The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-08 00:00:00

The Spithead Forts.

There is probably at the present time no other
portion of the national defences which has so large
a hold on the public mind as the proposed marine
forts at Spithead. This is due to several causes,
foremost among which may be noticed the conflict.
ing evidence relative to their necessity given before
the National Defence Commission by officers of the
highest rank in both services, and other competent
witnesses; the subsequent discussions in the press
and Parliament ; the temporary suspension of the,
works and their subsequent resumption, and, pee.
haps more than all the foregoing reasons put to.
gether the absorbing interest imparted to the sub-
ject by the naval operations before Charleston and
Mobile. The Defence Commissioners originally
proposed that Spithead should be protected by a
combined system of forts and floating batteries,
and they recommended the construction of five ad-
vanced forts on the shoals—on the Horse Sand ;
Noman, or No Man's Land Shoal ; on the Stur.
bridge Shoal, off Ryde, on the Spit Point ; and on
a point intervening between the Horse Sand and
the south-east end of Portsea Island. Sir Charles
Fox with a staff had been employed by the War-
office department in boring the different shoals,
and a report of the result was drawn up by Sir
Charles for the guidance and instruction of the
War-office on the subject. Mr Hawkshaw,
prepared the plans for the foundations, and three
of those plans—the Horse Sand, the Noman, and
the Stubridge—were ordered to be proceeded with,
the one on the Spit and the one intervening be-
tween the Horse Sand and the Potties. Island
.having been thrown out of the scheme. The con-
te act for the construction of these foundations was
signed by Mr Leather, a gentleman who has
gateied high reputation by his work at Portland,
in June, 1861; but owing to the temporary sus•
pensnon of the works, in deference to the ex-
pressed feelings of a large party in the House of
Commons, it is only on the Horse Sand that any
great progress has been made, and in the meantime
the Sturbridge Shoal has been abandoned, owing to
the enormous expense which must have been in-
curred in constructing the foundation for the Fort
there from the nature of the shoal. On the 11th of
June, 1864, a special committee was appointed by
She Secretary of State for War "to consider the
a Iterations requisite in the plan for the defence of
Spithead in consequence of the abandonment of the
work on the Sturbridge." This committee was corn-
poeld of Rear-Admiral A. Milne, chairman; Capt.
R. S, Hewlett, R.N. ; Colonels J. W. Gordon, R.E.,
C. V. Cockburn, R.A., and H. D. Harness, R.E. ;
Capt. J. D. Bythesea, R.N. ; Mr. James Fergusson,
with Lieut.-Colonel W. F. D. Jervois, R.E., Deputy
Dire etor of Fortifications, as secretary. This cern.
mittee, after visiting Spithead and its approaches,
recommended that a fort should be constructed on
the Spit Bank, about 600 yards to the south-west
of the point on which it was proposed by the De.
ence Commissioners to erect a fort. They also
recommended that, as an enemy might pass by the
outer forts and keep so far to the southward as to
be out of the effective range of the works on the
northern side of the anchorage, a small fort should
also be constructed on the Ryde Sand, about 1,200
yards to the southward of the Sturbridge Shoal. In
accordance with these recommendations of the com-
mittee the War-office authorities are now employed
at the two points indicated in boring the shoals to
ascertain their nature. The borings have already
been carried to a considerable depth, but with no
promiei'ng results. On the Ryde Sand nothing has
yet been met with but a thick layer of sand deposited
on mud, and the situation is as unpromising there
its was the Sturbridge Shoal. The position selected,
600 yards south-west of the Spit point, is equally
unpromising. It is evidently off the shoal proper,
as. nothing has yet been met with in the borings
but sand and earthy deposit left on the edge
of the shoal by the action of the tides. The
efforts of the commission appear to have been
restricted to finding a substitute for the Sturbridge
site, north of the Nomau and Horse sites, other-
wise it is incomprehensible that the Warner posi-
tion should have been left without mention in the
committee's report. If the chart published in the
report of the National Defence Commission is re-
ferred to it will be seen that the works now in pro-
gress on the Horse and Noman shoals form two
points of an equilateral triangle, the apex of which
is the Warner Rock, a trifle inshore of the Warner
lightship. The similitude in the two positions of
Spithead and Charleston in their outer defences is
very striking, but it is all in favour of our own port.
