Palmerston Forts Society and Portsdown Artillery Volunteers

04/11/2026

Blast from the past – Helicopter at FORT WIDLEY

Call Red was a short-lived 1996 ITV medical/emergency drama based around an air-ambulance service. It lasted just one series of seven episodes and didn’t capture high ratings or the praise of critics who described "wooden acting", "cardboard dialogue" and opined that "the wiser viewer will realise it shows no vital signs at all".

So, why are we interested in it? The series was filmed in Portsmouth and other Hampshire locations including Fort Widely. The fort was a location for the flight movements of the air ambulance helicopter which was a key part of the action. A scaffolding platform was built to allow helicopters to land and take-off. I think that this location simulated the roof of a fictitious hi-rise hospital building.

I have a vague memory of a photospread in the Portsmouth News at the time but I have had no luck finding photos of the platform on the internet. The series was so unsuccessful that there are no fan sites and the series didn’t even make it to a DVD release.

This is the only promo picture that I can find but I’m not convinced that it is from the Widely platform.

Does anyone have a photos / recollections of this? Its only 30 years ago and it would be nice to get some photos of this bit of Fort Widley’s history in the archives.

03/11/2026

Easyfundraising for the Palmerston Forts Society

Our principal source of funds is membership subscriptions from our approximately 250 members. We have some additional donations from members and groups that we give talks to but everything that we do for our members and our charitable aims comes from turnover that is significantly less than one state pension.

If you shop online, you can help us raise additional funds at no cost to yourself by signing up to Easyfundraising. It only takes a moment and it's completely free. Easyfundraising will typically donate a small percentage of the value of your online purchase from selected retailers to the PFS. Over 8,000 brands will donate including M&S, Argos, Tesco, John Lewis & Partners, eBay, Sainsburys, TUI, Esty and more. So far we have raised £460 from this source and the total for the last financial year was £134

All you need to do is:
1. Go to:
https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/palmerston-forts-soc/
and join for free.
2. Every time you shop online, go to Easyfundraising first to find the site you want and start shopping.
3. After you’ve checked out, the retailer will make a donation to Palmerston Forts Society at no extra cost to you whatsoever!

There is also a QR code that you can use. There are no catches or hidden charges and we will be really grateful for your donations. Thank you for your support.

02/11/2026

Café and interpretation area approved at FORT GILKICKER

We hear from the Daily Echo that this planning application has been approved. The café and visitor centre will be established in the store building to the rear of the fort.

The Daily Echo article notes that “….the Gosport Society supports the proposal, highlighting its potential to balance public interest in the fort with the privacy of new residents…..The proposal received 18 letters of support, praising the idea and its location, although concerns were raised about waste management and parking.”

The article didn’t mention that the Palmerston Fort Society also supported the plan. We think that a small interpretation area within a viable café represents the most sustainable way of presenting the history of the site to the public and it will be a good home for some of the artefacts that had to be removed from the fort during the conversion work. The PFS have already been consulted on some interpretation materials and will be very pleased to continue this interaction.

Our previous post includes more details on the plan and links to the Gosport Planning Ports:
https://www.facebook.com/PalmerstonFortsSociety/posts/pfbid07iDLHxLvnf8ivm57Y13uGw6TgD4q3K93CkinxQB1bGRomEUMuyHMbUjWgKovmWPbl

The Daily Echo story is here:
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/26629963.cafe-will-built-historic-hampshire-fort/

Images are from the planning application and Deniz Beck Partners

01/11/2026

Webinar Reminder – “Military History of Victoria, Australia 1803-1945”

In our next webinar at 20:00 on Wednesday 4th November, Bob Marmion and Andrew Dagg will be telling us about the fortifications of Victoria which they subtitle “Gibraltar of the South”. Bob Marmion and Andrew Dagg are both involved with the Fort Queenscliff Museum.

The talk will trace the development of Victoria’s defences from the first sand fort in 1803 to the sophisticated coastal defence system of 1945. More than 200 invasion scares during the nineteenth century reflected concerns over potential threats from France, Russia, the United States and Japan. Melbourne’s growing importance and the wealth generated by the goldfields made the colony an increasingly significant strategic target.

