Monument record TQ 67 SE 1322 - Shornemead Fort Coast Artillery Searchlights, Shorne Marshes

Pair of c. 1900 defence electric lights in concrete housings about 25m apart, on the riverbank, and aligned slightly downstream, some 75 m. NW of Shornemead Fort. The lights were sited to provide illumination for the boom defence battery some 200 m. east of the fort. They were rectangular concrete buildings with their flat roof slightly sloped to their front. Within each a carbon arc searchlight was mounted, powered by a cable from a generator plant somewhere to the rear. They were exposed as and when needed, through a sliding metal shutter facing the river. They may have continued to assist the Second World War emergency battery east of the fort as they are shown still existing in an aerial photograph of 1946. Subsequently demolished, they could have been a casualty of improvement works to the river flood defence bank in c. 1949.
Owner : Public
Publicly accessible : No
How accessed for survey : The buildings are no longer extant
Tourism Potential : As part of a general historical and interpretational package for Shornemead Fort
Condition : Destroyed
Date of visit : 15/02/06

One of a pair of Second World War coastal artillery searchlights located at TQ 6913 7482 immediately to the north-west of Shornemead Fort on the sea wall. They are thought to date from c.1900, finally falling out of use following the Second World War. This was a rectangular concrete structure approximately 4.5m x 3.5m with a flat roof and an open horizontal slit opening (facing north-east) onto the river.
The lights were sited to provide illumination for the boom defence battery which was locatate 200 m east of the fort. Each housed a carbon arc searchlight powered by a generator plant to the rear. A sliding metal shutter facing the river opened could be used to protect the searchlight. They may have continued to assist the Second World War emergency battery east of the fort as they are shown still existing in an aerial photograph of 1946. They were demolished after the war (still visible on photographs taken in1953), possibly during improvement of the river flood defence bank.

The second searchlight was situated c.25m to the west. During the Second World War both searchlights sat immediately outside the barbed wire entanglement which encircled the fort and associated wartime military installations and D-Day embarkation hard at Shornemead Fort. These features were all mapped from historic RAF aerial photographs as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. (1-2)

Historic England, Archive material (Archive). SKE58415.

War Office, 01/09/30, Shornemead Fort (Map). SKE14017.

War Office, 01/09/30, Shornemead Fort (Map). Ske14017.

War Office, 12/02/1897, Minefield Battery at Shornemead Fort (Map). SKE14016.

War Office, 12/02/1897, Minefield Battery at Shornemead Fort (Map). Ske14016.

RAF, 1945, RAF 26K/UK/1455 6555 14-MAR-1945 (Photograph). SKE56109.

Royal Air Force, 1953, RAF 30354/N1 0151 (TQ6874/1) 05-FEB-1953 (Photograph). SKE58652.

<1> RAF, 1945, RAF 26K/UK/1455 6555 14-MAR-1945 (Photograph). SKE56109.

<2> Royal Air Force, 1953, RAF 30354/N1 0151 (TQ6874/1) 05-FEB-1953 (Photograph). SKE58652.