Tilbury Fort Conservation Plan Draft v1 Prepared for English Heritage March 2018 Alan Baxter Draft How to use this document This document has been designed to be viewed digitally. It will work best on Comments Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat Pro versions X or DC or later on a PC or laptop. The document can be annotated with comments and amendments using the standard Adobe commenting tools. 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Previous view Forward and back Site Plan Part 1: Conservation Plan Part 2: Gazetteer and Supporting Information (to follow) Tilbury Fort Conservation Plan / 1733-160 / March 2018 Alan Baxter Draft Tilbury Fort Conservation Plan Draft v1 Prepared for English Heritage March 2018 Contents How to use this document ....................................................................................................ii List of illustrations ....................................................................................................................iv Executive Summary ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������v 1.0 Introduction ......................................................................................................................1 2.0 Understanding Tilbury Fort ........................................................................................4 3.0 Significance ....................................................................................................................54 4.0 Risks, opportunities and policies ���������������������������������������������������������������������������63 5.0 Sources .............................................................................................................................84 6.0 Gazetteer .........................................................................................................................88 7.0 Appendices ....................................................................................................................89 Tilbury Fort Conservation Plan / 1733-160 / March 2018 Alan Baxter Draft List of illustrations List of illustrations to follow Tilbury Fort Conservation Plan / 1733-160 / March 2018 iv Alan Baxter Draft Executive Summary Executive Summary This Conservation Plan was commissioned by English Heritage to inform The history of the Fort has been marked by long periods of little or no change, the management and future direction of Tilbury Fort, Essex. Tilbury is an punctuated by bursts of development stimulated by threats, or perceived exceptionally interesting place, with a highly distinctive sense of place, but threats, of invasion. The defences and armaments were repeatedly altered it faces great challenges stemming from its location and its nature. This Plan and updated over time because of the changing nature of weaponry and was prepared in 2017-18 by Alan Baxter Ltd in close collaboration with English tactics. New buildings were added and old ones removed over time to meet Heritage staff, to help them address these challenges, and unlock what is so the military requirements of the day. Six key phases can be identified in the special about the Fort. historical development of the Fort and are mapped in the drawings here: Summary of the site 1539–40 A small fort, or blockhouse, is built as part of Henry VIII’s scheme of national defence following the break from Rome Tilbury Fort is largely late seventeenth-century in layout, with standing fabric from the seventeenth to the twentieth century and earlier buried remains of a 1670–85 A large and powerful new artillery fort is designed on the bastion sixteenth-century blockhouse. Its original purpose was to protect London from system by Sir Bernard de Gomme, for Charles II; the waterside enemy ships sailing up the Thames, and to secure the strategic river crossing entrance is given an impressive stone façade. from Tilbury to Gravesend. Due to the continuing strategic importance of its 1715–50 The Fort becomes an ordnance depot; new gunpowder site, it was periodically improved and re-armed up until the beginning of the magazines are built, existing buildings adapted and some of the twentieth century, although no shot was ever fired in anger from its guns. In the original buildings are rebuilt. eighteenth-century the Fort gained an additional role as an ordnance depot and the storage and distribution of guns, ammunition and other military equipment 1868–76 New gun emplacements are built in the West, North-east and continued to be its main activity up to the end of the Second World War. For East Bastions, served by underground magazines; the bastion the last seventy years it has been in care of the state as an historic monument. walls are earthed up to protect them from naval bombardment. before 1670 1750 1685 1800 Tilbury Fort Conservation Plan / 1733-160 / March 2018 v Alan Baxter Draft Executive Summary 1900–04 New concrete gun emplacements are constructed on top of the • In its setting, the underlying topography is legible despite modern East Bastion and South-east Curtain. development, enabling an understanding of the Fort’s historic character and the reasons for its creation; 1948–82 Most of the nineteenth-century buildings are removed and the remaining structures repaired and restored under the Ministry of • The surviving buildings in the Fort have architectural and artistic interest, in Works and its successors; opened to the public for the first time particular the Water Gate, a superb seventeenth-century gatehouse, and the in 1958; the River Wall is built, 1981–82, cutting off the Fort from Gunpowder Magazines, rare early examples of this building type. the river. • The striking image of the Fort walls and moats when seen from the air, the Summary of significance curious landscape of the nineteenth-century earthworks, the strange beauty of the riverside and marshland setting and the sights and sounds of the The most important aspects of Tilbury Fort’s significance can be summarised as working river, give the Fort outstanding aesthetic interest. follows: The only feature of the Fort that can meaningfully be said to detract is the River • Tilbury Fort is a rare surviving example of a well-preserved seventeenth- Wall, which has severed the important visual and physical relationship between century fortification, with even rarer surviving outworks; the Fort and the River Thames. It is excluded from the scheduled area, but is • It has associations with the story of national defence from the mid-sixteenth within the site boundary. century to the twentieth century and illustrates military responses to external threats over time; the continual re-use and adaptation of the site for Main management findings the same purpose is an important part of its history; Five main issues stand out that need to be addressed as priorities: • Surviving structures, earthworks and the fragmentary survival of fixtures Setting: it is crucially important to decide what matters most about the setting illustrate the development of military technology and theory, in particular in and how its contribution to the significance of the Fort can be sustained, relation to land-based defence against naval attack; working in close partnership with Historic England; 1871 1904 1948 2018 Tilbury Fort Conservation Plan / 1733-160 / March 2018 vi Alan Baxter Draft Executive Summary Access and circulation: the closure of the bridges over the Inner Moat access to POLICIES TO FOLLOW once finilised the site has had an impact on access and parking and has restricted the amount of the Fort that is accessible to visitors; a long term solution to access and circulation issues would benefit the site; Presentation: the way the Fort is presented and interpreted could be improved both on site and online; new and better presentation which better reveals the outstanding significance of the Fort would have potential to increase visitor numbers; Condition: the maintenance and repair of the site is a challenge due to the Fort’s size and location; it is crucial that basic maintenance is not neglected and condition is regularly monitored and resources prioritised appropriately. Future vision: above all, Tilbury Fort needs a clear vision for the future of the site, and a direction of travel. If it continues as it is, income will never come close to the repair and maintenance liabilities inherent in a large and complex site in a demanding environment. This will threaten its significance, and impair its presentation. The Fort is a magical and fascinating place, so its future may