Friends of Shoreham Fort

Of the many small forts and gun batteries built along the coast of Southern England during the past few centuries only two survive in anything like their original form. Littlehampton Fort, completed in September 1854, is now largely covered by the sand dunes and unfortunately less complete and Shoreham Fort, also known as Kingston or Shoreham Redoubt, completed in June 1857. Both of these forts are in West Sussex.

These two forts are important examples of experimental fortification, using what is known as a Carnot Wall. They were built directly after the introduction of the ‘rifled’ gun barrels on the continent. Rifled barrels were an invention of the mid-nineteenth century with the aim of increasing the range and accuracy of heavy guns. The design flaws from building Littlehampton Fort were corrected at Shoreham Fort before going on to build the more elaborate fortifications in Portsmouth, one of which is our Royal Armouries museum, Fort Nelson.