Scaur Hill Fort

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Scaur Hill Fort

Bermuda


A 64 Pounder Rifled Muzzle-Loader at Scaur Hill Fort
Type: Artillery fort
Location
Location: 32°17’7"N, 64°52’20"W
History
Built 1870s
Information
Condition: Under ongoing restoration
Owned by: Government of Bermuda

Scaur Hill Fort, also called Scaur Hill Lines and Somerset Lines, is a fortified position built in the 1870s at Scaur Hill, on Somerset Island, in Sandys Parish, the westernmost parish of Bermuda.

Somerset Island lies between the Main Island and the old Admiralty and War Department lands on Watford Island, Boaz Island, and Ireland Island. Boaz and Watford Islands from the 1860s housed the headquarters, main barracks, station hospital, and other facilities of the Western District of the Bermuda Garrison, of which the Command Headquarters were at Prospect Camp in the Central District, while the Eastern District was controlled from the old headquarters at St George's Garrison. Ireland Island housed the Royal Naval Dockyard and main base of the North America and West Indies Station of the Royal Navy.[1] The overlarge naval and military establishment at Bermuda in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century was due to the colony's role as an Imperial fortress; the lynchpin of Britain's supremacy in the western Atlantic Ocean and upon the coast of America: the latter had been demonstrated during the War of 1812, when the blockade of the Atlantic seaboard of the United States had been orchestrated from Bermuda, launching a succession of amphibious operations, including the Battle of Craney Island, culminating in the 1814 Chesapeake campaign that included capturing and burning Washington, DC.[2][3][4][5]


Later history

As the advent of the torpedo boat meant a fast attacking force of small vessels capable of wreaking havoc on the naval squadron anchored at Grassy Bay could enter the Great Sound by this way, fixed batteries were maintained in the West End forts, though generally with smaller guns than at the East End suitable for use against small, unarmoured, but fast-moving, vessels at close range.

For this reason, a defensible dry moat was cut across Somerset Island, through Scaur Hill, from Ely's Harbour to the Great Sound. This line would be defended with small arms by infantry behind the ramparts, but artillery support was provided by two 64 Pounder Rifled Muzzle-Loader gun on Moncrieff disappearing mounts. One of these was placed in a small keep at the salient, facing south-eastward, the mount gave it 360-degrees of traverse. The other was in an emplacement to the west of this, facing south-westward. The guns had a range of 4,000 yards, capable of firing not only on infantry advancing from the Main Island, but also on vessels navigating the western channel or the Great Sound. The keep containing the eastern gun emplacement is polygonal, of the Prussian style, with a defensive wall and dry moat to the rear defended by a block house. The western emplacement is open to the rear. As with most of the forts and batteries built in Bermuda with earthwork to obscure and protect them, it is nearly invisible from the water. A water catchment and tanks were built to the north of the polygonal fort. With the new fort on Scaur Hill, the Wreck Hill Fort, which it overlooks, was excess to need and abandoned.[6]

With its muzzle loading guns obsolete, the fort was used during the First World War only as a site to which field guns or howitzers could be deployed when required, and as a training area for infantry. As part of the extensive cutbacks made to the Army in the period of Government austerity that followed the First World War, the Bermuda Garrison was run down in stages. The regular infantry, which had numbered between one and three battalions since the start of the Nineteenth Century, was reduced to a single battalion, then a wing, then a company, and finally a detachment. The companies of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers were removed in 1928, leaving only a handful of regulars assigned to the Command Staff or the Permanent Staff of the part-time units. Responsibility for maintaining the defences in a ready-for-war condition was placed fully upon the part-time units, requiring their re-organisation (the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps re-organised from a volunteer to a territorial unit in 1921.[7] The Bermuda Militia Artillery (one of the last remaining British militia artillery units at the time) was too small to man all of the batteries still in use at that point, and consequently only the two 6 inch guns at St David's Battery were kept ready-for-war.[8] Although the District Establishment of the Royal Artillery maintained guns in a handful of other batteries, and the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Bermuda (who was also the civil Governor)[9] at the start of the Second World War requested the addition of more 9.2 guns to the defences (together with re-activating the three already in place at St. David's Battery and Fort Victoria), the British Government could not spare funds on improving the colony's defences, or on building an airfield sorely need for tans-Atlantic flight (there being two air stations at Bermuda at the start of the war, RAF Darrell's Island and Royal Naval Air Station Bermuda on Boaz Island, but both only for use by flying boats).[10] Instead, free ninety-nine year base rights were granted to the United States, which began building both the United States Naval Operating Base, Bermuda (in the Great Sound, immediately southward of Scaur Hill Fort) and the United States Army's Kindley Field on Castle Harbour while the United States still neutral. These base leases were appended to the Destroyers-for-bases deal but Britain received no war material in exchange. Kindley Field, however, was to be used jointly by Britain, with both the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force moving some of their operations there, utilising landplanes, when the airfield became operable in 1943.[11] The United States forces also took responsibility for anti-submarine air patrols around Bermuda, and the United States Army's Bermuda Base Command and the United States Marine Corps units deployed to protect the American naval base made increasing the British Army's garrison unnecessary.

