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BULL SAND FORT

BULL SAND FORT, SPURN POINT

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

The formidable Bull Sand Fort is one of two offshore forts guarding the mouth of the Humber. It was built in the First World War, manned again during the Second World War, and continued in military use until the late 1950s.

Reinforced with steel armour-plating and armed with gun batteries, its defences included a steel anti-submarine net stretched between the two forts. Read the official list entry.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1083477
Date first listed:: 27-Feb-1987
List Entry Name:: BULL SAND FORT
Statutory Address:: BULL SAND FORT, SPURN POINT

User submitted image — Uploaded by P Hampel This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1083477
Date first listed:: 27-Feb-1987
List Entry Name:: BULL SAND FORT
Statutory Address 1:: BULL SAND FORT, SPURN POINT

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: BULL SAND FORT, SPURN POINT

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

National Grid Reference:: TA 37054 09240

Details

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

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 166549
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Ships and Vessels of the Humber, (1985)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.