Cookham Hill and Fort Borstal
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Cookham Hill and Fort Borstal by Marathon as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Cookham Hill and Fort Borstal
Image: © Marathon Taken: 12 Mar 2013
This is Cookham Hill near HMP Rochester. On the left are the walls and mounds of Fort Borstal. Fort Borstal was built as an afterthought from the 1859 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, by convict labour between 1875 and 1885. It is of polygonal design and was never originally armed. An anti-aircraft battery was based there in the Second World War. After many years' use as a pig farm for the nearby Young Offenders Institution it was sold in 1991 to a company hoping to make it a museum, but that proved unsuccessful. It now appears to be derelict. The weather had been unseasonably cold for mid-March. Earlier on this day travel had been extensively disrupted by snow and ice - see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291971/UK-weather-Hundreds-drivers-left-stranded-overnight-snow-storm-causes-traffic-chaos-South-East.html
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.370736
Longitude
0.489197