Fort Bridgewoods
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The site of Fort Bridgewoods is on the outskirts of Rochester, Kent adjacent to the old Maidstone/Rochester road (B2091). The site was acquired by the War Office about 1860 to form part of a ring of forts protecting the Royal Dockyard at Chatham. It was originally envisaged that the line would stretch from the River Medway to the Thames. There was not enough money to build the line as planned and only 5 of the original large works plus 2 small experimental earthen redoubts were actually built. Work did not get underway until nearly 30 years later in 1890 due to the changing ideas about fortifications. By the time large scale building was underway, the enemy it was supposed to repulse, France was by now an ally and the new enemy was now Imperial Germany.
Because of budget restraints and changing fashions in fortifications, no fixed armament was mounted, instead earthen ramps were built to enable field artillery to fire from the forts parapet. The fort along with the rest of the line was of a radical departure from traditional design, being of earth construction, with a deep dry moat and being designed to blend in with the line of the land. Under the earthen walls were magazines and living quarters for the garrison.
A new large prison was built above the small village of Borstal to house the workforce which later became a prison for young offenders and gave its name to a new type of correctional institute. To link four of the forts (Luton, Horsted, Bridgewoods and Borstal) a railway with convicts as the motive power was used to haul building materials between sites. Building materials were brought by barge up the Medway to a purpose built quay at Borstal, they were landed, then hauled by a steam powered ropeway up the steep scarp slope of the North Downs to Fort Borstal, where they were off-loaded onto the railway. Some of the original railway lines can be seen in the cow shed floor of the prison farm, which in a previous incarnation was the railway workshop. The prisoners were accompanied on their labours by armed warders on horseback, the railway remained in use until about 1905.
After completion until the outbreak of World War I Fort Bridgewoods was only sporadically garrisoned (apart from WWI). In the early years of the century the Royal Engineers deliberately mined and blew up one corner of the fort in field exercise. With repairs undertaken the fort slipped into obscurity until trials with gun laying radar were undertaken at the Fort in the late 1930s. With Radar installed Bridgewoods served as headquarters for anti-aircraft guns in the Thames Estuary with its two flanking forts of Horsted and Borstal being amongst the most up to date anti aircraft batteries in Britain. It was only natural that with the coming of the atomic bomb a new protected headquarters be built at Bridgewoods in the early 1950s. Shortly after completion Anti Aircraft Command was disbanded and the site used for Civil Defence preparation and training. In 1960 the protected headquarters became the RHQ for London (South) and remained in use until the early 1970s. In 1975 the site was sold to a local property developer who quickly demolished the fort and bunker. The site remained empty for a number of years and is now a Parcelforce depot.
