Historical Nonfiction

These are sea forts, off the coast of England. They were designed by Guy Maunsell in 1942 to house anti-aircraft guns and search lights. They were intended to shoot down German bombers during World War II.  The War Office located the first of Manusell’s forts in the River Mersey near Liverpool. These didn’t see much action and were later removed because they started to sink into the sandy sea bed they were sited on. His next batch were made in Gravesend Kent and towed into position in The Thames Estuary.Only two of these remain, the Nore fort was dismantled in 1959 as it was a hazard to shipping moving up the Thames to the Port Of London. The abandoned forts were left to the seagulls.

Then, in 1964, an illegal radio station (Radio Caroline) started broadcasting off the forts. This started an offshore radio boom in the 1960s. Radio Atlantis, London, and Scotland followed, to name a few. Then in 1967 the stations were closed down one by one by the Government. The seagulls reclaimed the forts.

However during the summer of 2005 a group called Project Red Sands put an access platform back on one of the towers, and since then have been steadily restoring it. The plan is to restore one tower at a time and use them for a museum, wedding venue and IT base. This summer has seen a temporary radio station (Red Sands Radio) broadcasting from one of the towers once more, this was to mark the 40th anniversary of the closure of Radio 390 on 28th July 1967.