page_title: New Tavern Fort
section_title: Strategic context
hierarchical_section_title: New Tavern Fort / History / Strategic context
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the area of New Tavern and Tilbury Forts. Edited extract from Ordnance Survey One-inch, Seventh Series, 1952-1961
context_page_description: New Tavern Fort is an historic artillery fort in Gravesend, Kent. Dating mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries, it is an unusually well-preserved example of an 18th-century fortification and remained in use for defensive purposes until the Second World War. It was built during the American War of Independence to guard the Thames against French and Spanish raiders operating in support of the newly formed United States of America. It was redesigned and rebuilt in the mid-19th century to defend against a new generation of iron-clad French warships.
  By the start of the 20th century, the Thames defences had been moved further downriver to the estuary and the fort was disarmed. Its grounds were opened to the public as pleasure gardens, but the fort was taken back into military use temporarily during the Second World War. Today the fort and its magazines and other underground structures have been restored and are open to the public. It is unique in the UK for its display of guns and emplacements ranging from the 18th to the 20th centuries.
context_section_description: The lower Thames was of great strategic significance as the location of major military installations including the dockyard and arsenal at Woolwich, the powder magazine at Purfleet, and the victualling stores and shipyard at Deptford. In addition, it was essential to ensure that an enemy could not make a landing along the Thames, which offered a potential land corridor to London. The crossing between Gravesend and Tilbury was also of considerable importance, which had prompted the Tudors to build fortifications on both sides of the river at that point.
  The impetus for the construction of New Tavern Fort came from the threat posed by the United Kingdom's adversaries in the American War of Independence - the newly created United States of America and its European allies, France and Spain. Serious weaknesses in British coastal defences had been revealed in 1778 by the American adventurer John Paul Jones in his raid on Whitehaven, Cumbria. The activities of his squadron on the British east coast the following year, along with the failed Franco-Spanish Armada of 1779, prompted the British government to commission a survey of the country's coastal defences. The state of the defences was found to be unacceptably deficient and plans were made for the building of 30 new batteries, positioned in an arc along the southern and eastern English coast from Norfolk to Cornwall.
  The Thames portion of the survey was carried out by the engineer Thomas Hyde Page. He recommended the refurbishment of the existing Tudor-era Tilbury Fort on the riverbank opposite Gravesend, and the construction of an entirely new fort to replace the older Gravesend Blockhouse, another Tudor-era fortification of which only traces now remain. The new fort would be located 250 metres (820 ft) to the east of the blockhouse, where it would have a greater reach downriver and would be able to cross its fire with that of Tilbury Fort. With fears increasing of a French invasion in support of their American allies, the government approved Page's proposals and construction began soon afterwards.
caption: Location of New Tavern and Tilbury Forts
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