h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Project Page - A83112518
Author: Bluebottle - U43530


This entry is the project page for the Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight project. Please give the A-number when commenting on an entry.

A83150471 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Overview

A83150480 Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - West Wight Fortifications
A83150499 Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Freshwater Redoubt
A83150507 Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - The Needles Old Battery
A83150516 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - New Needles Battery
A83150534 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Hatherwood Battery
A83150543 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Warden Point Battery
A83150552 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Fort Albert
A83150589 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Cliff End Battery
A83150598 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Fort Victoria
A83150615 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Golden Hill Fort
A83150679 -
Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Bouldnor Battery

A83150705 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - East Wight Fortifications
A83150750 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Puckpool Battery
A83150778 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Nodes Point Battery
A83150813 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Steynewood Battery
A83150868 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Culver Battery
A83150985 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Bembridge Fort
A83150994 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Redcliff Battery
A83151029 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Yaverland Battery
A83151092 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Sandown Granite Fort
A83151100 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Sandown Barrack Battery

A83249319 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Solent Sea Forts
A83151137 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - St Helen's Fort
A83151399 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - No Man's Land Fort
A83151452 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Horse Sand Fort
A83151461 - Fortifications Of The Isle of Wight - Spitbank Fort

Author: Bluebottle
Sub-editor: Tufty

Enjoy!

Have you got Firefox, Tufty? Can you please switch it into Unicode (View / Character Encoding / Unicode) and hunt for characters that appear as black diamonds with a question mark on them. These are extended characters which should be changed to ampersand codes. For example, the dash character should be changed to –

Ok, I've been through the project using Unicode (UT8) in Chrome, and I've removed about a hundred � marks - any more and I might have called on Batman for help.

I suspect there have been times when you've seriously regretted taking on this project, Tufty, especially as no-one will ever read it

<BB<

I'll read it, Bluebottle. Nothing gets published on this site until one of the Guide Editors has read it.

I've read it too.

It seems the long list of Entries may be a bit daunting for our PR reviewers - however, we also remember the many readers we have who will find these appearing in their searches and read them.

I have waded through all the entries, while a bit long they are all interesting and packed with facts.
I don't know if is appropriate to mention here, but as someone with very limited knowledge of local geography I found Google maps a great help in understanding the function of the forts. I would at least like to see a large map of the area with labels, possibly a separate page linked to each entry.

I did not make notes on each entry as I was reading more for enjoyment than commenter, that said I will leave a few comments just to tru yo be a good researcher.

Fortifications of the Isle of Wight - Overview



whoever controlled the Isle of Wight could control the English Channel and COULD prevent the Royal Navy from leaving port.

They never actually did, did they?



I would like to a little more explanation on this. I suspect it is like by royal order, did parliment have any say? I really have no idea, not having lived under a Monarchy.



2 questions;
1) In each of the entries you talk about the "basement", I assume this is below the waterline?
2) You give the sizes or the levels, are these all inside the walls or outside, with walls over 50 feet thick it makes a difference.



Purely a selfish question, what form did these take? At Fort Foster one of our disputes is about the "firing step" We currently have a 4 foot wide walkway along the entire picket wall. Some say they were actually just benches the men would step up to fire and then step down to reload.

>BB> I am sure you are following this, if you would just like to drop me a note on my space that would be great.



****Shrapnel is a type of antipersonnel projectile named after inventor, Major General Henry Shrapnel, an English artillery officer. Shrapnel projectiles contained small shot or spherical bullets, usually of lead, along with an explosive charge to scatter the shot as well as fragments of the shell casing.***

The above is just lifted from about.com and must be expanded and refited if you wish to include.

As part of my presentation I usually include the types of shot fired from our cannons, solid round shot, cannister shot, a tin can filled with musket balls that turns the cannon into a giant shot gun and Spherical cased shot, a hollow iron ball filled with powder and small iron balls with a fuse - this was invented by a British officer named "Shrapnel."
This always produces a few knowing glances and sometimes a comment or two.

One quibble for the entry Fort Victoria

HMS Gladiator



Most of the readers seeing the term capsize will picture the ship upside down like the Bismark or the fictional Posidon.

It might be better to say "listed heavily to her starboard side," the salvage photos show she was only on her side when she was run aground.

FS

PS.
>BB> if you are interested Fort Foster can be clearly seen in Google map satellite view.

Just looked at this in Pliny and it puts all of my comments out of context, please read in one of the old skins.

Hello Florida Sailor – thanks for taking the time to have a thorough read-through of all the articles – how long did it take you?

>>I don't know if is appropriate to mention here, but as someone with very limited knowledge of local geography I found Google maps a great help in understanding the function of the forts. I would at least like to see a large map of the area with labels, possibly a separate page linked to each entry.<<

I definitely agree that a map would be very helpful. Either one large one, or perhaps four smaller maps - an overview, West Wight, East Wight and Sea Forts map. Perhaps someone knows whether there are any maps that aren't in copywrite that can be annotated for this purpose?

>>whoever controlled the Isle of Wight could control the English Channel and COULD prevent the Royal Navy from leaving port.<< They never actually did, did they?