Today

The local Government of Bermuda maintains the fortifications and surrounding natural space at Scaur Hill as a public park. Parts of the disappearing gunmounts remained at the fort, though the guns had been removed. Numerous guns of various types and vintages littered Bermuda, however, and the eastern emplacement is now occupied by a reproduction mount containing the original counterweight, fitted with an original gun, and parts for a second await assembly (in 2019) at the western emplacement.

References

  1. ↑ Stranack, Royal Navy, Lieutenant-Commander B. Ian D (1977). The Andrew and The Onions: The Story of The Royal Navy in Bermuda, 1795–1975. Bermuda: Island Press Ltd., Bermuda, 1977 (1st Edition); Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, Royal Naval Dockyard Bermuda, Ireland Island, Sandys, Bermuda, 1990 (2nd Edition). ISBN 9780921560036. 
  2. ↑ Harris, Dr. Edward Cecil (2012-01-21). "Bermuda's role in the Sack of Washington". The Royal Gazette (City of Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda). https://www.royalgazette.com/archive/lifestyle/article/20120121/bermudas-role-in-the-sack-of-washington/. 
  3. ↑ Grove, Tim (2021-01-22). Fighting The Power. Annapolis: Chesapeake Bay Media, LLC. https://chesapeakebaymagazine.com/fighting-the-power/. Retrieved 2021-08-08. 
  4. ↑ Meteorological Observations At The Foreign And Colonial Stations Of The Royal Engineers And The Army Medical Department 1852—1886.. London: Published by the authority of the Meteorological Council. printed for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode, East Harding Street, Fleet Street, London. 1890. 
  5. ↑ Willock USMC, Lieutenant-Colonel Roger (1988). Bulwark Of Empire: Bermuda's Fortified Naval Base 1860–1920. Bermuda: The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press. ISBN 9780921560005. 
  6. ↑ Harris, Edward C. (1997). Bermuda Forts 1612–1957. Bermuda: The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press. ISBN 9780921560111. 
  7. ↑ Ingham-Hind, Jennifer M. (1992). Defence, Not Defiance: A History Of The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps. Bermuda: The Island Press. ISBN 0969651716. 
  8. ↑ Maurice-Jones, DSO, RA, Colonel KW (1959). History of The Coast Artillery in the British Army. UK: Royal Artillery Institution. 
  9. ↑ Dawson, George M.; Sutherland, Alexander (1898). MacMillan's Geographical Series: Elementary Geography of the British Colonies. London: MacMillan and Co., Limited. p. 184. 
  10. ↑ Pomeroy, Squadron Leader Colin A. (2000). The Flying Boats Of Bermuda. Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda: Printlink Ltd. ISBN 9780969833246. 
  11. ↑ Partridge and Singfield, Ewan and Tom (2014). Wings Over Bermuda: 100 Years of Aviation in the West Atlantic. Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda, Ireland Island, Sandys Parish, Bermuda: National Museum of Bermuda Press. ISBN 9781927750322. https://nmb.bm/. 
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