Dale Fort is a mid-19th-century

coastal artillery Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of ...

fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

at Dale Head, a rocky

promontory A promontory is a raised mass of land that projects into a lowland or a body of water (in which case it is a peninsula). Most promontories either are formed from a hard ridge of rock that has resisted the erosive forces that have removed the s ...

near

Dale, Pembrokeshire Dale is both a small village and a community in Pembrokeshire, Wales, located on the peninsula which forms the northern side of the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway. The village has 205 inhabitants according to the 2001 census, increasing ...

, west of

Milford Haven Milford Haven ( cy, Aberdaugleddau, meaning "mouth of the two Rivers Cleddau") is both a town and a community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is situated on the north side of the Milford Haven Waterway, an estuary forming a natural harbour that has ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. It is one of the centres run by

Field Studies Council Field Studies Council is an educational charity based in the UK, which offers opportunities for people to learn about and engage with the outdoors. History It was established as the Council for the Promotion of Field Studies in 1943 with the ...

and offers residential and non-residential fieldwork for schools, colleges and universities, holiday accommodation and professional and leisure courses in natural history and arts.

History

Although there was a proposal for an

artillery battery In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to facil ...

on this site in 1829, the present fort is a result of a recommendation by Sir

John Fox Burgoyne Field Marshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne, 1st Baronet, (24 July 1782 – 7 October 1871) was a British Army officer. After taking part in the Siege of Malta during the French Revolutionary Wars, he saw action under Sir John Moore and then under ...

, the Inspector-General of Fortifications, in 1850. There is no record of when construction started, but the work was completed by 1858 and a date of 1856 is inscribed above the main gate. The fort was intended to protect the anchorage at the mouth of Milford Haven by providing interlocking fire with the nearby forts at Thorn Island and West Blockhouse. In 1876 there was a recommendation that the fort be re-armed with larger and more modern guns, but this was never implemented. The fort was the site for trials of Edmund Zalinski's Pneumatic Dynamite Gun in the 1890s, but the design was not adopted. In 1902, the fort was sold to

Lieutenant-Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colonel ...

A. Owen-Evans of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the '' Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is head ...

, who converted it into a home for his family, but it changed hands when he died in 1925. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the fort was requisitioned by

the Admiralty The Admiralty was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of it ...

for use as a

degaussing Degaussing is the process of decreasing or eliminating a remnant magnetic field. It is named after the gauss, a unit of magnetism, which in turn was named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. Due to magnetic hysteresis, it is generally not possible to redu ...

and mine-watching station, but was returned to the owner at the end of hostilities. The West Wales Field Society purchased Dale Fort for £6,000 in 1946 which it leased to the Council for the Promotion of Field Studies in August. The Wardens of

Skokholm Skokholm () or Skokholm Island is an island off the coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales, south of the neighbouring island of Skomer. The surrounding waters are a marine reserve and all are part of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Both islands a ...

operated from Dale Fort initially. In 1959, it was sold to the

(formerly CPFS) at cost price plus an interest-free mortgage of £1,800 transferred to the Council.Brief History and Handbook to Nature Reserves: West Wales Naturalists' Trust. 1975 It has been run by the Field Studies Council as a field centre, and is now used by many thousands of students each year. 70% of the students are

A-Level The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational au ...

biologists working on the nearby shores to understand ecology.

Description

The fort occupies the easternmost end of the promontory; it is protected by a

ditch A ditch is a small to moderate divot created to channel water. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. Ditches ar ...

cut into the rock, which extends across the promontory and down to the shoreline on either side. The landward (western) side of the fort facing the ditch consists of a

loophole A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system. Originally, the word meant an arrowslit, a narrow verti ...

d wall, in the centre of which is a D-shaped

bastion A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with f ...

with embrasures for three guns. In the northwest corner is a defensible building of three ranges. The central one facing the ditch consists of guardrooms, between which the main entrance of the fort passes in a passageway, having crossed the ditch by means of a bridge. The northern range is a

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

for the ordinary soldiers and the southern range contains various storerooms. Further along the northern edge is the officers' quarters and the main

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combina ...

, now with a modern accommodation building over it. The gun battery is at the eastern end of the fort on the cliffs overlooking the haven. There are seven positions intended for

68-pounder gun The 68-pounder cannon was an artillery piece designed and used by the British Armed Forces in the mid-19th century. The cannon was a smoothbore muzzle-loading gun manufactured in several weights, the most common being , and fired projectiles of ...

s firing ''en

barbette Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships. In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protectio ...

'' (i.e. on open mountings firing over a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Wh ...

), the southernmost four being on a higher level than the other three. Originally there was an expense magazine to support these positions, but it has been demolished. The site of the Dynamite Gun position is close to the present dining area, towards the north of the fort.

References

External links

Dale Fort Field Study Centre
* {{Use dmy dates, date=March 2022 Forts in Pembrokeshire Grade II listed buildings in Pembrokeshire History of Pembrokeshire Grade II listed forts Field studies centres in the United Kingdom