En un regard
Le château en bref
Fort Wallington is one of the forts built along the crest of Portsdown Hill, north of Portsmouth, following the 1859 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, to protect the naval base against an attack from inland at a time when war with the France of Napoleon III was feared. The second work from the west in a line of six forts (Fareham, Wallington, Nelson, Southwick, Widley, Purbrook), it was built around 1860, during Lord Palmerston's second ministry.
Set into the hillside, the fort had a central projection shaped like a pointed tooth (a redan). Its red-brick fronts, topped by a band of earth capped with stone coping, carried castellated parapets on the flanks; the plainer sections had round-headed "Norman"-style doorways with stone shafts, as well as flat-arched or segmental-arched windows.
Like the other forts in the line, it never served its original purpose. Its owner had it largely demolished in 1961-1962 to make way for an industrial estate; the eastern part had gone by 1974 and the M27 motorway works levelled the earthworks. Only the gorge walls, the outer wall of the redan and the guardroom area survive, protected as a Grade II listed building.
