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Shoreham Fort |
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History Work
began on the fort early in the year of 1857 and in June 1857 the fort was
completed and details of cost, armament and accommodation are given in a
record drawing of Shoreham Redoubt, drawn from some old plans and
measurements by W. Mumford, of The Royal Engineers, on the 1st September,
1886. The estimated cost was £10,000 and the actual cost was
£11,685.10s.0d. This was more than the fort at Littlehampton, but it was
slightly bigger as it was built to include six guns instead of five and
the ditch defences were more elaborate. An anonymous note in The
site that Shoreham fort sits is a shingle spit, 1.6 hect (4 acres) on the
west bank, where the river Adur exits to the sea. The spit being separated
from the mainland for nearly 2 miles (3.2km) by the coarse of the river
Adur, until the river then makes it coarse inland, just near Shoreham
airport. The fort was designed to position six muzzle-loaded guns with rifled barrels but the survey drawing records only five mounted at the time. On completion of the fort it was armed with six 68-pounders later replaced by 64-pounders on emplacements I and VI and 32-pounders on emplacements II, III, IV and V, the emplacements stood about 15ft (4.6m) above sea level, so the visibility over the harbour entrance and neighbouring beaches would be increased, increasing the defence of the fort. The underground magazines were each designed to take 126 barrels of gunpowder and the water tanks carried 11,578 gallons. |
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