Shoreham Fort

Great day by all at the Easter Fun Day – many many thanks to all who turned up and to the volunteers who made this day a great success. We raised over £400 which will help fund our next big event – Military History Weekend!

Egg and spoon races, sack races & the Easter Hunt were enjoyed by all, including some adults! The airsoft shooting range and gun display was out for the first time in 2013, and it was nice to see so many people interested in the history of the fort, and enjoying the tours.

It seemed like we even managed to coax the sunshine out for the first time this year too!

Craig has put together a video which really manage to capture the atmosphere of what a super day it was:

A hearty congratulations goes to the winners of the raffle:

Also massive congratulations to both Mia Salvage and Lizzie MacMillan for winning the best-decorated-egg competition!

Again, many thanks to all who came and supported us, and to all who helped!

What a year of ups and downs we have had!

• Down came the old-coastguard tower that covered the magazine.
• Down we dug to discover the footings of the barrack block.
• Up has gone the number of volunteer joining us.
• Up have gone the number of those following our Facebook page.
• Our iPhone and Android apps have gone up on sale.
• Up has gone our redesigned website.

Our very own Craig has made two videos – one summarising the whole year, and one of the last volunteer day of 2012.

What an enjoyable day it has been, mince pies, Christmas cake, and a touch of mulled wine – and a lot of work!

None of what we are doing could be done with out the support of our friends and volunteers. From all of us at Shoreham Fort:

ITV Meridian visited the fort today, and filmed a piece about our 2012 Heritage lottery bid which is being made this year. It features the volunteers doing work, plus Sharon, Pete and Wayne talking about the fort.

Wow What a possitive day!

Not only was it probably the best turn out of volunteers we have ever had, but we gained new volunteers too! We got the magazines tidy and dug out more of the barrack block, uncovering the main door of the cell with Craig finding a drain. We had guided tours at 1pm and 3pm that Clare and Pete did, which seemed popular and Steve was doing talks on the gun rack which now contains eveverything from the flintlock to the machine gun. This was something new that we tried, in the hope of offering a new service of education and again was very popular, with people holding rifles for the first time.

If this was not good enough, Tim Loughton MP and Nick Neal (Gardner And Scardifield) paid a visit and Nick bought us a great donation of a brand new self propelled lawn mower, a new petrol Strimmer both made by Makita, he also bought the Ladies their well deserved PINK WHEELBARROW so a BIG THANK YOU to Nick

Our next volunteer day is the 30th Septeber so please pop down and help or enjoy a tour and i think Steve may be back with the gun rack too.

Take care until then

Gary Baines

Volunteer Day

On Sunday 19th August, we once again held our fortnightly volunteer day, with tours. Normally we would only do 2 tours (at 1pm and 3pm), but since the weather was so nice, we stayed late, and Pete & Clare ran a special 3rd tour. The day was enjoyed by all, especially as we managed to have a barbecue and a couple of beers after a day of working in the beautiful British summer.

Whilst the tours were being run, we continued to uncover the guard room (adjacent to the original entrance hall). This is a fairly huge task, whilst the room is about the same area as the barrack store, there is about a foot of earth and in-fill above the floor. During the excavation, we found a water pipe that looks like it was added as part of the modifications made to the fort during World War II. Also uncovered was an entrance to the next-door cell (which would’ve most likely been used to keep soldiers who were being disciplined).

Please do check out our progress for the day, in the gallery 19th August 2012

Dates for your diary

On the 1^st & 2^nd of September, we will be holding a stall at Shoreham Airshow, so please if you are in the area, come along and say hello, with the added bonus of being able to watch the amazing action at the airport!

Also on the 2^nd of September, we will be having a volunteer day (with the free tours as per usual) – This will be at the usual time of 11am till 5pm, with the tours at 1pm and 3pm.

Our events are usually organised on Facebook, but will also be listed here, in the top-left of the website. You can check out the Facebook events page for more information.