Fort Luton

En un regard

Le château en bref

Fort Luton is the smallest of the five late-Victorian land forts that covered the approaches to the Chatham naval dockyard. It stands astride the Luton valley, at the mouth of which Chatham lies, and belongs to the ring of fortifications decided upon after the Royal Commission of 1859 amid fears of a French invasion. Built by convicts between 1877 and 1892, with a long interruption due to budget restrictions, it has an irregular pentagonal plan surrounded by a narrow, deep ditch. Beneath the front rampart are four ammunition magazines fitted with hoists, while at the gorge eight earth-covered concrete casemated barrack rooms are linked to the magazines by tunnels. Its 1892 rolling drawbridge is said to be the only one of its kind surviving in the United Kingdom. Used for siege exercises until 1907, as a transit barracks in 1914-1918 and then as an anti-aircraft operations room in 1939, the fort was later abandoned and briefly served as a private museum in the 1990s. Since 2012, new owners have been restoring it and present underground museums there, open on selected days.