Not since Viking times, although it came close in 1377 and 1545. (Unless you count the Saxon invasion in 686-7)



>>I would like to a little more explanation on this. I suspect it is like by royal order, did Parliament have any say? I really have no idea, not having lived under a Monarchy.<<

Parliament existed, but at the time it did not have the powers it had today. Henry VIII was pretty much an absolute monarch who could make major changes, such as close all the monasteries and change the nation's religion, at will, and had the right of Royal Veto to any law Parliament passed (a right the Queen still has today, although it has not been actually used for centuries). Henry and his Privy Council held the real power, although for Acts to become Law they did need the consent of both the House of Commons and Lords in the Parliament held in the Palace of Westminster, especially any laws regarding raising taxes, but as the funds to build Henry VIII's castles were raised from his confiscating the wealth of the monasteries and Henry ensured that both houses were full of his supporters, they didn't get that involved. Had Henry planned to build the castles with funds from raising taxes, then Parliament would have had more of a say.

>>1) In each of the entries you talk about the "basement", I assume this is below the waterline?<<

Tide depending, but normally it would be above. The 'basement' was the granite level below the iron-armoured sections.

>>2) You give the sizes or the levels, are these all inside the walls or outside, with walls over 50 feet thick it makes a difference.<<

Outside to outside – it was the lower basement levels with 50 feet thick walls, in the iron armoured sections above the walls were thinner.

Banquette – Infantry firing step
>>Purely a selfish question, what form did these take? At Fort Foster one of our disputes is about the "firing step" We currently have a 4 foot wide walkway along the entire picket wall. Some say they were actually just benches the men would step up to fire and then step down to reload.<<
They were usually an earth bank, as soil would re-enforce the walls and limit the damage any shell impact would have on them.


>>

****Shrapnel is a type of antipersonnel projectile named after inventor, Major General Henry Shrapnel, an English artillery officer. Shrapnel projectiles contained small shot or spherical bullets, usually of lead, along with an explosive charge to scatter the shot as well as fragments of the shell casing.***

The above is just lifted from about.com and must be expanded and refited if you wish to include.<<

Sorry – can I just clarify what you are asking? Are you asking me to include a definition of what Shrapnel is, something similar to the example from above.com you've listed above? At first glance I thought you were saying that there is in the articles somewhere a definition of shrapnel which has been plagiarised from that website, something I certainly hope there isn't. I've checked all the entries and I think you've identified one thing that isn't listed in the glossary.

>>One quibble for the entry Fort Victoria: Most of the readers seeing the term capsize will picture the ship upside down like the Bismark or the fictional Posidon. It might be better to say "listed heavily to her starboard side," the salvage photos show she was only on her side when she was run aground.<<

I'll be happy to have this changed.

As it is a University Project, I've no longer got editing rights and the actual changes have to be made by Tufty.

(Incidentally, I don't do Pliny. I'm a member of the Classic Goo Fan Club! )

<BB<

Regarding the use of < and > in posts, until this issue is fixed, it is best not to use them without a space between the angled bracket and the next character. This is a known bug in Pliny, and has already been reported.

Does that I mean I can't sign my name

<BB<

Your name works fine, BB, as the brackets face both the same way. tts when the software comes across the left and right ones outside some text that is not a smiley _and_ without spaces. It then just ignores the whole thing as a non-existent smiley, or so I think the explanation went. (sorry for hi jacking the thread - this will get fixed eventuallly)

The bit about shell I did not mean to imply you were lifting from the net, I lifted it in my reply. I just thought it might be fun to mention Major General Shrapnel in your glossary as most people do not the origin of the common term.



I read about 3 or 4 entries each evening, so it took me a little over a week.

FS

My fault about the confusion - it doesn't take much to confuse me first thing in the morning before I've had my first cup of .

But you're right - a definition of Shrapnel should be in the glossary. I'll think of one which hopefully Tufty will be kind enough to add to the entry.

<BB<

How about:

'Shrapnel - Projectile fired from gun containing an explosive charge to detonate and scatter smaller projectiles. Similar to case shot, the scattering would occur some distance from the guns. Named after its inventor, Major-General Henry Shrapnel, RA. Shrapnel is also used to describe any fragments of any exploded weapon capable of causing injury.'

Henry Shrapnel was the very model of a modern Major-General.

I noticed a 'ther' in the glossary under REME

<BB<

That is exactly the thought I wanted to see included.



FS

Wow. And . I readily admit that I haven't read more than a fraction of this, though I'll work my way through it. But with this, and the Who Live At.. and the Postboxes.. it's an Isle of Wight deluge, which is somehow wonderful. If the rest of the world gets covered to this level of detail, then the Guide will be something astonishing. Is anybody doing anything about the geology of the IOW? It's actually quite interesting because the KT boundary pretty much splits the island in half, east to west. Dinosaurs once roamed the streets of Ventnor, but they never made it to the Cowes Regatta.

I wrote 8 articles about the Dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight (the first entry can be found A664571) but for some reason I didn't mention the lack of dinosaurs sailing at Cowes Week

<BB<

Hello Tufty – Florida Sailor in another conversation mentioned A4455506 the story of Elaine Rivis Anderson who drowned at Bembridge, Isle of Wight on 26 December, 1907 (not one of mine). This article could perhaps be linked to in the articles on Bembridge and St Helen's Fort as it is of local interest?

<BB<

Just had a chance to get back on h2g2 again, will sort out all of the above shortly