Site Records
Site Name: Sheerness - RNXS Emergency Port Control
Garrison Point Fort
Sheerness Docks
Kent RSG site visit 10th September 2002
Royal Naval Auxiliary Service (RNXS)
emergency port control for the Medway estuary was located at Garrison Point Fort
in Sheerness Docks. In times of nuclear war these port emergency centres would
have directed all major shipping out of a danger area and arranged access to and
from ports for friendly vessels. The RNXS
was set up in 1964 and the 'bunker' at Sheerness dates from around this time.
It was established within the old magazines at the Victorian Garrison Point Fort
within Sheerness Docks.
The fort occupies the extreme point of land at the north of the docks and it
was designed to protect the narrow entrance of the Medway between Garrison Point
and the Isle of Grain 800 yards away on the opposite side of the estuary. The
fort was fully armed by 1872 with a mixture of 9" and 10" rifled muzzle loading
(RML) guns in the casemates with 44 guns on two levels. It was rearmed during
the first and second world wars and post war the lower casemates were used for
storage and coastguard facilities and now house the Medway
Ports office. A boarding tunnel for continental ferries (no longer running)
passes through the upper casemates blocking them off. Following the formation
of the RNXS
a section of the lower casemates and the magazines below were converted into a
bunker to house the port control.
Photo:The
parade ground seen from the roof
Photo by Nick Catford
Access to the bunker is through an ordinary wooden door, from a covered way
off the fort parade ground. Just outside the door is a small brick building containing
the standby generator. The door opens directly into an office to the left is the
galley, straight ahead is the canteen/rest room and to the right the toilets.
The galley still retains a stainless steel sink and draining board, food preparation
surface, cupboards and a counter below the serving hatch into the rest room. The
office and the canteen are empty although there are some remnants of the original
use for the room as a gun casemate with chains on the walls. To the right of the
office are the male and female toilets within another casemate and close by is
the filter room which only consists of is one filter in the ventilation trunking.
An original stone spiral staircase gives access to the lower level of the bunker
in the magazines. A section of the circular passage around the fort has been walled
off, this includes a section of the circular narrow lighting passage that runs
round the back of the magazines. (In a Victorian fort a lighting passage would
contain glazed windows into the magazines where an oil lamp could be placed. This
would throw light into the magazine but the glass would stop the flame igniting
the powder stored in the magazine). At the bottom of the staircase the old magazines
left and right have been converted into the bunker. All the rooms were completely
stripped when the bunker closed in 1992 and all that is left is the ventilation
trunking running into each of the rooms. The power is still on in most of the
rooms and corridors although the tunnels are damp with mould on the carpets.
Photo: The
main curved corridor in the old magazines
Photo by Nick Catford
At one end of the main curved corridor are emergency exit stairs back up to
the parade ground and another corridor linking to the lighting passage. There
are two rooms to the left of this corridor, the first was the 'radio room' and
the second room was the 'teleprinter room' which is accessed through a small lobby.
On the wall of the lobby is a cabinet containing two interference capacitors which
would have given the wiring EMP protection.
On the opposite side of this corridor is one of two entrances into the 'control
room' which is 'T' shaped with one of the arms of the 'T' much shorter than the
other. The back wall is painted black. This is where the maps would have been
displayed and there is fluorescent lighting angled on to this wall.
Back in the main corridor there is a second entrance into the control room.
Other rooms accessed from this corridor include an armoury, staff officers room,
workshop, training room and a communications room for DEFPA (Defence of Ports
and Anchorage's) controlling the defence of the ports with a direct line to Eastern
Command. At the far end of the main corridor is a second corridor linking to the
lighting passage with one room on the left hand side.
Access to the rest of the old magazines within the fort has been blocked as
have two shafts up to the casemates which contained ammunition lifts. One of these
shafts have been used to run cables. All the windows in the lighting passage have
also been bricked up although there is a recess in one wall that would have housed
a lamp for lighting the passage itself.
Those taking part in the visit were Nick
Catford, Keith Ward, Bob Jenner,
David Mapley and Robin Ware
Home Page
Last updated 17th September 2002
© 1998-2002 Subterranea Britannica |