Coalhouse Fort - Essex,

Ghosts of Coalhouse Fort

Many people who have worked at Coalhouse Fort over the years have seen many strange shapes and shadows, others have seen full apparitions. There have been the sounds of children laughing and the eerie footsteps that have followed people from room to room. The Poltergeist activity has been an overwhelming phenomena here with things being thrown and chairs being moved. The Most Haunted Team visited here and found this to be one of the most active locations that they had ever visited.

During ghost hunts here people have witnessed dark figures walking towards them before disappearing. Whilst others have said that they have been touched unseen hands.

History of Coalhouse Fort

The Fort itself was built as a Victorian Coastal Defence in 1874 and its main purpose was to defend London from any invasions from neighbouring countries such as France. It has a maze of tunnels and rooms projecting from every dimension and plenty of areas for investigation. Along with over 600 years of military history it also has a very gruesome past.

Coalhouse Fort is a former artillery fort built in the 1860s to guard the lower Thames from seaborne attack. It stands at Coalhouse Point in Essex on the north bank of the river, at a location that was vulnerable to raiders and invaders. It was the last in a series of fortifications dating back to the 15th century and was the direct successor to a smaller mid-19th century fort built on the same site. Constructed during a period of tension with France, its location on marshy ground caused problems from the start and led to a lengthy construction process.

The fort was equipped with a variety of large-calibre artillery guns and the most modern defensive facilities at the time, including shell-proof casemates protected by granite facing and cast-iron shields. However, its slow construction and the rapid pace of artillery development at the time meant that it was virtually obsolete for its original purpose within a few years of its completion.

Additional History of Coalhouse Fort

The fort\'s armament was revised several times during its seventy years of military usage as its role in the river\'s defensive system evolved. It was initially a front-line fortification, supported by Shornemead Fort and Cliffe Fort located to the south and east respectively on the Kent shore. Over time, as batteries and forts further downriver became the front line of the Thames defences, Coalhouse Fort was stripped of its main weapons and its fabric was altered to support smaller quick-firing guns intended to be used against fast-moving surface and aerial targets. Its last military usage was as a training facility for a few years after the Second World War.

Decommissioned in 1949, the fort was used for a time as a storehouse for a shoe company before it was purchased by the local council. The surrounding land was developed into a public park but the fort itself fell into dereliction, despite its historical and architectural significance. Since 1985 it has been leased to a voluntary preservation group which has been working to restore the fort and use it for a variety of heritage and educational purposes. It can be visited by the public on regular open days and houses a number of reconstructions, small military museums and open-air displays of military equipment.