Belvedere Battery, Fort Amherst, Chatham, May 2011
Belvedere Battery was the main entrance to the whole fort complex, situated below Amherst Redoubt and above Cornwallis Battery. Although referred to as a battery it is more of a redoubt, originally having been protected by ditches and ramparts on all sides.
The main entrance is across a bridge over the ditch from Military (now Maxwell) Road. To the left as you enter the battery is the Guardhouse which gives access from its upper floor to (the now mostly destroyed) Amherst Redoubt. The lower floor of the Guardhouse is entered via a short passageway off the tunnel to the south of the Guardhouse that leads from the battery to the outworks of the tenaile, Spur Battery and Prince William's Bastion. The passageway enters a small courtyard which has nine musket loops protecting the tunnel entrance and the gates to Prince William's Bastion. This southern courtyard gives access to the lower Guardroom which judging from its wooden floors, may have served as an armory or magazine. At the northern end of the guardhouse is another small courtyard provided with musket loops and entrances to the surrounding ditches. These musket loops could provide enfilading fire down to the main entrance bridge and cover the ditch in front of Amherst Redoubt. The well in this courtyard was once much deeper, but was converted to a cistern with a hand pump at some point (perhaps at the time Brompton's water supply was cut of by works in the Dockyard cutting through the main spring that fed the area.)
The parapet to the south of the guardroom contains a battery of three guns covering the tenaile to the front. Just beyond these is a small 'expense' magazine building (one of two examples to have survived at the fort) with a wooden floor and ventilation system. This magazine would have held 'ready use' ammunition for the nearby guns.
Beyond the magazine is a further battery of four guns (pictured above) situated to cover the west ditch of Prince William's Bastion. At the end of the ditch where it meets the curtain wall was a WW2 spigot mortar pit with an ammunition store nearby (I believe these are gone now).
The largest building at Fort Amherst, the main magazine, is located on Belvedere Battery. This huge, casemated building could hold the tons of powder and shot requires by the fort and is set in a sunken courtyard to provide cover from enemy fire. Next to this (and still buried today) was a laboratory building (presumably related to the testing of gunpowder). Above the main magazine there was once a large, red-brick blockhouse. This is depicted in a few old images but appears to have been demolished in the late 19th or early 20th century.
In the 1960s this area was used as a land-fill site, which led to the ditches, sunken courtyard and main magazine being buried under fifteen to twenty feet of rubble and rubbish.
Belvedere Battery, Fort Amherst, Chatham, May 2011
Belvedere Battery was the main entrance to the whole fort complex, situated below Amherst Redoubt and above Cornwallis Battery. Although referred to as a battery it is more of a redoubt, originally having been protected by ditches and ramparts on all sides.
The main entrance is across a bridge over the ditch from Military (now Maxwell) Road. To the left as you enter the battery is the Guardhouse which gives access from its upper floor to (the now mostly destroyed) Amherst Redoubt. The lower floor of the Guardhouse is entered via a short passageway off the tunnel to the south of the Guardhouse that leads from the battery to the outworks of the tenaile, Spur Battery and Prince William's Bastion. The passageway enters a small courtyard which has nine musket loops protecting the tunnel entrance and the gates to Prince William's Bastion. This southern courtyard gives access to the lower Guardroom which judging from its wooden floors, may have served as an armory or magazine. At the northern end of the guardhouse is another small courtyard provided with musket loops and entrances to the surrounding ditches. These musket loops could provide enfilading fire down to the main entrance bridge and cover the ditch in front of Amherst Redoubt. The well in this courtyard was once much deeper, but was converted to a cistern with a hand pump at some point (perhaps at the time Brompton's water supply was cut of by works in the Dockyard cutting through the main spring that fed the area.)
The parapet to the south of the guardroom contains a battery of three guns covering the tenaile to the front. Just beyond these is a small 'expense' magazine building (one of two examples to have survived at the fort) with a wooden floor and ventilation system. This magazine would have held 'ready use' ammunition for the nearby guns.
Beyond the magazine is a further battery of four guns (pictured above) situated to cover the west ditch of Prince William's Bastion. At the end of the ditch where it meets the curtain wall was a WW2 spigot mortar pit with an ammunition store nearby (I believe these are gone now).
The largest building at Fort Amherst, the main magazine, is located on Belvedere Battery. This huge, casemated building could hold the tons of powder and shot requires by the fort and is set in a sunken courtyard to provide cover from enemy fire. Next to this (and still buried today) was a laboratory building (presumably related to the testing of gunpowder). Above the main magazine there was once a large, red-brick blockhouse. This is depicted in a few old images but appears to have been demolished in the late 19th or early 20th century.
In the 1960s this area was used as a land-fill site, which led to the ditches, sunken courtyard and main magazine being buried under fifteen to twenty feet of rubble and rubbish.