The speakers will examine how technology, geography and marine bathymetry shaped this complex system, protecting the approaches through Bass Strait, Port Phillip Bay and the major centres of Melbourne and Geelong. Victoria also pioneered colonial defence, establishing the Empire’s first colonial navy, permanent colonial army and dedicated defence department. Its innovations influenced military organisation across the British Empire and helped shape Australia's Commonwealth defence forces, the AIF and the Anzac tradition.

The Fortress Study Group CIO , in cooperation with the Palmerston Forts Society, The Coast Defense Study Group and the Ordnance Society and, organises these webinars for their members. Palmerston Forts Society members receive login details via email and recordings of selected past webinars are accessible in the members’ area of the PFS website.

This is a good time to join the Palmerston forts Society because the membership year starts on the 1st October so you will get a whole year (nearly) for your money. Follow this link to find out how to join us for as little as £17 per year :
https://www.palmerstonfortssociety.org.uk/palmerston-forts-society-membership

31/10/2026

WEBINAR REVIEW - " Transformation of Dutch Castles into Forts "

For your reviewer, this was a very timely presentation as I had just visited Hurst Castle – a series of 19th and 20th century batteries with a Henrician Tudor “Device” Fort at its core.

In a webinar attended by 37 members of fort societies from half a dozen countries, Jeroen van der Werf told us about how some equally old Dutch fortifications were adapted for use in later centuries. In the 15th and early 16th centuries.

Jeroen started with a lightning history tour through the developments of artillery and am******on and how its increasing hitting power and mobility influenced the design and construction of fortifications. In the 15th and early 16th centuries, traditional walled castles designed to give protection from ballista and low energy artillery were modified by reducing the height of walls and increasing their depth either with masonry or earth. This increasing depth improved ballistic protection but it also created artillery platforms. Artillery towers were added and then bastions. By the 19th century, those artillery towers has to be protected or lowered. Bastion traces were modified or superseded by polygonal traces. Underground magazine, galleries and shelters were built, sometime exploiting existing massive masonry structures.

Jeroen then illustrated this process of adaptation with photos and plans of some very picturesque Dutch forts. It was a very good talk by a knowledgeable and informative speaker.

The Fortress Study Group CIO , in cooperation with the Palmerston Forts Society, The Coast Defense Study Group and the Ordnance Society and, organises these webinars for their members. Palmerston Forts Society members receive login details via email, and recordings of selected past webinars are accessible in the members’ area of the PFS website. Follow this link to find out how to join us for as little as £17 per year: https://www.palmerstonfortssociety.org.uk/palmerston-forts-society-membership

30/10/2026

Another FORT LOG updated – ARCHCLIFFE FORT

The updating of the Fort Logs for the Dover area continues with a new and expanded document for Archcliffe Fort. This a fascinating fortification which has its beginnings in Tudor times and a bastion trace laid down in the 17th century. It gets its Victorian credentials from a number of 19th century upgrades that saw 10-inch and 7-inch RMLs installed, with one of the latter in a Moncrieff emplacement.

Sadly, the 20th and 21st centuries were less kind to the fort with rail and road expansion squeezing the fort from both sides and eliminated most of the installations that would be of most interest to us.

There are Fort Log data sheets for most of the Victorian fortifications of Great Britain. They are formatted as A4 documents and are two-six sides so that they are easy to print out and can be easily carried when in the field. The Fort Logs have been produced over a number of years by various members of the society and there are now over 260 of them. They are indexed in the Members’ Area of the Palmerston Forts Society website and are just one of the benefits of membership of the society. This is a good time to join the Palmerston forts Society because the membership year starts on the 1st October so you will get a whole year for your money. Follow this link to find out how to join us for as little as £17 per year :
https://www.palmerstonfortssociety.org.uk/palmerston-forts-society-membership

29/10/2026

REDAN 87 on its way to members !

