed to take ladders??!
Looks like its the old church and then they built a newer one in 1871
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Swithun's_Church,_Thorley
 
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be honest though UM it was a CRAP open day it was nice to say we did it but Micron Air have trashed it and its empty
 
It was ok, but it is quite trashed and stripped, due to Micronair, ripping it about, plus it lay derelict and prone to vandals in the early 60s, so I bet alot of it disappeared back then too.
Was nice to see, and the NT guy was a bit of a rebel when we told him to get a few 'out of bounds' bits open for us :p
 

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