En un regard
Le château en bref
The Fort on Blyth Links, originally known as Fort Coulson and later as the Link House Battery, is a coastal defence complex set on a sand-dune hill on Blyth Links, south of the harbour, on the Northumberland coast. It is not a castle but an artillery battery whose structures are partly built into the sand.
The site dates from the late 19th century and takes its name from Captain Coulson, the Royal Engineers officer responsible for its construction. During the First World War it was remodelled (1914-1918, with the battery dated 1916) to protect the port of Blyth and its submarine base, and was armed with two 6-inch guns. Decommissioned after the war, it was returned to the borough of Blyth (Blyth Corporation) in 1925, then brought back into service and altered during the Second World War.
The complex retains two seaward-facing gun emplacements linked by a wall and a low shelter, a magazine dug into the landward side of the dune, a two-storey hexagonal Defence Electric Light director station, a five-sided blockhouse and a 1939-1945 lookout tower. Historic England regards it as a rare survival of a First World War coastal defence complex. Today it houses a free-entry museum of military and local history.