Fort Gilkicker

Fort Gilkicker is a historic Palmerston fort built at the eastern end of Stokes Bay, Gosport, Hampshire to dominate the key anchorage of Spithead. It was erected between 1863 and 1871 as a semi-circular arc with 22 casemates, to be armed with five twelve-inch guns, seventeen ten-inch guns and five nine-inch guns. The actual installed armament rather differed from this. In 1902 the RML guns were replaced by two 9.2-inch and two six-inch BL guns, and before the First World War the walls were further strengthened with substantial earthwork embankments. The fort was disarmed in 1956 and used for storage until 1999, and is currently in a state of disrepair.

The Phoenix Trust proposed to convert the fort to apartments in 1999, but pulled out in 2001. A similar redevelopment scheme was posited by Try Homes from 2003-2006, and Assett Hawk from 2007-2012. The latter did engage in some work on the site clearing overgrowth in 2012, but none of the schemes came to fruition. In 2016, the fort was earmarked for restoration and conversion to modern apartments by Fort Gilkicker Developments Ltd, and work began on site with the erection of a fence, however these plans were again dropped in 2018 due to financial issues, and the fort was put on sale again in November 2019 with a guide price of 5 to 5.5 million pounds.

It is a Grade II* Listed Building and on the Buildings at Risk Register, but is currently in extremely poor condition due to a lack of maintenance and numerous break-ins. An urban explorer took a series of photographs of the interior in 2016, demonstrating the scale of the damage. The site suffered a major fire in March 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Gi...

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