Forts Moultrie and Sumter are 1,900 yards apart.
The forte on the Horse and Noman Sands will be
2,000 yards apart, but they will be 1,000 yards fur-
ther distant from Portsmouth than Sumter and
Moultrie are from Charleston. The probable failure
of finding any suitable strata on the Spit or Ryde
Sand on which to erect the two forts recommended
by the commission may also induce the authorities
to again take into consideration the propriety of
erecting a fort on the Warner Rock, and thus trebly
locking the front-door entrance into Spithead from
the sea. The three forts would then form an equi-
lateral triangle, both sides of 2,000 yards, and, if
kept armed with the heaviest description of ord-
nance as our knowledge in gunnery progressed, it
would be absolutely impossible for any ironclad that
meld ever be constructed to pass through that tri-
angle of fire and float. This plan has met with
much favour. It was first brought into notice by
Captain H. W. Tyler, R.E., then stationed in the
Isle of Wight, in charge of the fortifications in that
district in the early part of 1863 ; and as time pro-
gseeees and our knowledge of the relative value of
forts and armoured ships likewise advances, the real
merlta Captain Tyler's
more apparent
To return, 11.0 more directly to the works
nisowneienetbsaarayd the gorse and Noman foundations, it
progress had been first observe that, after a certain
the erection oferstt made. in the collection of plant,
and other on
over the foundation sites,
appeared for some
tion to erect the timerami to falter in their determine.
tered. He felt that ;Terri'? contractor never fal.
a Canon must come; he knew
the forts were to
succeelaaeat tent as certain to be
constructed as day
ght, and he knew
also, as Lord Palmerston told the House of Cone-
mons, that to give up the
at that point
would entail nearly as great an expense
pletion. Under these circurastnpol:an:tseeantaed.B iraLtszttcteoiramieari'
a"" Mr.
steadily went on collecting his
on shore, and the result may
Spithead Forts' works on
.Stokes Bay Shoe: atn the
opposite Ryde, Isle of Wight, where the fi'rstearly
ations for the construction of the forts' perfounds.
Lions are made, and where also a desert etrip of
shingle and stunted gorse has been transformed
into a busy hive of human industry. The position
has been well selected. It adjoins the Stokes Bay
railway terminus, is within half an hour's steaming
of the Horse and Noman, and its beach offers a
safe means of embarking and disembarking in all
weathers. On the ground is a cement mill, cement
stores, blacksmiths' shops, &c., with lines of rail-
way traversing it in all directions, a line of rail
forming a junction with the Stokes Bay railway
company's line, and overhead railways worked by
steam cranes of great power for transporting the
blocks of stone. About 15,000 tons of concrete
blocks are at present laying on the ground squared
and bevilkd off in readiness to drop into their places
in the foundation courses of the forte, and about
7,ooojtons of Penbryn granite, Portland and Run-
corn stones for the same purpose. These blocks
range, according to their position, from three to
seven tons each. Portland and Penbryn stones are
conveyed to Stokes Bay, or Leather-town' as it may '
in all propriety be called, by sea, hat the Runcon
stones are delivered direct by rail from Birkenhead
In one part of the works a portion of the ground is.
cemented over and laid out as a "1)1-awing Board,'
on which every stone is laid in its own position as
it will finally occupy when placed under water,
and is there numbered and marked out with its
fellows in coloured lines, and by these numbers and
coloured lines the diver fi es the stone when low-
ered to him from above. In the centre of the station
on the branch line is built a stout pier, having a
double lice of railway connected with the railways
on the grounds, and on 'his pier railway a exeeer-
ul steam crane affords the necessary means 1 of re-