Shivering Sands Army Fort 7was a

Maunsell army fort The Maunsell Forts are towers built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries during the Second World War to help defend the United Kingdom. They were operated as army and navy forts, and named for their designer, Guy Maunsell. The forts were decommis ...

built near the

Thames estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salinit ...

for anti-aircraft defence. It is made up of several once-interconnected towers north of

Herne Bay Herne Bay is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in South East England. It is north of Canterbury and east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne, Kent, Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury loca ...

and is 14.8 km (9.2 miles) from the nearest land. They can be viewed from

Shoeburyness Shoeburyness ( ), or simply Shoebury, is a coastal town in the City of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England; it lies east of the city centre. It was formerly a separate town until it was absorbed into Southend in 1933. I ...

East Beach on clear days. The Shivering Sands fort was the last of the

forts to be constructed, and was grounded between 18 September and 13 December 1943.

History

The towers were built on land and floated out in 1943. Later in the war, the equipment was replaced, and removed soon after. The forts were abandoned in 1958. In the 1960s, some

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

equipment was installed in the

searchlight A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely luminosity, bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a part ...

tower. On 7 June 1963, a boat called the ''Ribersborg'' collided with one of the towers, which fell into the sea without harming anyone or sinking the boat. In 1964

Screaming Lord Sutch Screaming Lord Sutch (born David Edward Sutch, 10 November 1940 – 16 June 1999) was an English musician and perennial parliamentary candidate. He was the founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party and served as its leader from 1983 t ...

set up Radio Sutch (a

pirate radio station Pirate radio is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license, whether an invalid license or no license at all. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are rec ...

) on one of the old towers. However, he soon became bored and handed the project to his friend and unpaid manager Reginald Calvert, who then expanded into all five towers that were still connected and called it Radio City. After Calvert was killed by

Oliver Smedley William Oliver Smedley (19 February 1911 – 16 November 1989) was an English businessman involved in classical liberal politics and pirate radio. In 1966, he killed Reginald Calvert, in what was judged to be an act of self-defence. Early life ...

, his wife took over for a short time before the project was closed by

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

and the towers again abandoned. In 1990, the top of the searchlight tower was cut away so that

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s could be used to maintain the weather equipment inside. In 1992, it was decided that the tower was no longer necessary for the continued operation of the instruments contained within, and a large

buoy A buoy (; ) is a buoyancy, floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. History The ultimate origin of buoys is unknown, but by 1295 a seaman's manual referred to navig ...

was placed next to the tower for the same purpose. In August and September 2005, artist Stephen Turner spent six weeks living alone in the searchlight tower of the Shivering Sands Fort, in what he described as "an artistic exploration of isolation, investigating how one's experience of time changes in isolation, and what creative contemplation means in a 21st-century context".

Cultural references

The forts, filmed from a

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

ferry, appear in the 1984 music video for the song " A Sort of Homecoming" by the Irish pop music band U2. The British indie band, The Mystery Jets, filmed the music video of their song "Bubblegum" at Shivering Sands Army Fort. Science fiction writer

Sheila Finch Sheila Finch (born 29 October 1935) is an author of science fiction and fantasy. She is best known for her sequence of stories about the Guild of Xenolinguists. Biography Sheila Finch was born on 29 October 1935 in London, England. She attended ...

's novella ''Not This Tide'' used the Shivering Sands fort as one of its settings.'Not This Tide',

Asimov's Science Fiction ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine edited by Sheila Williams and published by Dell Magazines, which is owned by Penny Press. It was launched as a quarterly by Davis Publications in 1977, after obtaining Isaac ...

, January/February 2020, p. 142

References

Sources

Fort Fanatics: Shivering Sands

External links

{{Offshore radio Coastal fortifications 20th-century forts in England History of the Royal Navy 20th-century history of the British Army North Sea Sea forts