Bull Sand Fort

EASINGTON SPURN POINT TA 41 SW 14/8 Bull Sand Fort II

Offshore fort. 1915-18 with minor later alterations. Reinforced concrete and brick, clad with rivetted steel armour plating. Timber and steel jetty. Circular on plan with octagonal base and balcony at sea level, and polygonal jetty to south-west. 3 floors with basement and magazine below sea level, and central 2-storey observation tower. Plain railings to balcony and jetty. Rows of windows to lower and middle floors, each with pairs of hinged steel shutters. The middle floor has groups of 3 projecting turrets on the north and south sides, facing the main shipping lanes. The central octagonal turrets, each supported by an attached cylindrical shaft, have a row of shuttered windows beneath a flat roof; the flanking semicircular turrets have conical bases and roofs and full-width shuttered openings. The roof of the fort carries a central cylindrical ventilation shaft; a rectangular flat-roofed armour-clad look-out tower with shuttered windows, single projecting square observation turrets attached to north and south sides, a roof balcony, mast and radio aerials; angular armour-clad flat- roofed sections flanking a pair of east-facing gun emplacements; a recessed segmental section of painted brick on the west side, containing 7 windows with glazing bars and a pair of steel chimneys, and approached by a steel staircase from the jetty. Bull Sand Fort, with its smaller companion fort on Haile Sand (Lincolnshire) 3.75 kilometres to the south-west, guarded the approaches to the Humber with gun batteries and an anti-submarine net of steel mesh stretched between them across the mouth of the estuary. Bull Fort had full amenities, including its own fresh water supply, for a garrison of 200. Armaments, besides the usual small and rapid-fire weapons, consisted of two 6 inch guns and two 6-pounder guns. A reputed 40,000 tons of concrete and steel went into its construction, at a cost of £l,500,000. Both forts were constantly manned during both world wars, and were often under attack from aircraft and submarine. The Army left in 1956, but the forts were still manned until the early 1960s, when both were sold to the Humber Conservancy Board. Cleethorpes Borough Council, Resort Activities Department, information sheet 05/3, Ships and Vessels of the Humber, 1985.

Listing NGR: TA3705409240