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South Hook Fort
South Hook Fort
	Internal view of South Hook Fort
Location	Herbrandston, S. Wales
Nearest city	Milford Haven
Coordinates	51°42′30″N 5°05′01″W / 51.7083°N 5.0836°W
Built	1859-186(?)
Listed Building – Grade II
Designated	4 March 2004
Reference no.	82593

South Hook Fort, on the northern shore of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, is a Grade II* listed building which belongs to a series of forts built as part of the inner line of defence of the Haven following the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom.

Location

It stands in Herbrandston parish,^[1] at South Hook Point, some 200 m north of the cliffs.^[2]

Description

It is D-shaped with four walls 4 feet thick and contains a horseshoe shaped two-storey barracks block. It comprises two separate batteries protected by earthworks and connected to the fort by covered walkways. The fort initially housed twenty guns facing out to sea, although this was later modified. It is surrounded by a deep ditch, and access is via a bridge. Work was completed in 1865. Its complement included a Defence Electric Light searchlight unit manned by 200 men, and its guns were aligned to provide crossfire with those at Hubberston and Popton across the Haven.^[3]

History

The fort was part of the Palmerston fortifications meant to defend the harbour of Milford Haven.^[4]

Work commenced on the fort in 1859, a year before the Royal Commission was published. The fort later became part of the double defences of the Haven and was built to a similar design as that at Hubberstone.^[3]

The fort was fully manned during the First World War, although it was abandoned in the 1930s. It was sold in 1936 but requisitioned in 1939 by the Admiralty and called HMS Skirmisher. During the Second World War, it was manned by WRENS controlling naval movements in the Haven. After the war it was once again decommissioned, and returned to private ownership. It now part of the South Hook LNG terminal jetty.^[3]

It was listed as a grade II* Heritage site on March 4, 2004.^[2]

Environment

The fort is a roosting and hibernation site for a colony of horseshoe bats, which are protected under UK law — along with their roosts.^[4]

References

^ "South Hook Fort within Herbrandston limits" (map). openstreetmap.org.
^ ^a ^b "The defensible barracks at South Hook Fort, Herbrandston". britishlistedbuildings.co.uk. British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 23 September 2024.
^ ^a ^b ^c Phillips, Benjamin A. (2013). Pembrokeshire's Forts & Military Airfields 1535 – 2010. Logaston Press. ISBN 9781906663735.
^ ^a ^b "Helping to improve local biodiversity" (PDF). South Hook LNG Seasons. No. 10. Winter 2020. p. 9. Retrieved 23 September 2024.