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Coalhouse Fort on 'at risk' list

9:50am Wednesday 9th July 2008

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COALHOUSE Fort at Tilbury has been identified as one of the country's most 'at risk' heritage buildings.

That is one of the stark conclusions of the most in-depth study ever undertaken into the state of the region's historic treasures, launched in the East of England today (Wednesday) by English Heritage.

The fort is a large armoured casemate fortress constructed in 1859 on the site of earlier batteries. On completion in 1874, it had some 20 gun emplacements, associated magazines and handling laboratory.

It provided accommodation for 180 men, including officers' quarters, cook house, hospital, guard room and cell block.

Ordnance technology developed swiftly and over the next 80 years the fort was modified and re-armed to accommodate later developments in artillery. It remained an important element of the Thames defences until 1945.

The fort is in a state of poor repair due to a lack of adequate maintenance and repair over a very long period and the high maintenance requirements of the original design.

A conservation group, the Coalhouse Fort Project, has been granted a lease on the site by Thurrock Council and they have invested time and resources in maintaining and repairing parts of the historic structure, and opening the fort to the public on a limited basis.

A number of reports on the fort have been prepared and a further Feasibility Study undertaken to determine how to take forward further funding bids.

English Heritage has offered grant to support Thurrock Borough Council's urgent repairs to the entrance barrack block.

Greg Luton, Regional Director for English Heritage in the East of England, was at St George's Theatre in Great Yarmouth to launch this year's Register.

He said: "Heritage at Risk is a work in progress, but already it is giving us an unprecedented window into the state of the region's historic environment.

"Like the Buildings at Risk register, this is not a name and shame exercise, but a tool to understand threats and prioritise action. Excellent work is being done to protect our heritage, but the study raises some serious causes for concern. We are particularly anxious about the condition of scheduled ancient monuments."

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Your Say YourThurrock Gazette

Freddy K, says...
11:01am Wed 9 Jul 08

Unfortunately this is just the tip of the iceberg with historic buildings in this country.

English Heritage place these buildings on the listed building lists but that is normaly as far as it goes, funding is very limited for these important historical buildings and with listed status the repairs are more expensive as they have to be as near to the original building materials as possible.

The government should do more to assist in the preservation of our heritage or we will be in danger of losing some of the most important artefacts and buildings in this countries history.

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Thurrock Voice of Reason, Grays says...
3:11pm Wed 9 Jul 08

Mr K this government is too busy **** money up the wall on things like bonuses for Civil Servants who barely do their job than to worry about heritage.

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Eddie, aveley says...
6:35pm Wed 9 Jul 08

pity we hadnt spent the money on our historic buildings rather than wasting it on the stupid millenium dome and the hoorendous olympic fiasco

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Lakes, Stanford le hope says...
1:28am Thu 10 Jul 08

er, where has all the money gone from the tv shows that have used it? where has all the money gone from the paranormal investigations gone?


oh i get it now, let it fall aprt and bulid flats on it like they have done with the rest of Thurrock and move families in from London.

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volunteer, essex says...
8:34am Thu 10 Jul 08

I am an active member of the Coalhouse fort project, working some 50-80 hours a month as a volunteer in various roles as do many other people. Every penny that is made by the project on open days, paranormal investigations, location hire from TV companies and kind donations is all put in to the fort restoration fund. I dont think anyone comprehends the cost involved in restoring this wonderful building. Just a small section of roof that is in desperate need of repair will cost more than that of the average 3 bed house! Raising the money is far easier than getting through the red tape and regulations thats involved in everything that is done at the fort! Yet still we plod on.....

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Local, East Tilbury says...
8:40am Thu 10 Jul 08

Thurrock council let the fort get into the state it's in and it's Thurrock council that creates all the red tape that prevents it from being restored.

