Building record TQ 87 NE 1058 - Coast Artillery searchlight, east of Grain Fort, Isle of Grain

TQ 8919 7655: Electric searchlight emplacement for coast artillery.
The damaged remains of this building stand on the sea wall east of Grain. It was proposed in 1911 and built shortly afterwards, working in conjunction with coastal guns on both Wing Battery and Grain Battery (1a). Although these batteries were largely disused after the First World War, it is likely that this seachlight continued in use for artillery mounted on Grain Fort. The building is set back into the slope which is revetted by a battered concrete wall. It follows the standard pattern but is damaged so that the apsidal end, which formerly housed the light cells behind sliding metal shutters, has been broken out. The rectangular room behind it is now a concrete shell. The building was surveyed by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England between March and April of 1998, following a request from Kent County Council as part of a European project looking at defence sites in Kent, Nord-Pas de Calais and West Flanders. See the archive report and plans. (1)

The structural remains of the searchlight battery described by the previous autorities could be seen at TQ 8919 7655 as a single rectangular flat roofed structure c. 3.6m x 3.8m located on the coast just above the beach between Grain Fort and Wing Battery. Recent aerial photographs show the site surviving, though it is not possible to assess the state of the structure from aerial photographs alone. The searchlight and surrounding features were mapped from aerial photographs as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. (2)

Historic England archive material: MD003096 Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project: TQ 87 NE Material still held by Aerial Survey.

Army., 01/01/45, War Diary for Grain Fort. (Collection). SKE14366.

Army., 01/01/45, War Diary for Grain Fort. (Collection). Ske14366.

MMRG, 07/01/14, Defence Electric Light Grain (Photograph). SKE14635.

MMRG, 07/01/14, Defence Electric Light Grain (Photograph). Ske14635.

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 2001, North Kent Coast Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey Phase II: Preliminary Field Investigation (Unpublished document). SWX11839.

<2> RCHME, 1998, Coastal Artillery Fortifications on the Isle of Grain, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE12515.