Hilpsford Fort Walney, Barrow-in-Furness Cumbria

Hilpsford Fort was constructed during 1914 as a WWI emergency battery, and was dismantled in the 1920's, providing a source of much-needed labour to this employment-starved area. The artillery was reinstated in 1940, with new construction work undertaken. A 14-day job by the Royal Engineers actually took 19 days, due to 'bad ground'. Six-inch hand-loaded guns were employed, upon which the gunners of the Workington 406th Coast-Battery Home-Guard volunteers (amongst others) undertook several training courses, including firing common-point shells weighing 100lbs!

Gun holdfasts 6 in total







Coastal Artillery Searchlight Emplacement





Another now serving as a base for a bird watching hide



Underground bunkers (magazines ?)







Couple of unidentified surface structures





Phil

Nice find, Phil. I like the use for a bird hide. Such a shame it's all crumbling away now, though.
I'm wondering if the last structure was the generator room. Did you manage to look inside there at all?
Cheers.

Foxylady said:

Nice find, Phil. I like the use for a bird hide. Such a shame it's all crumbling away now, though.
I'm wondering if the last structure was the generator room. Did you manage to look inside there at all?
Cheers.

Click to expand...

Hi Foxy,

There's 2 on site but they're so full of junk that I couldn't tell if any bases remain

Phil

shatters said:

There's 2 on site but they're so full of junk that I couldn't tell if any bases remain
l

Click to expand...

Ah, I wondered if that might be the case.