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Maunsell Forts in UK

Maunsell also designed forts for anti-aircraft defence. These were larger installations comprising seven interconnected steel platforms, five carried guns arranged in a semicircle around the control centre and accommodation while the seventh, set further out than the gun towers, was the searchlight tower.



Each of these AA forts carried four QF 3.75 inch guns and two Bofors 40 mm guns. During the war the forts shot down 22 aircraft and about 30 flying bombs. They were decommissioned by the MoD in the late 1950s.



Various forts were re-occupied for pirate radio in the mid-1960s.



In 1964, a few months after Radio Caroline went on air, Screaming Lord Sutch set up Radio Sutch in one of the towers at Shivering Sands. Sutch soon became bored with the project and sold the station to his manager Reginald Calvert who renamed the station Radio City and expanded operations into all of the five towers that remained connected. Calvert's killing in a dispute over the station's ownership (found to be self-defence rather than murder) contributed to the Government passing legislation against the pirates in 1967.



During the pirate era the Port of London Authority frequently complained that its monitoring radio link was being disrupted by the nearby Radio City transmitter.



Red Sands was likewise occupied by Radio Invicta, which was re-named KING Radio and then Radio 390, after its wavelength of approximately 390 metres. The 1965 Danger Man episode "Not-so-Jolly Roger" was partly filmed at Redsands and includes an acknowledgement to Radio 390 in its closing credits. Also filmed at the Red Sand forts was the 1968 Doctor Who serial Fury from the Deep, in which the complex stood in for a North Sea gas refinery besieged by an intelligent seaweed creature.



The size of the Army forts made them ideal antenna platforms, since a large antenna could be based on the central tower and guyed from the surrounding towers.



A small group of radio enthusiasts set up Radio Tower on Sunk Head Naval fort, but the station was run on a shoestring, had very poor coverage and lasted only a few months. Claims by the company that they also intended to run a television service were never credible.



Paddy Roy Bates occupied the Rough Sands Fort and set up Radio Essex, later renamed BBMS — Britain's Better Music Station — but is better known for his post-pirate activities. He, or a representative, has lived in Roughs Tower since 1964, self-styling the tower as the Principality of Sealand.



http://www.undergroundkent.co.uk/maunsell_towers.htm










http://www.bobleroi.co.uk/ScrapBook/SutchCityPics10/SutchCityPics10.ht
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Originally posted by DREAMTROVE:

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