Visit to Landguard Fort,

Report and photos by Tarkey Barker 7 August 2007

Our monthly meeting in August is traditionally a members' and guests' visit to a place of interest followed by a visit to a local hostelry.

For our 2007 trip we visited the Landguard Fort , which is located on the fairly isolated Landguard Point, south of the main town of Felixstowe, but near the viewpoint used by those who watch the shipping activities of the adjacent Felixstowe Port.

Although I had driven past it scores of times I had never been inside; this was true for many of our visiting group of about forty members and guests. The group was split into smaller workable parties for the guided tours.

We were met at the entrance by Mervyn Lemon, wearing a replica uniform of the 1600s, and George Buckman, and a lady whose name I did not note down - apologies. I was in a group for whom George Buckman was our guide. George is well known to us as a regular visitor to our events wearing his replica Squadron Leader's Uniform.

Note: hover your mouse over the images to see a caption.

I was amazed at the size and complexity of the whole set up at Landguard Fort. We were given a demonstration of firing a musket and viewed an introductory video showing the history of the complex.

We were taken of a tour of the fort, seeing such things as living accommodatio n, cobblers shop, bath rooms etc.

In one room there was some genuine graffiti dating back to 1806.

We saw some of the equipment used and heavy guns with their 800 pound shells, which were used to provide "cover" for the entrance to the and Felixstowe dock area.

The fort, first constructed in 1540, comprised a few earthworks and , but it was King James who ordered the construction of a larger fort. In 1667 the Dutch landed a force of 1500 men on Felixstowe beach and advanced on the fort, but were repelled by Nathaniel Darrell and his garrison of 400 musketeers. This was the last time that an attacking foreign army landed on British mainland soil.

In 1716 a complete new fort was contstructed but the biggest change was in the 1870s when the interior barracks were rebuilt to a keep-like design, the river frontage was rebuilt with a new casemated battery. Defence of the casemate battery was provided by a very unusual with a spectacular quarter sphere bomb-proof nose.

The gun emplacements (below) were originally called Minefield Battery. Its name was changed in 1904 to Darells after the Commander of the fort who in July 1667 defeated the Dutch attack on Landguard.

Landguard Fort was used during World War 2 and into the 1950’s during the early stages of the Cold War; at one time it was an alternative British Military Control Centre but was never used as such, thankfully. It was also used in the 1954/55 film "The Sea Shall Not Have Them" - you can buy the DVD from Amazon for under a tenner ! Having completed our tour of Landguard Fort we moved on to the Victoria Public House in Old Felixstowe for a fish supper.