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Lakes, Stanford le hope says...
11:13am Thu 10 Jul 08

volunteer wrote:
I am an active member of the Coalhouse fort project, working some 50-80 hours a month as a volunteer in various roles as do many other people. Every penny that is made by the project on open days, paranormal investigations, location hire from TV companies and kind donations is all put in to the fort restoration fund. I dont think anyone comprehends the cost involved in restoring this wonderful building. Just a small section of roof that is in desperate need of repair will cost more than that of the average 3 bed house! Raising the money is far easier than getting through the red tape and regulations thats involved in everything that is done at the fort! Yet still we plod on.....
then you should look into what happend to the money you got from living tv for Most Haunted.This was not spent on the fort.

I know how much you charge teams to hold paranormal investigations there and i still find it hard to see where it has gone.
as for the roof then how about asking local companies to help out. I am sure someone like Beaver84 would help out with the scaffolding, and i can think of a lot of other companies that would help or that you could ask.

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volunteer, essex says...
1:39pm Thu 10 Jul 08

I dont think anyone understands that to open the doors to the public each year costs the project in excess of £20k alone in electricity, insurance, public liability etc. Money we raise goes first and foremost in to keeping the gates open for the public..any extra goes on restoration. We are governed by English Heritage as to which contractors we can use for the required work. We have recieved many offers of building work help, but being a Scheduled Ancient monument we can do nothing without English Heritage approval our hands are completely tied. Building contractors have to be approved by them and all work has to be carried out to English Heritage standards and following their set regulations. If only it was as easy as getting in a local contractor, the fort would not be in the state it is!
I can assure anyone that money raised from whatever means goes on nothing other than Fort Costs, Maintenance and restoration. The project members and guides that work every open day,the paranormal team that work all through the night Every single weekend, The work parties that work so hard on the maintenance every week are all volunteers between us working hundreds of man hours. Yet We all get no more out of it than a free cup of tea and the satisfaction that we are trying to make a difference !!!!

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Fort Chair, Hornchurch, Essex says...
3:12pm Thu 10 Jul 08

I would like to thank 'Volunteer' for their comments, with which I whole-heartedly agree. I have the honour to be the current chairman of the Coalhouse Fort Project, a charity organisation which was formed in 1983 with the aim of restoring the Fort. We continues to strive against, amongst other things , the weather and Fort is managing the 'tread water' at the moment, thanks mainly to our working volunteers who work very hard to maintain the fort as best as they can, given the restrictions that are placed upon us. I feel saddened that some people appear to believe that money raised by the project through our open days and events is in some way being misused, this is not the case. ‘Volunteer’ mentioned that the cost of keeping the Fort open to the public, even on a limited basis, exceeds £20,000 per year. That is correct. In order to raise this sort of money, it is necessary for the project to hold a number of events, including our Halloween event each year, open days on the last Sunday of each month and bank holidays and even evening events. Our volunteers work very hard simply because they care very much that the unique piece of history that is the Fort will possibly be lost to future generations. Any money raised in excess of running costs is invested into restoration projects within the fort and for the chance to do this we thank the public very much for their continued support

Thank you for reading through my comment. If you have found anything about it interesting, please check out our website at coalhousefort.co.uk where perhaps you can see some of what we do. If you are in any way interested in assisting the project, please either go to the link on the website, or send an email to volunteer@coalhousef
ort.co.uk


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Freddy K, says...
4:08pm Thu 10 Jul 08

Volunteer & Fort Chair, I applaud both your efforts and all those who strive to keep this important peice of history open to the public.

The fund raising must take up a lot of time and I can imagine it is a thankless task at times; however, I cannot see why the government cannot bear the costs of any repair that is needed on this and many other historic buildings, if you were to knock it down or repair it out of character they would come down on you like a ton of bricks (excuse the pun) but do not put their hands in their pockets enough to assist with the up keep.

This is not a slight on the many volunteers across the country who do a magnificent job with limited resources.

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Lakes, Stanford le hope says...
7:09pm Thu 10 Jul 08

Volunteer & Fort Chair you do great work, but you do need to find out where the money from most haunted has gone.
Coalhouse fort is a great place and it is a shame to see it in the way it is, the thing is that you only got your hands on it once it had started to fall apart, its a shame the MOD will give a hand out to you.