Now that this year’s edition of our journal The Redan is ready to go, our sophisticated high-tech “Fulfilment Centre” has swung into action.

Here you see our Treasurer and Membership Secretary stuffing 195 Redans into their padded mailing envelopes. Ten mail bags were then dropped off at the Royal Mail delivery office. If you have not renewed your membership you won’t have received one but don’t worry, we have enough copies for late renewals and new members of course.

Redan 87 is a cracker of an edition with 106 pages of articles covering the history of Fort Hubberstone, the “Lost Batteries” of Dorset, the Royal Commission fortifications from a Belgian perspective, water supplies to the Spithead forts and evidence of “no-fire” marks at Fort Brockhurst, alongside studies of campaign medals and Royal Artillery uniform.

28/10/2026

Boom across the Hamoaze at Plymouth and GARDEN BATTERY

This interesting but undated and colourised picture from the Cyberheritage page shows the Hamoaze boom defence from Devil's Point.

It looks like Garden Battery has sneaked into the image at the extreme left. You can see the river entrance and the ramp up to it and part of the embrasure of casemate VII. See the zoom in in the comments.

I guess that the history of the boom defence is documented. Can anyone date the period when it would have been fitted between these two moored vessels?

One of my favourite photos of all time. This shows two moored hulk type vessels carrying the anti-submarine boom across from Devil’s point to Cremyll on the Cornish side. Close examination shows us a winding house for the boom defence on the Cornish side and at the hard at Devil’s Point two black chimneys from the electrical generating system used to power the winch for the boom. There’s a possibility that the two chimneys are NOT electrical generators, but actually for a steam engine system that powered the hydraulic mechanism for the boom. This is the only photograph I’ve ever seen of this and on the Internet there is precious little and it often confuses this boom defence with the boom defences/minefields further out in the sound between the West End of the breakwater and Wilderness point at Picklecombe. Can anybody date this recoloured photograph? I think this photograph made defeat all you incredibly expert people out there who know everything about everything, unlike me.

27/10/2026

REDAN 87 is out !

Redan is the journal of the Palmerston Forts Society and it is published every October. The 2026 edition of 106 pages includes articles covering the history of Fort Hubberstone, the “Lost Batteries” of Dorset, the Royal Commission fortifications from a Belgian perspective, water supplies to the Spithead forts and evidence of “no-fire” marks at Fort Brockhurst, alongside studies of campaign medals and Royal Artillery uniform.

PFS members who attended the Annual General Meeting got their copies on Saturday (which saves us some postage cost) and the rest will be posted out later this week.

The Redan journal is just one of the benefits of PFS membership. This is a good time to join the PFS became our membership year is October to September. Find out how here:
https://www.palmerstonfortssociety.org.uk/palmerston-forts-society-membership

26/10/2026

Palmerston Forts Society Annual General Meeting

Hampshire didn’t get the worst of the storms at the weekend but it was certainly wet and a bit blowy on Saturday for our Annual General Meeting at Fort Nelson. We had a good turnout of 20 members attending physically with another 7 joining by online by Zoom. We also had the proxy votes of 14 other members who were not able to attend.

The AGM was completed in just one hour. Chairman Phil gave a concise review of the year where all of the important indicators - including membership, events and other activities, research and publications, social media, grants - have all moved upwards. Treasurer Duncan then took us through a similarly positive review of finances. Despite increasing costs in some areas, good management and increasing member numbers mean that the balance sheet remains positive and reserves are good. Phil then delivered two reports from RA Fort Nelson on the last year. There was then some admin. to deal with - approval of accounts, minutes, introduction of joint membership and election of the committee. We said thanks and goodbye to two retiring committee members and welcomed three new ones - there will be another post about that soon.

After the AGM we had a break for refreshments and then had four short presentations. These were on Garden Battery (Plymouth), Forts Purbrook and Widely (Portsmouth) and optical signalling methods. These were will received by those present and online and we will post about them separately.

Thanks to all involved in the organisation and to the PFS members who took part and showed their support to the committee. Thanks also to Royal Armouries Fort Nelson for hosting us