The Medway Forts
Discover the Hidden History of the Medway Forts
Customised map
Brompton Barracks
Brompton Barracks is still in use by the army. There is no way you can get acsess to this site, apart from the Royal engineers museum which is located outside the sites perimiter. This museum probally has lots of interesting stuff inside, but I find it too museumish for my liking.
Status: Still in use (exept for one building which is a museum)
Access to site:Â No (exept for Royal engineers museum which is located outside of the hevely gaurded perimiter)
Centre Bastion Battery
Centre Bastion Battery is located inside the sheerness docks.
There are a load of historic listed buildings at Sheerness Docks as well as two forts, but the companies who run the docks don't seem to like these buildings. They don't let people onto the site to see the forts.
Status:Â In private use.
Access to site:Â No
Chatham Dockyard
This has been turned into a museum.
Status:Â Turned into tourist attraction
Access to site:Â Yes (but there is an entry fee)
Chattenden Barracks
Chattenden Barracks (not to be confused with the nearby Lodge Hill Barracks) is a set of barracks at lodge hill. This is a large site with lots of interesting things all around the area. The barracks themselves have sadly been demolished.
There used to be a railway that went from these barracks to the military pier next to upnor castle.
Status:Â Abandoned!
Access to site: If you try hard enough
Cliffe Explosives Factory
This is a very large site which has loads of abandoned buildings all over it. It is currently used as a farm.
Status Abandoned
Access to site: Its in a field
Cliffe Sea Fort
This is an awesome abandoned fort. This is quite a large site and is fun to explore. The lower floor has been flooded. This fort is located at the cliffe nature reserve.
Status Abandoned!
Access to site:Â YES (climb over fence)
Coalhouse Fort
This fort is owned by the council and only opens to the public once a month. This place is nice, but I prefer my forts to be abandoned, like the nearby East Tilbury Battery.
Status: Turned into tourist attraction
Access to site: Yes (but there is an entry fee)
Cookham Wood Fort
This fort is owned by the council and only opens to the public once a month. This place is nice, but I prefer my forts to be abandoned, like the nearby East Tilbury Battery.
Status: Abandoned (not much of it left)
Access to site: Yes
Cooling Castle
This fort is owned by the council and only opens to the public once a month. This place is nice, but I prefer my forts to be abandoned, like the nearby East Tilbury Battery.
Status: Turned into a house
Access to site: No, Unless you are very rich!
Fort Amherst
Fort Amhurst in located in Chatham. This fort is now a tourist attraction.
The top part of the fort can now be visited without having to pay to go in the main part of the fort.
Status: Turned into tourist attraction
Access to site: Yes (underground parts have an entrance fee)
Fort Borstal
Fort Borstal is a historic abandoned fort in Medway which is currently privetly owned and is not open to the public.
Status:Â In private use
Access to site:Â No
Fort Bridgewoods
Fort Bridgewoods was a historic fort which has been demolished. A stupid buissness park has been built in its place. A discusting loss of heratage.
This historic fort has been demolished.
Fort Clarence
Fort Clarence is a historic fort which has been horribly modernized and turned into a house. I hate it when buildings are over restored in this way, it loses all of the building charactor.
Status: Turned into a house
Access to site: Kind of (you can look at the area around the building)
Fort Darland
This fort has sadly been demolished, and a housing estate has been built in its place.
This historic fort has been demolished.
Fort Darnet
Fort Darnet is on and island and is only accessible by boat. The island is uninhabited and there are no boat trips to it. The only way there is to have your own boat.
Status: Abandoned
Access to site: Yes, if you have a boat
Fort Delce
Fort Delce is a historic fort, most of it has been demolished. A smallpart of it has been turn into a second hand car dealer.
This historic fort has been demolished.
Fort Hoo
Fort Hoo is on and island and is only accessible by boat. The island is uninhabited and there are no boat trips to it. The only way there is to have your own boat.
Status: Abandoned
Access to site: Yes, if you have a boat
Fort Horstead
Fort Horstead is a historic fort which has been turned into a buissness park. The Fort has been kept original and the buissness units are located inside the fort. They have done without losing the charactor of the Fort. The whole place still feels original and unmodernized, making this an awesome place to run a buissness. Also there are loads of nice dark abandoned passageways.
Status: In private use
Access to site: Try asking nicely at reception
Fort Luton
Fort Luton is a historic fort built between 1876 and 1892. In the 1990s this place opened as a zany museum and children's play area. I have fond memories of going here when I was very young. Fort Luton closed in 2001 after arguments by the people running it. Today the fort is in a very poor state.
Status: In private use
Access to site: No
Fort Pitt
This was a historic fort, which was demolished a long time ago. A school and arts college has been built in its place.
This was a historic fort, which was demolished a long time ago. A school and arts college has been built in its place.
Garrison Point Fort
Garrison Point Fort is located inside the sheerness docks.
There are a load of historic listed buildings at Sheerness Docks as well as two forts, but the companies who run the docks don't seem to like these buildings. They don't let people onto the site to see the forts.
Status: In private use
Access to site: NoÂ
Grain Battery
This is a small abandoned fort located in the middle of a horse field. It is located opersite the sea fort and isn't far from the land fort.
Status: Abandoned
Access to site: YES
Grain Land Fort
Grain Fort is located on the shore oppersite the sea fort. This places has been turned into a park. There are two sets of underground tunnels under this fort.
