Reasons for Designation
The term battery refers to any place where artillery is positioned to
allow guns to cover a particular area such as a line of communication
or the approaches to a defended location. Although often contained
within artillery forts designed to withstand sieges, typically
including resident garrisons, many batteries were lightly defended
and only manned at fighting strength in times of emergency.
Batteries not contained within forts or castles were either open,
with some approaches left undefended, or enclosed, often with a
loopholed wall, ditch and/or fence designed to repel small scale
attacks. Battery design evolved over time with developments in
artillery. Those of the 16th and 17th centuries were normally simple
raised earthwork platforms faced with turf, facines (bundles of
sticks), or wicker baskets filled with earth and known as gabions.
More permanent batteries, normally those on the coast, were faced in
stone. The guns and gunners were typically protected by a raised
parapet with guns firing through embrasures, or breaks in the wall,
or over the parapet. Gun positions protected by casemates (roofed gun
chambers) were generally restricted to batteries within artillery
forts and castles. The gun carriages were supported on timber or
stone platforms known as barbettes, often ramped to limit gun recoil.
In the 18th century, traversing guns using carriages mounted on
pivots were increasingly employed. By the late 19th century, barbette
positions became the usual practice and, as the century progressed,
guns were mounted in increasingly sophisticated emplacements,
normally built in concrete with integrated magazines.
All batteries where enough survives to interpret the original form
and function will be considered of national importance. Other
examples, of early date or where rare components are preserved, may
be considered nationally important even where overall survival is
comparatively poor.
Upton Fort played a key strategic role in the defence of Portland Harbour
from the early 1900s through to 1943. It has strong group value with other
fortifications, dating from both the 19th and 20th centuries, which were
built to defend the naval harbour at Portland, such as the Nothe Fort, East
Weare Battery, the Inner Pierhead Fort, and the Verne Citadel. This coastal
artillery battery has been identified as one of only ten examples of its type
which have survived largely intact (from a recorded total of 202 built in the
20th century) in England. Upton Fort retains all of the elements of a
battery, including gun emplacements, magazines, searchlight structures, and
ground defences located within defensive earthworks. All survive in a good
state of preservation. In addition, the site retains a group of support
buildings that are rare survivals and which are listed at Grade II.
Furthermore, the monument is well-documented, with original records available
at the Public Record Office providing details of the armament and manning of
the battery. Upton Fort stands, therefore, as a well-researched and visible
reminder of the measures taken to protect England against the threat of
invasion in the first half of the 20th century.
Details
The monument includes the standing and earthwork remains of the early C20
century coastal artillery battery known as Upton Fort, together with the
standing remains of two World War II Coastal Artillery Search Lights and an
associated machine gun post. The monument falls within four separate areas of
protection.
By the mid-19th century Portland had become an important naval port, its
harbour the base for the Royal Navy and home, at various times, to the
Channel and Home Fleets. The main elements of the Portland defence works were
built between 1848 and 1872 and included the Verne Citadel and batteries, the
Breakwater Fort, the Inner Pier Head Fort and the Nothe Fort. In the early
20th century, additional batteries were added to the west and east. Upton was
strategically placed above Weymouth Bay to protect the eastern approaches to
Portland Harbour; a similar battery at Blacknor on the west side of Portland
covered the western approaches. The battery at Upton was constructed between
June 1901 and September 1903; two 6in breech-loading guns were installed in
February 1903, followed by two 9.2in guns between July and September that
year. After World War I the guns were removed and the battery was left in
charge of a caretaker. The site was updated and re-armed in 1940-41 to
operate as an emergency battery; two Coastal Artillery Search Lights were
also added. During World War II the battery was manned by the 522nd (Dorset)
Coastal Regiment, and the men were accommodated in Nissen huts at the
northern end of the site. Upton Fort was the first of the Portland defences
to enter care and maintenance following the reorganisation of defences in
November 1943, and was finally taken out of service in 1956.
Upton Fort comprises a number of different structures dispersed throughout
the circa 2.35 hectare site. The whole site is surrounded by a bank of
concrete where it flanks the entrance in the north west part of the site, and
earth elsewhere. There was also a ditch which was strengthened with steel
fencing, lengths of which survive. Two 6in breech-loading guns were installed
in February 1903; followed by a pair of 9.2in guns to the east, later that
year. The four gun emplacements are located towards the southern end of the
site, on the south side of a sunken road which runs west-east. The 6in
emplacements are built of concrete; the western one is now largely occupied
by No.3 Upton Fort, but the ground beneath this building is included within
the scheduling; the eastern emplacement survives largely as built. It is set
on a low concrete platform with a concrete apron on the south side, facing
the sea. There is a central well for the gun mounting, accessed to the east
and west by a short passage and to the rear (north) are four cartridge
recesses. Sited between the two 6in emplacements is a subterranean gun
magazine. Its concrete front wall faces north onto the blast space surround
and has a single doorway and six iron-barred windows. At either end of the
blast space, flanking the magazine, are the former Lamp Room and the RA
Store. Internally the magazine comprises a symmetrical arrangement of
brick-lined chambers with barrel-vaulted roofs. To the east, are the two
9.2in gun emplacements and a magazine. The emplacements are of identical
construction and of two phases. The western emplacement was known as No.1 Gun
and its companion to the east as No.2 Gun. The gun positions have protective
semi-circular brick walls on the north side with outer blast walls, and roofs
of steel and concrete. These flat-roofed superstructures are World War II
additions, and are rare survivals. The internal face of the protective wall
has a walkway with shell and cartridges stores below; there are further
ammunition stores in the side of the gun pit platform and on each side of the
rear of the splay. Each emplacement is fronted by a sloping apron of
reinforced concrete which is covered in bitumen. The 9.2in gun magazine is
similar to the 6in gun magazine in both design and plan.
The battery was equipped with its own Light Anti-aircraft and ground
defences. The main anti-aircraft installation was a 40mm Bofors gun sited
just to the south west of the 6in gun emplacements. The concrete base for the
gun and the remains of a protective blockwork wall with locker recesses
survives. Surviving elements of the ground defences include the concrete
pedestal for a spigot mortar post on the western edge of the battery, and the
earthwork remains of at least three further machine gun positions at
strategic points around the perimeter of the site. Two Coast Artillery Search
Lights (CASL) sited to the south west and south east of the gun positions
were added during World War II. The searchlight buildings survive and are
built of brick with bombproof flat concrete roofs. They have open fronts,
facing onto Weymouth Bay, and side entrances. They are unusual in having a
rectangular plan rather than the arc- or polygonal-fronted forms which, where
employed, provided a broader arc of operation. To the north west of the
eastern searchlight building is a sunken machine gun post, built of brick
with a concrete roof supported on brick piers.
Support buildings for the battery which lie within the area of the monument
include the Battery Command Post - a circular structure protected by an
earthen mound - on the slope behind the emplacements and a small observation
post immediately south of the western 6in gun emplacement. There are two
semi-sunken buildings (now Nos.4-5 Upton Fort) sited between the gun
emplacements which date from the earliest phase of the battery. These were
used as a shelter and PAD (Passive Air Defence) centre during World War II;
they are now dwellings and are not included in the scheduling. There is a
further group of ancillary buildings (including Nos. 1-2 Upton Fort): the
former caretaker's quarters, former artillery store, and smith's and fitter's
shops in the south western part of the site which are protected by glacis
earthworks. These buildings are listed at Grade II and are not included in
the scheduling.
All modern fencing, and the properties known as Nos.1-5 Upton Fort, Brant
Cottage, and Little Brant are excluded from the scheduling, although the
ground beneath these features is included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
