Fort Albert (map reference ) is a tower fort nestling under the cliffs south-west of Fort Victoria on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

, England. It was also known as Cliff End Fort, named after the Northern extremity of

Colwell Bay Colwell Bay () is a bay in the west of the Isle of Wight. It is located between the towns of Totland and Yarmouth. The bay's northernmost point is Cliff's End ( Fort Albert) the closest point of the Island to the British mainland, with Hurst Ca ...

(Cliff's End).

History

Fort Albert was one of the

Royal Commission A royal commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies. They have been held in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia. In republics an equi ...

forts built in the 19th century as part of

Lord Palmerston Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865), known as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman and politician who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1855 to 1858 and from 1859 to 1865. A m ...

's defences against the possibility of a French attack from

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

. Designed to defend the Needles Passage, it was completed in 1856, after 4 years of construction, but like the American Third System forts it resembles in miniature, it would have suffered badly from rifled gunfire, so the Royal Commission enhanced it with batteries on the cliffs above. Even so, with the introduction of armoured ships, the fort became obsolete by 1858. In 1886 it was selected as one of the UK locations for the

Brennan torpedo The Brennan torpedo was a torpedo patented by Irish Australian, Irish-born Australian inventor Louis Brennan in 1877. It was propelled by two contra-rotating propellers that were spun by rapidly pulling out wires from drums wound inside the torpe ...

. After this, only small guns were mounted on the fort. It was closed to military use in 1957.

Fort Albert today

The fort is in private ownership and has been converted into private flats. There is no public access, not even to the cliff tops which overlook it. It is most easily viewed from the sea, or from

Hurst Castle Hurst Castle is an artillery fort established by Henry VIII on the Hurst Spit in Hampshire, England, between 1541 and 1544. It formed part of the king's Device Forts coastal protection programme against invasion from France and the Holy Roma ...

. The battery above is part of a chalet estate at Brambles Chine. It has been a Grade II*

Listed Building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

since 1994.

References

Publications

External links

Victorian Forts data sheet
{{Palmerston Forts on the Isle of Wight

Albert Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert Computers, Inc., a computer manufacturer in the 1980s * Albert Czech Republic, a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street mar ...

Grade II* listed buildings on the Isle of Wight Grade II* listed forts