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volunteer, essex says...
8:51am Fri 11 Jul 08

Lakes, With responses from Fort Chair and Secretary, do you not think we can account for every penny we have raised? I assure you that we can, we know exactly where every penny has gone or for which project it is paying for. I'm not sure why you have this strange notion regarding the Most Haunted payment.. but I can be entirely certain that you have been misiformed.

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Local, East Tilbury says...
8:55am Fri 11 Jul 08

I guess the few hundred pound that Most Haunted paid would be more than enough to completely restore the whole fort! Ha ha

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Local, East Tilbury says...
3:36pm Fri 11 Jul 08

To put this article in to context.

Quote

Lord Bruce-Lockhart, Chairman of English Heritage, today (Tuesday 8 July) announced the completion of the first phase of a Domesday Book of the threatened parts of our cities, towns and countryside entitled Heritage at Risk. He said: “The first results of this new report reveal that overall, of the 70,000 protected heritage sites assessed so far, no fewer than 1 in 12 is at high risk of neglect or decay or inappropriate change.”

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pa, grays says...
11:46am Mon 14 Jul 08

Who said this government cared about the heritage of this country. It's spent the last 11 years trying to whitewash Britain out of memory. We can't celebrate anything english, we're not allowed to fly flags, we can't say a lot of things for fear of upsetting immigrants. Everything that is now done has to take immigrants feelings into account first. Hazel Blears refers to British people as longer term residents.

They'll spend tens of millions promoting black history but when it comes to promoting our own history and heritage you must be joking. This government is ashamed of the history of this country and the sooner we become part of the united states of Europe the better as far as they are concerned.

If Coal House Fort had been built by invading muslims they'd spend millions on it.

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Lakes, Stanford le hope says...
5:03pm Wed 16 Jul 08

Local wrote:
I guess the few hundred pound that Most Haunted paid would be more than enough to completely restore the whole fort! Ha ha
it was a lot more than that and they know it.

any way the fort itsself is not haunted.
the grounds outside is of intrest to true paranormal investigators.

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CHF Paranormal, Billericay says...
9:10pm Mon 21 Jul 08

Well Lakes, As a resident member of the Forts paranormal team I would have to disagree with your views on the fort being Haunted. I have taken part in 2 years worth of investigations with various groups and teams. The phenomena I have witnessed alone in that time leads me to believe otherwise I am afraid. The current leader of the paranormal team is an ASSAP AI and trained in ASSAP investigation methods. Every investigation is carried out thoroughly, scientificly and with no compromise so this statement is not made lightly. Am I to presume you have never investigated the fort? Being within "Thurrock" that does surprise me.

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CHF Paranormal, Billericay says...
9:20pm Mon 21 Jul 08

Well Lakes, As a resident member of the Forts paranormal team I would have to disagree with your views on the fort being Haunted. I have taken part in 2 years worth of investigations with various groups and teams. The phenomena I have witnessed alone in that time leads me to believe otherwise I am afraid. The current leader of the paranormal team is an ASSAP AI and trained in ASSAP investigation methods. Every investigation is carried out thoroughly, scientificly and with no compromise so this statement is not made lightly. Am I to presume you have never investigated the fort? Being within "Thurrock" that does surprise me.

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CHF Paranormal, Billericay says...
9:28pm Mon 21 Jul 08

Well Lakes, As a resident member of the Forts paranormal team I would have to disagree with your views on the fort being Haunted. I have taken part in 2 years worth of investigations with various groups and teams. The phenomena I have witnessed alone in that time leads me to believe otherwise I am afraid. The current leader of the paranormal team is an ASSAP AI and trained in ASSAP investigation methods. Every investigation is carried out thoroughly, scientificly and with no compromise so this statement is not made lightly. Am I to presume you have never investigated the fort? Being within "Thurrock" that does surprise me.

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Collingbine, Linford says...
12:56pm Thu 11 Sep 08

Guys instead of all **** about it lets actually DO something about it.... there is a run this Sunday (14th September) at Coal House fort, you can do either 1,2 or 3 miles, all proceeds go into the fort. This is what we need to do - we do not need wither the council or the government - we were born here therefore we dont count!

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