Status: Turned into park (but there is an abandoned section)
Access to site: YES
Grain Sea Fort
Grain Tower is a mid-19th-century gun tower situated offshore just east of Grain, Kent, standing in the mouth of the River Medway. It was built along the same lines as the Martello towers that were constructed along the British and Irish coastlines in the early 19th century and is the last-built example of a gun tower of this type. It owed its existence to the need to protect the important dockyards at Sheerness and Chatham from a perceived French naval threat during a period of tension in the 1850s.
Status: Abandoned!
Access to site: YES (When tide is out)
Grange Redoubt
Grange Redoubt is the first of the two Twydall Redoubts, it was built in 1885.
Grange Redoubt is the most elusive of the forts in Medway. Here is the entrance to the land where the fort is believed to be. None of the locals seemed to know anything about it.
Status: Unknown (It seems that most of it has been demolished)
Access to site: No
Gravesend nuclear bunker
This bunker is owned by the council and there are guided tours every now and then.
It is located at the side of a park. The only thing to be seen on the outside is just a fenced off staircase. But down the staircase is an amazing collection of 1950s items from the cold war. Its like an entire secret hidden world.
Status: Owned by gravesend council
Access to site: there are occasional guided tours
HMS Pembroke
Despite the name, this is not a boat. This is an army barracks that has been turned into the Universities at Medway.
Status: Owned by the university
Access to site: YES
HMS Wildfire
Despite the name this is not a boat. This is a large underground wartime control center. It is 30 meters deep. It is sealed up and acsess is not possible. Urban Explorers usually only manage to get in a few times every decade. The site is pretty much intact. As far as I can tell a group of chavs only managed to get in once and vanderlised the place (Asbestos walls smashed, toilets smashed, and the operations room was set on fire). Luckly the chavs didn't cause too much damage and the place is pretty much how it was when it was abandoned.
Status: Abandoned Tunnels (top part turned into park)
Access to site: Tunnels: No, Park: Yes
Kingsnorth Airship Station
This was a second world war airship station. This is located inside the Kingsnorth power station complex.
When this site was decomisioned after the war, a local farmer brought one of the airship hangers, and had it moved to his farm at St Mary Hoo.Â
Status: In private use
Access to site: Try asking nicely at reception
Maunsell Sea Forts
The Maunsell Sea Forts are a collection of awesome abandoned forts miles out at sea. The closest one to Medway in the Redsands Fort. In the 1950s These forts were used by pirate radio stations./;;
Medway (Southern Water) nuclear bunker
This is an awesome cold war nuclear bunker. It is totaly abandoned and epic. It is pitch black inside!
Status: Abandoned!
Access to site: YES
Milton Range
This is a firearms training range near gravesend.
There used to be a train station here. This was a very nice little halt in the middle of nowhere, and the strangest thing about it was that it had a signal right in the middle of the platform. This station had been abandoned since 1961 but despite this the platforms survived until 2008/2009 when the station was sadly demolished.
Status: IN USE
Access to site: No
New Tavern Fort
This fort is located in Gravesend and has been turned into a park.
Type: Turned into park
Access to site: YES
Northfleet AEI Tunnels
Northfleet AEI Tunnels is situated on the bank of the River Thames at Northfleet. Built around 1906, the location saw heavy use during World War 2 when it made vital contributions towards projects such as Operation PLUTO. As a result, a shelter was built in to the nearby chalk-face of the old Rosherville Gardens - providing the capability to allow up to 2000 people to seek refuge during air-raids. This shelter possessed 6 entrances and boasted electric ventilation, toilet facilities, and a first aid post. WT Henley was acquired by AEI in 1959, who would go on to use the site until 2008 when it was closed.Â
Status: In private use
Access to site: Try asking nicely at reception
Rochester Castle
Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway in Rochester, Kent, South East England. The 12th-century keep or stone tower, which is the castle's most prominent feature, is one of the best preserved in England or France.
Status: Turned into tourist attraction
Access to site: Yes (but there is an entry fee)
Shornmead Fort
This is a small abandoned fort located on the shore half way between Gravesend and Cliffe.
Status: Abandoned
Access to site: Yes
Shorts Tunnels
The Shorts Tunnels are a maze of underground tunnels under rochester. They used to be the Shorts Brothers factory for making airoplanes in the war.
These tunnels are abanoned, and were accessible until 2010 when some chavs lit a fire in the tunnels so the council blocked up the last remaining entrance.
Status: Abandoned!
Access to site: NO
Slough Fort (Allhallows)
This is located in a farm at Allhallows. This fort was being used as horse stables, it is now being repaired and going to be opened as part of the neighbouring Haven holiday park. Here are some photos from a special tour of the fort in October 2014.
Status: Opening soon as tourist attraction
Access to site: opening soon
Tilbury Fort
Tilbry fort is an english heritage site on the otherside of the river to Gravesend's New Tavern Fort.
Status: Turned into tourist attraction
Access to site: Yes (but there is an entry fee)
Upper Lines
This is the upper part of the lines fortifications. Some of this site has been turned into sports grounds for the army estate, but unlike the lower lines, the ditches are abandoned and fenced off.
Status: Turned into a park (some parts abandoned, and some parts in use as sports grounds for the army estate)
Access to site: Some of it
Upnor Castle
Upnor castle is older than all of the other forts (which were mainly built around the 1860s). Upnor castle is a Tudor fort built in 1559.
This site is now a tourist attraction. Apart from a few annoying musuemish signs, this place doesn't feel too much like its turned into a tourist place.
Status: Turned into tourist attraction
Access to site: Yes (but there is an entry fee)