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Portsmouth
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The Walk:
After the long drive and our walking this morning we were pretty hungry. From the map we weren’t sure whether we could park at Fort Southwick, so we pulled in to eat our sandwiches at a public car park marked on the map on the B2177 near Fort Widley. There was a large open grassy area with views across Portsmouth harbour that I can only describe as stunning. The place was heaving, although whether this was due to the views or the presence of a popular burger van was debatable. The burger van was certainly the place to go if you were hungry. The variations on offer had names such as the “Animal” and the “Bellybuster”, with the largest bun encasing three burgers, three eggs, three rashers of bacon and three slices of cheese – although you could ask for extra things if you wanted! We got a coffee each, but otherwise stuck with our packed lunch as we needed to be able to actually move afterwards! Onwards to Fort Southwick and the county top contained therein. After being refused access to Wattisham Airfield, we knew from the web that we had even less chance of getting into this military installation, and had already decided that we would be satisfied with getting as close to the base as we could without actually being arrested as suspected terrorists. Parking outside the fort is in predictably short supply, but we managed to find a short rough turning just to the west of the fort.
From the end of the short track we’d parked on a footpath led across the centre of the ridge and off down the other side. Where this path peaked we started looking for a way through to get closer to the fort. There was a fairly well used gap in the barbed wire fence to the right, which we headed through to enter a reservoir compound. Fort Southwick used to hold the water supply for all five forts – if this was it then it was strangely easy to get into! From on top of the reservoir itself there were more stunning views across Portsmouth harbour, but more to the point we could see the trig point inside the fort. It was situated on top of the huge earth embankments making up the fort defences. According to the map, the trig point was slightly outside the Portsmouth boundary, but the highest point of Portsmouth was clearly going to be just a few dozen metres south along the embankment from the trig. There was no way we could get any closer to it though – a 12 foot high military issue fence ran along the far side of the reservoir compound preventing further progress. We couldn’t really feel aggrieved though, given the pleasant sunshine starting to break through at our feet.. Given that the county top had been artificially raised through the construction of the fort we decided that anywhere hereabouts could constitute the “natural” county top of Portsmouth, and decided that it would count as “bagged”. Retreating to our starting point, we decided to take a wander along the road at the front of the fort (or at the back if you think about the direction the guns would have pointed…) to see what it was like. It was pleasant enough, but in turns of aesthetics fortifications really peaked with the classic Norman motte and bailey and have steadily got worse ever since.
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It had been a long slow drive along the A27 from
our previous top in Brighton – the A27 is clearly a road in need
of serious improvements in places. I feel sorry for the people who live
on the route; I hope the government soon starts to support all the local
campaigns for bypasses.
Fort
Southwick and Fort Widley form part of a chain of five forts spread along
the long narrow ridge of Ports Down, which crowds the northern suburbs
of Portsmouth and is a strategic viewpoint overlooking Portsmouth Harbour.
Strangely though, the guns of these forts were not trained out to sea,
but instead inland. The idea was that Portsmouth Harbour was vulnerable
to attack if enemy troops landed further along the coast and took Ports
Down from the landward side. The forts were therefore commissioned by
the then Prime Minister Lord Palmerston in the 1860’s – his
arguments failed to prevent the forts becoming known as “Palmerston’s
Folly”. All the forts have since been decommissioned apart from
– annoyingly – the one we wanted, Fort Southwick, which is
still used as a barracks.